Chapter III

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Team seven showed up right on time the next morning at the training grounds. It didn't take nearly as long as yesterday for all of them to get sick of waiting. Naruto took advantage of their sensei's tardiness by lying down for a few more hours' sleep. Oscar played with a piece or yarn he had gotten-who-knows-where, and convinced Sakura to tie his hands together behind his back over and over, as she never tied it tight enough for him and he could always fold and twist his hands to slide them out. Eventually, Sakura got sick of being told how abysmal her knotting skills were, and pointed out that if Oscar were ever actually taken hostage, his captors would not be stupid enough to tie his hands with a little piece of yarn. All the while, Sasuke sat in the grass, leaning against a post and brooded/meditated.

By the time Kakashi deigned to turn up, both Oscar and Sakura were half asleep, the latter dreaming of thoroughly M-rated scenes. "Okay guys! Wake up! Time to start survival training!" Kakashi called. Though he wasn't about to say it out loud, he approved of his team getting more sleep before he showed up. A good shinobi does not waste the opportunity to rest his body, especially right before an attack or challenge. Also, it didn't seem as though he team had minded his lateness very much, so he was spared using one of his famous excuses.

Naruto sat up, instantly alert. "What do we have to do? What are the rules?"

Kakashi waited a few seconds to make sure he had everyone's attention before proceeding. He took out an alarm clock and placed it on a convenient tree stump, setting it for twelve o' clock. He explained, "You have until noon to complete the task I set to you. What you must-" he paused. "You don't need to raise your hand, Sakura. You're not in the classroom. What is it?"

"You just said that we have a time limit. Isn't that a bit unfair? Now we only have an hour, whereas if you had come on time, we would have had four hours."

Kakashi waved his hand in dismissal of this. "Trust me, if you don't get it in one hour, another three won't make any difference. Anyway, your task is to collect one of these from me before the time runs out." He held up two bells on straps. "The ones who do get bells also get lunch. The ones who don't get tied to one of these posts and ultimately get sent back to the academy."

"Hang on," Sakura interjected, "there are only two bells. A normal genin team always has three genin, right? So if two of us get the bells, it won't matter because we won't have a full team."

Kakashi shrugged, "Well this is already a four-genin team, right? So you know that it is at least possible for a team to have a number of genin other than three, even-"

"Even if it is almost unheard-of?" Sasuke supplied. Kakashi nodded.

"Yeah. Pretty much. Anyway, if you want to have any chance at defeating me and taking a bell, you're all going to have to come at me intending to kill. If you don't take this seriously, you're going to find yourself back at the academy before long." He fastened the bells to his belt. His eye traveled from face to face, making sure everyone was ready. They were. "Start."

As Sasuke and Sakura made to dart off and hide themselves, Oscar grabbed their arms. "Get off!" Sasuke hissed. "What are you doing?"

"I have a suspicion," Oscar whispered back, "Something he let slip. Come over here."

"No way! I heard him just as well as you did! It's everyone for himself!" Sasuke succeeded in wrenching his arm out of the other boy's grasp and kawirimi'ed away in a puff of smoke, a log thudding down in his place.

"Amen," Oscar and Naruto murmured. As they did, Sakura also got free of her teammate's grasp and, with a furious backward look, she kawirimi'ed away, too, to hide in the shrubbery.

"Come on," Naruto said, and leapt away from the open clearing, Oscar following. Once they were out of Kakashi's earshot, they stopped, hidden in the branches of a tree. "Now, what have you figured out?" Naruto asked, keeping his eyes on Kakashi's figure, still standing in the clearing. He had pulled out a little orange book.

"I'm not sure." Oscar was frowning fiercely. "It may not even be anything, but while he was explaining the rules, two things he said stood out. Firstly, when Sakura pointed out the unfairness of the time limit, he said that if we hadn't gotten 'it' by the time the alarm rings, we wouldn't get it at all. What did he mean by 'it'?"

"He probably meant one of the bells."

"But that makes no sense! He said that before he told us that it was a bell we were looking for!"

"What was the other thing?" Naruto knew that his friend's logic was shaky, but he had come to realize over the last week or two that Oscar definitely noticed things that other people didn't.

"The second thing was near the end of his directions, when he was talking about how we had to be really serious about this. In the beginning, he was talking as if we had to do this individually, like Sasuke said, but then he said that we 'all' had to come at him with the intent to kill."

