A Touch of Death
By: I.K.A. Valian
Chapter Four: Survival of the Fittest
Summary
Uzumaki Naruto was blessed three times the day he was born. His father blessed him with the power of human sacrifice.
His mother blessed him with her love. The Shinigami blessed him with a shard of his own soul.
A Soul Blade.
Last Time
Naruto met up and learned his new teammates were going to be Kunoichi Nerd Haruno Sakura and Uchiha 'stick up his ass' Sasuke. They were a three man squad put under the tutelage of a Jounin instructor, creating a new team, an awesome team, what later generations would come to know as the Legendary Team Seven… hopefully. Their Jounin instructor turned out to be one Hatake Kakashi, one of the most badass motherfuckers this side of the planet. He's so badass he can smile, with his eyelid!
After introductions were made, Kakashi used his latent badass powers to send the kids home in order to make preparations for a survival test the next day. The test would make or break the team, as a failure to pass Kakashi's test would mean going back to the Academy for an additional year of instruction. Unfortunately, the test also meant going up against Kakashi himself in all out combat, a certain death sentence. It is make or break time for Naruto and his new team of badass hopefuls.
"You're a little bit off, aren't you?" Kakashi asked, though he didn't expect an answer. "The basics of being a ninja involve being able to hide yourself well."
"I said fight me!" Naruto shouted. When Kakashi didn't move, Naruto grit his teeth. "Okay! If you won't, I will! Haaa!"
Naruto screamed as he charged forward with his sword held high above his head. Kakashi bent his head from side to side, cracking his neck as he waited for Naruto to even get close enough to swing that sword he held. While waiting, Kakashi got bored, and reached into his hip pouch and grabbed his precious.
"Lesson one," Kakashi said as he pulled out an orange book. "Taijutsu. I'll teach you about it a little."
Naruto would have stopped to wait and see what kind of weapon Kakashi was going to pull out, but he had a freaking sword. There was no way Kakashi had anything that trumped a sword in that small pouch. So Naruto kept charging and quickly got in range just as Kakashi opened the book.
Naruto made a quick slash and then another. Kakashi simply leaned backwards, twisted to the side and then moved back into his starting position. The whole time he had his face buried in the book, and was in fact, reading said book. He even giggled.
"Wh-what?!" Naruto shouted. "What the hell are you doing?! You should take this battle seriously!"
Having said that, Naruto brought his hands together and shouted, "Shadow Clone Jutsu!" About twenty copies of Naruto popped into existence and all of them started attacking Kakashi with their own copy of the sword. The Jounin didn't even give any indication that he cared or noticed he was now outnumbered. Instead, he continued giggling while reading his orange colored smut.
"Damn it!" Naruto growled. He leaped back and let his clones continue to go at Kakashi. "He's so fast."
"Lesson one, don't let the enemy get behind you."
Naruto's eyes widened when he realized whose voice that was. He probably would have been seriously injured by that jab Kakashi made with his fingers, the one the man called 'Konohagakure Hidden Secret Supreme Taijutsu Technique: One Thousand Years of Death'. Fortunately, a timely order of 'JUMP' saved Naruto's posterior for such an embarrassing incident.
"Hmm…" Kakashi stayed crouched and studied Naruto for several seconds. "You've got good instincts, but I wonder…" Naruto warily watched Kakashi with his sword held in front of him. While he was thrilled that his potential sensei was finally taking this fight seriously, he never even saw the man escape his clones. In fact, Naruto didn't see Kakashi move at all when he disappeared right in front of him.
'Duck!'
An arm passed over Naruto's head, just barely grazing his hair.
'Roll right!'
Naruto rolled right, avoiding being crushed or kicked by a stomp from Kakashi. He wasn't sure which one it was because his body continued to move in frantic movements.
'Jump, forward flip, side twist, summersault, kick!'
Naruto didn't know whether to scream or be amazed that he was actually keeping up with a Jounin in taijutsu. Hell, he never could keep up with Sasuke in the academy and almost always got his ass kicked. The only difference between then and now was… the whole incident with Mizuki and…
Naruto froze, rebelling as much as he could against the instinct to jump. And then a foot smashed into the back of his head and sent him tumbling across the field. Kakashi stood from his attack and watched Naruto with a curious eye.
