Shorter chapter, hopefully it's exciting enough to make up for that. 'The Thing' I have them doing here, I didn't even know it was a canon thing until later research turned it up. Eh, what can a writer do?

So here it is: Last chapter of the week, let me know what you guys think of the action.

Naruto scowled into the darkness, "Well that failed rather spectacularly." She crossed her arms and glared daggers at the imaginary form of their sensei.

"Naruto, light."

"Oh, right." Naruto let her chakra spill out- carefully, so they didn't alert the Jounin with a sudden surge. They all breathed in a breath of fresh air as plants immediately sprang into being from the roots surrounding their subterranean war council. That would keep them all from asphyxiating as they discussed things below the radar thanks to Sakura's Jutsu.

Naruto uncrossed her arms and set them on her knees, leaning forward, "So, anyone else fair any better at all than I did?"

Sakura shook her head, pointing to her bandaged calf, "Not in the slightest."

Sasuke ground his teeth together for a moment, the taste of defeat bitter on his tongue, "He beat me. Like it was nothing."

Naruto's hands clenched on her knees, "None of us are giving up, right?!"

Sakura shook her head, "No way. How could I tell Ino we both failed?"

Blonde hair slipped forward as she lowered her head, "How can I go back and tell Kaachan I failed twice? Every day is one day closer to the chance of some other woman becoming Hokage before me."

Their male team mate dug his fingers into the lush flora below them, "I have to get stronger. I am a Truth Seeker, I have to be strong enough to get the answers out of anyone. We need this training, we can't afford any set-backs."

Naruto nodded, her head coming up and blue eyes blazing, "Then that settles it, doesn't it? We fight, and we win, rules or not, test or not."

Sakura stared down at her lap, "But what can we do? He completely demolished all of us."

Silence consumed them before Sasuke spoke up, "Earlier, I touched the bells."

Sakura's head came up, expression one the others had seen so many times before- the last being just the previous day, when she'd come up with the idea to use the Flash Jutsu against Hinata, "I've got a plan."

Naruto grinned ferally when Sakura finished explaining, the expression matched by a large, sharp smile from Sakura and a vicious smirk from Sasuke, "C'mon, it's time to school our sensei on the other shinobi arts he forgot."

Kakashi looked up from his book to see all three of his prospective Genin standing in front of him, close together, "We've come... for the bells."

Huh... He closed his book and put it away, taking in the trio standing there. Looks like they're ready to get serious. "Then come get them."

Sasuke and Naruto both disappeared in twin bursts of speed. Kakashi's hand came up to block Sasuke's kick, grabbing his foot. He twisted it so that the the raven-haired boy wouldn't get the idea to try the same tack he'd used earlier. Black eyes narrowed as their owner smirked, his other foot quickly striking out and between Kakashi's arms towards his face. The Jounin caught it with his other hand, his head automatically leaning backwards to avoid it on instinct- right into position to take Naruto's much more powerful drop-kick to the face.

Naruto grinned as she flipped away, "Shinobi battle skill number four: misdirection."

Sasuke pushing off the Jounin's chest with his released feet, "They say that the nail that sticks up is the one that gets hammered down."

The white-topped form rose from the dust, "Points for working together, but even with the both of you combined, it's not enough to damage me."

"That sounds like a challenge. Sasuke?"

The raven-haired boy smiled, and that was the first indication something was off, "Challenge accepted."

Naruto swept forward, Kakashi stopping her sweep-kick by bringing his own foot down on it to trap it to the ground, giving Sasuke the chance to get behind him. The pale teen stood back-to-back with the Jounin and wrapped his arms around the front of Kakashi's throat over his own head and heaved him forward over his shoulders. The Jounin tucked into a roll and came to his feet away from them- far enough away for Naruto to beam at him and toss a shuriken toward the treeline, a volley of weapons shooting from the trees as she bent down and slammed her hands into the ground with a surge of chakra, summoning more piercing roots as she had before.

Kakashi wove between them, eye going wide as Sasuke held out his right hand to Naruto's left and they went through Hand Seals together. "Fusion Style-!"

That's... not possible! There's no way-!

"Grand Fireball Jutsu!" Sasuke's other hand moved in front of his mouth and he sucked in a great breath, blowing out a stream of superheated fire. The water content in the roots around him boiled and turned to steam in the intense heat, exploding in all directions in a grand conflagration of fire, wood shrapnel, and searing steam.