"Well there's nothing weird about that."

"Not usually, at least not if you're talking to a bunch of people, but if this is a separate thing, why would he say 'all' instead of 'each'? 'All' is plural and 'each' is singular."

Naruto was not convinced that things were not as they seemed, but nonetheless he could see the sense of sticking close to his teammates. Perhaps if one of them tried to attack Kakashi head-on, Naruto could sneak in and take a bell while Kakashi was occupied. He shared this idea with Oscar, who nodded slowly. "Yes," he said, "That would be useful. But why not make a good thing better? You can make shadow clones, right? Why not send one to Sasuke and one to Sakura to try and get them in on the plan? Naruto grimaced at the prospect of asking Sasuke for help, but at the same time, he had to concede that Sasuke's Grand Fireball would make a perfect distraction, especially if it was augmented with a few shuriken-throwing shadow clones or something. Then, true prankster that he was, he thought up another way to add to the confusion.

"Why don't I henge a clone to look like a bell? Then when you steal the real ones, we can give the shadow clone one to Sakura. Kakashi won't know which ones are real, so she'll pass too!"

"If you have an unlimited number of the clones, why not make two fake bells and give one to Sasuke as well?"

Naruto pouted. "I don't like him."

"Yes, and he doesn't like you. But if he helps us get the bells, it's only fair."

"Alright, fine." Naruto stood up on the tree branch, making sure that he was concealed from his sensei. He formed the handseal and whispered "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" With a large puff of smoke, a dozen shadow clones appeared, crouched in the branches. "Okay, two of you henge into bells," Naruto instructed. Two of the clones nodded and followed suit. "One of you go after Sasuke and another go after Sakura. You need to tell them the plan and give them the fake bells. Dispel yourselves once the message is delivered so that I know." Two more clones raced off clutching their henge'd fellows. Naruto turned to Oscar who was watching him in admiration. "You work your way through the trees until you're behind Kakashi. You need to be in place when the distraction comes. Take two clones. If something comes up that you think I should know, make sure a clone has the message and then dispel him. You can also use them for backup, okay? I'll lead the rest of these around until we're facing Kakashi. I think Sasuke should be the one to start the distraction."

"It'll look more natural if he starts it unaided," Oscar agreed. "Let's go now and get into position." As Oscar raced off, two clones following, Naruto's breath caught. Down in the clearing, he spotted Sasuke advancing on Kakashi. Naruto had not felt the messenger clone dispel.

"Shit," he whispered. Sasuke had begun be engaging in banter with Kakashi, giving Naruto a few seconds to modify the plan. He faced the remaining half dozen clones. "We need to get behind Sasuke now. Without being seen. He doesn't know the plan. Let's go!" The seven of them hurtled off, being as quick and quiet as they could, arriving in the trees behind Sasuke just as he hurled a barrage of kunai.

Before the kunai had even reached his sensei, Sasuke followed up by calling "Grand Fireball no Jutsu!" He breathed in deeply, before releasing an enormous fireball to follow his first attack. As the flames arced through the air, Sakura, who had received both her fake bell and her portion of the plan, revealed her position in the tops of the trees to Kakashi's right by releasing a hail of shuriken to rain down on Kakashi and forcing him to dodge right, underneath her attack.

While Kakashi was still moving, the next phase of the tightly sequenced ordeal was brought into motion. Naruto, along with six of his clones, burst from the trees, some in the air and some on the ground flanking Sasuke, who knew that he could not hold his Grand Fireball jutsu for more than fifteen of so more seconds. All of the clones pulled out even more weapons and hurled them at Kakashi, who was by this time, well and truly pinned down. He was cut off on the left by fire, was pinned from above by Sakura, and was surrounded on all other sides by weapon-hurling clones. He had already dodged Sasuke's initial hail of kunai, as well as the Fireball, and was only in danger from Sakura if he didn't move fast. So he did one of the only sensible things left to him, knowing that he could not dodge the clones' attacks. He kawirimied, replacing himself with a log and crouched in a tree off to the side of the clearing, watching his students with great interest. It took a moment for all of them to realize that their attacks were no longer pinning down anything but a harmless log. It helped that Sasuke's jutsu ran out a few seconds after Kakashi had left them.