"Why did you stop?" Kakashi asked. "It looked like you wanted to keep going, but you stopped and took that hit on purpose."
Naruto slowly got to his feet and looked down at his hands. Both were shaking, but the one with the sword in it was shaking less. Hell, it wasn't just his hands that were shaking, his whole body was.
"Kakashi-sensei…" Naruto said. He looked up at Kakashi with the most frightened look he could muster, which wasn't hard at all considering how terrified he was right now. "I think… it is taking over… my body…"
At this, Kakashi's eye widened noticeably. He lifted up his headband and opened his other eye. Naruto would have been surprised that he had a red eye hidden away there, but he was more than focused on the fact that his body was answering to the orders of a giant nine-tailed fox that wanted to do nothing less than kill every living thing Naruto ever cared about.
Moments later, Kakashi closed his red eye and slid his forehead protector back down. "It's not that Naruto."
"But, how can you-"
"I can tell," Kakashi said. He tapped his forehead protector, right over his eye. "It's one of my… err… special abilities. Whatever is bothering you, it's not that."
Naruto looked back down at his hands, they were shaking less. If it wasn't the fox, then that was good. Very good. He almost felt like jumping for joy, but he still didn't have an answer to why exactly he was moving like he was.
And if he thought about it, the Fox had always been inside of him, even before Mizuki tried to kill him and Iruka. Now that he'd come to that conclusion, he felt rather silly for being so scared. But the only other thing he had now that he didn't have before was… the sword now resting in his right hand.
"Kakashi-sensei," Naruto said, his voice more level now instead of trembling and shaking, "do you know what a Soul Blade is?"
"Can't say that I know anything more than rumors and legends," Kakashi said lied smoothly. "Supposedly, a Soul Blade can only be obtained when mortals are touched by death in some way. There are rumors about people having them from time to time, but nothing ever comes of those." At this point, Kakashi tilted his head to the side. "Why?"
Naruto raised the sword he held into the air a little. "Because when I pulled this sword out of the Forbidden Scroll, it was labeled, 'Uzumaki Naruto Soul Blade'. I just wanted to know what that meant."
"Oh, I see…" Kakashi did another one of his weird eye smiles, though this one looked strained and unsure. At this point, the alarm went off on the stump, now all the way across the clearing from where they'd started fighting. Kakashi slumped his shoulders and started trudging back to where everything started. "Well, looks like you've all failed. Let's head back."
Naruto gaped, his mouth opening and closing as he watched Kakashi lazily turn and walk back toward the three tree stumps. "What!"
"You guys look really hungry," Kakashi dryly observed.
"I don't get it," Sakura said. "Sasuke-kun and I didn't get a bell, but…" at this point she started shouting, "why are only the two of us tied to posts and not Naruto?!"
Naruto glanced at Sasuke tied to one post and then at Sakura who was tied to another. Both had a boxed lunch set on the ground in front of them. It was clearly torturing them because now their stomachs were growling constantly.
"Oh, that was because of the three of you, only Naruto managed to continually engage me for the whole time allotted for getting the bells," Kakashi said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "If the two of you had come out to help Naruto, maybe you could have gotten a bell. Instead, the both of you ran off to do your own thing and Naruto was left to fend for himself against a superior foe."
"But… you said whoever doesn't get a bell goes back to the Academy," Sakura said. It was clear from how her forehead was scrunched up she was really confused by this. "There are only two bells! Why would we work together to only get one bell?!"
"Oh, well you needn't worry about that," Kakashi said. "You three won't be going back to the Academy."
"You… you mean?" Sakura breathed out, barely believing what Kakashi was saying.
"All three of us?" Naruto asked, looking toward their sensei. Kakashi nodded. Naruto jumped into the air and did a fist pump. "Yeah! We did it!"
"Yep," Kakashi said. "All three of you suck so much that you should just quit at being ninja."
"What?!" Naruto shouted. It was as if a bucket of ice water had been dumped on their heads. "What the hell do you mean?!"
"O-okay, so… so we couldn't get any bells," Sakura said, her eyes wide with barely restrained fear. "Why do we have to quit being ninja?"
"Because the three of you are just punks who don't deserve to be ninja," Kakashi said.
Naruto clenched his hands and glared at Kakashi as hard as he could. Sakura looked like she was about to cry, in fact, she was crying but the choked sob indicated she was trying to hold it in. Sasuke was trying his damndest to get free of the ropes so he could, in all likelihood, attack Kakashi or something along those lines.
"And that is why you're punks," Kakashi said as he pointed at their reactions. "Are you underestimating Ninja?" Kakashi asked, lowering his head and glaring back at the three kids. The man's glare was easily more potent than anything they'd ever experience. This was the glare of a man who'd stared down death. The glare of a man who watched everyone he ever cared about die one right after another. "Why do you think you were divided into teams and are now taking this training?"
"What do you mean?" Sakura asked.
"Basically," Kakashi growled, still appearing agitated, "you aren't understanding the answer to this test."
"Answer?" Naruto asked.
"Yes," Kakashi drawled with obnoxious sarcasm, "the answer that will help you pass this test."
"Well… Aren't you going to tell us?" Sakura asked after several seconds of silence. None of the kids would know it, but at that point, Kakashi was just about ready to throw the towel in and fail them on the spot.
Instead of giving into his irritation with them, Kakashi calmly said, "Why don't you tell me? I've certainly given you three enough clues."
There was silence for a few seconds, filled with the frantic thoughts of three faces scrunched up in terror. Finally, Sakura's face brightened as if figuring it out, before she frowned again in confusion. "But… but that can't be right!" Sakura shouted. "There are only two bells!"
Kakashi tilted his head as he looked at Sakura. First Naruto surprised him with his rather advanced reflexes and speed. Sasuke had impressed his clone in the woods with his Ninjutsu capability. That Fireball jutsu the Uchiha had used was a Chunin level skill, and a quite impressive showing at that. So far, Sakura hadn't really done much more than look pretty, scream, and faint when one of his shadow clones used the Hell Viewing Genjutsu on her. Despite her obvious inability to fight as a ninja, it seemed she was the first one to put together the clues and solve the riddle. Perhaps there was some hope for her yet.
"Care to elaborate, Sakura?" Kakashi asked.
"Um… Uh… Is it… Teamwork?" she asked haltingly. The fact that she had tears still fresh on her cheeks and was staring up at Kakashi with big, wide, green eyes, almost made his heart melt. It was almost like she planned the tears to make this moment more potent. Not that Kakashi would let his heart be melted by puppy dog eyes. His own summons could make better eyes than that. Some of them were actual puppies, and he still didn't cave into their furry demands. The training that his summons gave him to resist such tactics was something he considered to be the hardest training he'd ever undergone, but it was worth it. And Gai wondered how he could keep his calm all the time. Heh, the benefits of a Ninken Summoning Contract.
Kakashi did his eye smile. "Yes, that's it exactly." Naruto looked dumbfounded. Sasuke's eyes were wide open from shock. Sakura… she looked down and frowned at the ground and fidgeted against the rope restraining her to the post.
"But… But there are only two bells!" Naruto shouted. "How can we work together if one of us is going to fail even if we did get a bell? And when we got the bell, we'd all just fight over who got it and who got sent back!"
"Of course," Kakashi said. "This test was purposely set up to make you fight amongst yourselves. The purpose of the test is to see whether you can forget about your own interest and successfully work together under these circumstances. Instead…" Kakashi pointed at Sakura. "Sakura, rather than going to Naruto's aid, who obviously had me occupied, you ran off to find Sasuke, who didn't." Now Kakashi pointed at Sasuke. "Sasuke, you assumed the others would get in your way and tried to do everything yourself. Naruto, as good as your taijutsu was, you really suck at everything else and were completely useless on your own. None of you ever had a chance of getting a bell by yourselves. The duties of a team are done together. Individual ability is important, but what's even more important is teamwork."