Kakashi was impressed. They had worked perfectly as a team, using Sasuke's specialty and Naruto's as well to pin him down. They had even found a way to include Sakura, even though she had not appeared to the cyclops to be a particularly skilled kunoichi in an area. Hang on, Kakashi thought, That's only three. What did Oscar do? His eye darted around the clearing, finally landing on the dark boy emerging from the trees, accompanied by three Naruto clones. He missed the whole thing? Kakashi thought incredulously. Then he noticed that Oscar was clutching three little golden things on straps. Kakashi's hand flew to his belt and his eye widened. When did he get those? And where's the third one from?

As Oscar entered the clearing, he held the bells up, feeling incredibly pleased. When he reached the other three, Naruto formed a handsign, dispelling his clones one by one. Oscar handed him a bell and then handed Sasuke one too, Indicating to Sakura to take out the fake one she had already been given. He called out, "Kakashi sensei! We completed the challenge! We got the bells! Do we pass?"

Kakashi appeared before them in a puff of smoke, his smile evident, even behind his mask. "You certainly do pass! Only one thing, when did you take the bells from me?"

Oscar beamed. "I did it just as you were dodging right to avoid Sakura's attack. Really? We passed?"

"Yes," Kakashi said. "Out of all of the teams I have ever done this test with, you are the absolute only ones to pass. You guys really got the idea behind the challenge."

Sasuke looked blank. So did Sakura "What idea-" she began, but was cut off when Oscar stepped on her foot.

"Of course," the dark boy said smoothly. "Although you did drop a few hints. Did you do that with every group?" Naruto looked at the other boy; sure he was the only one who could tell that Oscar was bluffing for all he was worth. Oscar had no more idea what the message behind everything had been than Sakura had.

"I only started doing it last year. I was getting a little sick of genin who thought they could survive in the shinobi world without teamwork."

Oscar's eyes lit up, relieved that he knew the answer, but he quickly schooled his expression. "I guess you'll want the bells back. Come on guys, give them back to him." All four of them held out the identical golden bells.

"About that," Kakashi said, collecting the bells and stowing them away, "how did you manage to have four bells? You know it didn't really matter who ended up with them, you just needed to get them as a team."

"About that," Naruto said sheepishly, "Only two of them are real. The other two are actually henge'd clones."

Sasuke gave a low whistle of admiration. "I didn't know that," he said. Apparently, his indignation at the way his team had jumped in to help him had been soothed a little by his passing the test. "Who came up with that?" He asked. "Was it you, Oscar?"

"No. It was Naruto, actually."

Naruto smirked at the disbelieving look on Sasuke's face, but his smirk quickly vanished as his stomach growled and he remembered that he had skipped breakfast. His eyes turned longingly to the unopened bentos. "Is there any chance that we could share those? There would be enough to go around if we each had half."

"Wow! You can count?" Sasuke said sarcastically.

"Yeah. And if my numbers are right, I am in the presence the second-to-last Uchiha."

Sasuke's mocking expression quickly turned stony. He did not have a retort, so he settled for ripping the plastic off of one of the bentos and offering half of it to Sakura, who was the first person to hand. Sakura simpered and accepted, causing Naruto to mime vomiting behind Sakura's back.

Oscar sighed contentedly and remarked to Kakashi, "We may be dysfunctional, but at least we're dysfunctional as a team."

As they ate, none of them, not even Kakashi, noticed the two pairs of eyes watching from the treetops. Even if Kakashi had glanced in the right direction, he would not have noticed the observers, as they were several hundred feet from the edge of the clearing, watching with chakra-enhanced eyes, their green-gray clothes blending perfectly with the leaves. The watchers stayed for a few more minutes, listening to the team bicker and chatter, before shunshin'ing away in a double puff of smoke.

A/N: I am truly sorry that this chapter was so short. I think I rushed it a little. It didn't help that the fight scene was so tightly sequenced, which was probably because I wasn't sure I could pull it off. Anyway, I would have added more to the end, just to make it longer, but I thought that this was a pretty good stopping point and anyway I wanted to update faster. The people in the trees were not stalkers, and yes they will be explained, maybe even in the next chapter. I really cannot believe how fast these chapters are coming out, and all I can say is if you want it to continue at this rate, please help my ego by reviewing! Or i may have to set Oscar on you. That's really all I have to say, so Goodbye for now! And Review before you leave!