Kakashi reached a hand back into his hip pouch. In a flash, he'd moved the distance between his previous spot and Sakura. He held a kunai up to her neck and looked at Naruto with the most serious look Naruto had ever seen the man have.
"Naruto, kill Sasuke or Sakura dies." Naruto's eyes widened and he immediately reached up for his sword and leaned toward Kakashi and Sakura. Kakashi simply pushed the kunai harder against Sakura's throat, making the girl whimper. "Do it, Naruto!"
Naruto stayed the way he was. He looked away from Kakashi to look at Sakura who was staring at him with wide open eyes terror filled eyes. She was holding her breath, ready for the end. When Kakashi lowered the kunai before Naruto could act, she let out that breath, relieved, and slumped as much as the rope holding her to the stump would allow.
"Individual play that disrupts teamwork can put comrades in danger and even get you killed," Kakashi said. "This was just an example, but if a hostage is taken, you'll have to make some really tough choices and then in most cases, someone, maybe everyone, will die. You will be risking your lives in this job. Not just your own, but your comrades lives as well." Kakashi sighed and started walking away. "I'll give you guys one more chance. But after lunch, I'm going to make it even tougher to get the bells. Naruto, you can eat lunch, but don't feed those two."
"What?! But they're starving!"
"It's punishment for failing the first test," Kakashi said. When he noticed Naruto staring at him defiantly, he leaned in close, got in Naruto's face, and leveled his one eye doom glare at the boy. "I'm in charge here, got it? I make the rules."
"Yeah… Fine, whatever," Naruto said with his arms crossed in front of him.
"Alright, I'm off." Kakashi vanished in a swirl of leaves.
As soon as Kakashi was gone, Naruto turned to his teammates and said, "I got an idea."
Kakashi watched from a tree not too far away. He was actually disappointed that Naruto was following his commands and not feeding his teammates. And here he had hoped this team would work out.
Kakashi paid attention to how Naruto kept running around. It looked like he was trying to set up traps at the direction of the other two, but was doing a horrible job of following those directions. One of Naruto's attempts to set up an exploding trap tag on the ground malfunctioned and went off while Naruto was still crouched down over it.
Kakashi was about to move closer to see if they were still alive, but the smoke cleared quickly enough. Naruto was covered in black soot, and looked rather comical at that, and was sitting dazedly on the ground as Sakura and Sasuke coughed loudly and called the blond out on his stupidity.
When the lunch hour was up, Kakashi groaned as he stood up and used a Shunshin to appear amongst the kids. If his posture and eye expression could be summed up with one word, it would be disappointed. They'd had an hour to prepare, an hour to break his rules, but in the end, they'd done nothing.
"You guys fail."
"What do you mean we fail?!" Naruto asked. "We haven't even gotten a chance at the bells yet! We haven't failed until we can't move anymore!"
"Weren't you three listening to anything I said?" Kakashi asked, now really and truly annoyed. "I said that teamwork as the purpose of the test. You three failed the moment you didn't disobey even a single one of my rules."
A silence filled the clearing for all of three seconds before Sasuke uncharacteristically coughed. "Err… Yeah," he said, "about that…"
Kakashi's eyes napped open at the very Naruto-ish grin on all three faces of his genin. Only, this wasn't all his genin. It was all Naruto. When had Naruto switched places with… the explosion!
"I see," Kakashi said, the beginnings of astonishment growing inside of him. He glanced down at the two meals laying on the ground and saw that they looked the same, but… if he had to guess, they were shadow clones too. "Are any of you the real Naruto?"
"Nope," the Naruto in front of him said. "They're behind you."
Kakashi turned his head to look over his shoulder. There stood his three students. Naruto grinned like a madman. Sakura smiled deviously. Sasuke just had this damnable smirk that made Kakashi want to punch the kid. All in all, the three looked like the cats that caught a flock of canaries, dipped the birds in butter, and roasted them over an open pit fire while cheering each other with warm bottles of milk.
"Ne, Kakashi-sensei" Sakura said. She lifted her hand and revealed she was holding a bell. "Does this mean we pass?"
Kakashi looked down and found that he was now lighter two bells. But that meant that the other bell was now being held by one of the kids. The question was who. While looking down, Kakashi also noticed an exploding tag set right beneath his foot. An exploding tag ready to go off the moment he lifted his foot.
"I just have to know whose bright idea this was," Kakashi said, "as well as who has the last bell."
"Well… The idea started with Naruto," Sakura said.
"I knew I could get them out," Naruto said with a cheeky grin.
"Then Sasuke said something about setting up traps while we were eating in the forest," Sakura continued.
"Naruto had enough clones to set up enough traps to trap even you," Sasuke said.
"And then Sakura told me where to place that tag so that you'd step on it when you came back," Naruto said.
"And when you did, we had two of Naruto's clones replace themselves with the bells," Sasuke said.
"I see…" Kakashi muttered. "And the other bell? Does Sasuke or Naruto have it?"
"Maybe," both boys said at the same time.
Kakashi narrowed his eyes as he watched the two boys for any signs of deceit. The thing was, they were both showing the signs, which meant they could both be lying or telling the truth. Ultimately, he couldn't read either of them. "I don't actually believe I'm saying this," Kakashi said, "but you've passed the test."
"Yes!" Naruto shouted. He did another fist pump.
"No, I don't think you understand," Kakashi said. This drew confused looks from the kids, for which Kakashi took some measure of satisfaction. "This test was designed to be unwinnable. No one has ever passed this test, at least, not the bell portion. Not even my own team passed the bell portion of the test. Anyone who's 'passed' the test usually does so by breaking the rules. That's the point. You were supposed to break my rules and do what's best for the team, no matter what. But you somehow found a way to get the bells without appearing to break the rules. Even though you two ate, you didn't eat here. If you hadn't told me you'd eaten, then I would have never known. And you got the bells. And it took each of you working together to do it."
Kakashi did his weird eye smile again. "You guys are the first team to pass my test. All the others were morons that would do whatever I told them to do. You have to look underneath the underneath. In the ninja world, there are those who break the rules, and we call them trash, lowlifes, criminals, scum. But you know what?" Kakashi glanced at each of them to guage their attention, which he had. "Those people may be scum, but anyone who abandons their comrades is lower than trash. Congratulations, Team Seven passes!" Kakashi gave the team a thumbs-up.
"Yeah!" Naruto shouted. He started doing a weird little dance that involved shaking his hips and waving his arms about. "I did it! I did it! I'm a ninja!"
While Sasuke and Sakura shared Naruto's joy, his enthusiasm and 'dance' were enough to disturb them into silence. Kakashi ignored it as if he were immune. "Meet me at the Hokage Tower tomorrow morning to receive your first mission," the Jounin said before he vanished in a swirl of leaves.
And then the tag exploded.
The Third Hokage sat behind his desk, going through mission reports and signing off on payment authorizations. The work of a kage never ends, especially the Hokage. The paperwork would have killed him, had he never started utilizing Shadow Clones to break the workload down. The strain on his mind when the clones dispelled was a pain, but it was worth it when considering the time that was saved.
Humming happily to himself, the Hokage stamped his approval on the payment for an A-class mission when he felt an incoming chakra signature. Closing the scroll and putting it to the side, the old man leaned back in his seat with his pipe in his mouth as he waited for his shinobi to appear. He didn't have to wait long, as Kakashi appeared in the room in a small storm of leaves.
"Hokage-sama," Kakashi said. He made a short bow. "I've come to report that Team Seven passed the bell test."
The Hokage smiled. "I'm glad Naruto and his friends were able to see that teamwork was the way to go forward. I was a little afraid for them, based on the reports I'd received from Iruka-kun about Haruno-kun and Uchiha-kun. But it would seem my fears were baseless."
"Err… No, Hokage-sama," Kakashi said. "You were right. They don't get along at all. But they were capable of putting those differences aside to actually steal the bells and put me in a position that I wouldn't have been able to get them back immediately."
The pipe in the old man's mouth fell free. "What?" the old man asked. "Do you mean to tell me that you let three brand new genin steal the bells from you? Are you getting rusty?"
An uncomfortable look passed over Kakashi's face. "Either that, Hokage-sama, or I'm severely underestimating them. While two of them had been tied up for the lunch hour, I expected Naruto to break the rules and provide an example of teamwork. I'd already spelled as much out to them. However, they tricked me with an ingenious use of shadow clones, transformation, and replacement. While I was watching a bunch of clones fool around, the three of them had gone off into the woods with the food without me realizing and then came up with a plan. When I went to confront them, I found myself with two less bells and standing on an explosive seal. When I tried to find out who had the bells, they obfuscated. Honestly, it was a very basic deception, but it was masterfully executed."
The Hokage nodded, deep in thought. "No doubt the execution was Naruto's contribution. All of his experience with pranks around the village have given him an uncanny insight into timing things to go off without a hitch. Who was it that placed the explosive note? It was impressive to lay it directly where you'd wind up."
"It was Sakura," Kakashi said. "She may be next to useless physically, but she's got a mind inside her little pink head that's sharper than many swords I've seen. Oh, and speaking of swords, I've learned a little something about Naruto and his sword."
"What is it?"
"It seems to increase his instinctual reaction time," Kakashi said. "As soon as I started the test, he engaged me in a taijutsu match. I attempted to catch him from behind, but he jumped without actually seeming to know why until after he saw I had appeared behind him. Also, when I started pushing him in speed toward high D-rank, low C-rank levels, he was able to keep up, if barely. From his reaction to this ability, I'd say he is confused and a little bit frightened. He thought it had been the fox at first. It wasn't, but he seemed to realize after I reassured him that what had caused the change was the sword."
"I see…" the Hokage said. "We'll allow Naruto to come to his own conclusions about the blade in due time for now. Keep a watch on his development. Is that all?"
"The Uchiha performed a little better than expected," Kakashi said, "but from what I read in his report, that's to be expected what with how hard he's been pushing himself since the massacre."
"Yes," the old man said with a depressed timbre in his voice. "Thank you for the report, Kakashi-kun."
"Ja ne," Kakashi said. He gave a two finger salute and vanished into a swirl of leaves. The Hokage scowled at the pile of green now spread across his office floor.
Omake: What could have happened.
"Naruto, kill Sasuke or Sakura dies." Naruto's eyes widened and he immediately reached up for his sword and leaned toward Kakashi and Sakura. Kakashi simply pushed the kunai harder against Sakura's throat, making the girl whimper. "Do it, Naruto!"
Naruto stayed the way he was. He looked away from Kakashi to look at Sakura who was staring at him. She was obviously terrified, but when Naruto unsheathed his sword she gasped when he stabbed it into the ground.
"Go fuck yourself in hell, Kakashi," Naruto shouted. He put his hands together and Kakashi's eyes widened. He felt a pop beneath his hands. He barely had time to notice that Sakura had been replaced with a shadow clone that had dispelled before a swarm of hundreds of orange Naruto swarmed him.
The next day, a funeral was held for Hatake Kakashi. He was a pervert, a letch, and the best damn ninja to come from his generation. He would be missed, mostly by a green training suit wearing man named Might Gai. Kakashi, for his part, found himself in the Pure World, meeting his father, Rin, Minato, Kushina, and several other people long dead. One person he did not find, and had been expecting to find, was Obito. The only thing Dead-Kakashi could do was ask, "Where's Obito?"
A/N: Thus I present to you the next chapter of A Touch of Death! It may seem rote, by this point, to those Naruto Fanfiction Veterans. However, this scene was important for me to help establish exactly what Naruto's sword is doing with him. More specifically, it's adding to his Yin. It is pure Soul after all, so that shouldn't be surprising. What should jump out at those who read this should be that Naruto, whom has an overwhelming amount of Yang due to the Yang half of the Ninetails as well as his own Uzumaki Heritage, is that this sword is acting like a Yin Amplifier, which would enable Naruto to do things that he would not otherwise be capable of doing, such as sensing chakra, predicting attacks, precise control over himself and his chakra (or more precise at any rate, he still has horrible chakra control). And so on.
So leave a review! Let me know what you fine readers think of these things!
~I.K.A. Valian