Kakashi had no choice but to move back toward the destructive duo or risk being impaled. "You two... think you're really something, don't you? You don't realize just how tenuous your position is." Kakashi grabbed Sasuke by the neck and slammed him into the ground, wrenching the Genin's arm up behind his back and pushing his face into the ground with a foot. "On a real mission things happen that you can't control and you're left to make an impossible choice. For instance-" he spun out a kunai and held it to Sasuke's throat, "Sakura, kill Naruto or Sasuke dies."

The blonde's fingers curled and twitched as Sakura stared in disbelief, then her head tilted down, bangs slipping forward to shadow her eyes, "Understood!" The Jounin stared in wide-eyed horror as Sakura pulled out a kunai of her own and turned on Naruto, the blade sinking cleanly into the blonde's chest. Kakashi waited for the poof of a dispelling Shadow Clone, but it never came, and Naruto fell backwards, expression a mixture of pain and shock.

Moving faster than any of the teens could see, Kakashi was by her side in an instant, "Naruto!"

He was caught completely by surprise as Naruto spun up into a kick aimed to dislocate his jaw and Sasuke came up behind him again. He turned, holding Naruto's leg in one hand and stopping Sasuke with the other, unable to quite catch up with what he thought was happening.

Naruto smiled up at him innocently, "Shinobi battle skill number five: Information-gathering. Tell me, Sensei, are you aware of the nine-tailed demon fox sealed in my stomach?" Kakashi's grip on the both of them went slack and he was left wide open to their dual kicks as Sasuke went for his head while Naruto's leg whipped out close to the ground.

"Shinobi battle skill number six: disruption."

Naruto and Sasuke spoke in tandem, "Shinobi battle skill number seven: ambush!"

Kakashi let out a gurgle of surprise as a dozen hands burst from the ground around him, pulling him down. A chorus of female voices came from below, "Earth Style: Pseudo-Headhunter Jutsu!"

When Kakashi was nothing more than a head sticking up from the earth, one more pair of hands rose from the ground. Naruto and Sasuke both reached down and helped pull Sakura up from her earthen tomb. They all tensed when the timer went off and Kakashi disappeared in a puff of smoke, standing back-to-back and panting.

Kakashi hopped down from the tree in the middle of the clearing, "Fabulous effort, truly. Unfortunately for you three, you were too focused on beating me and not on the actual objective of the mission, which was to get the bells."

Naruto smirked like her male team mate and brought her hand up, "You mean... these bells, Sensei?"

Kakashi's eye widened and his hand went down to his belt, where two bits of metal chimed merrily, "What?" Even as he watched, the bells at his waist disappeared in a poof of smoke, "How in the world did you...? You Substituted Transformed Shadow Clones for the actual bells?!"

Naruto closed her eyes, tilted her head, and stuck her tongue out, "Yep! See, Sasuke touched the bells earlier, right? So I just had to make the clones and transform, then Sakura locked in on Sasuke's chakra signature and switched the Transformed me's for the real bells since she's got better chakra control. The whole fight? That was just me and Sasuke distracting you so you wouldn't notice."

"It's not... possible for someone to Substitute two third parties..."

Naruto rubbed the back of her head sheepishly, "Yeah, well, no one told us all that before we did it. Kaachan was surprised, too."

"Wait." Kakashi had gone from being in absolute control to feeling like the ground he stood upon was quicksand, "Who all can do this new Substitution Jutsu?"

"Well, all of us know it, but it tends to take more chakra control than I have."

Sakura held up her fingers to count, "Naruto, me, Sasuke; Ino, Chouji, Shikamaru; Shino, Kiba, and Hinata."

Kakashi shook his head. He'd figure it all out later, because apparently the files he had on his prospective team had been lacking- a lot. He let out a loud sigh and eye-smiled at the cute little trio, "So... Who gets the bells?"

Naruto turned around and looked between her team mates, then turned back to Kakashi, "I don't understand the question, Kakashi-sensei. We each have one." The three of them held up identical bells, giving them a little shake so they jangled.

Kakashi looked between the three bells, but couldn't find any difference between them, even though he could logically conclude that one of them was another Transformed Clone. It was perfectly done. "You cheated."

"Shinobi battle skill number eight," Naruto's piercing storm blue eyes opened and pinned him in place, "Shinobi do whatever it takes to get the mission done; there is no 'playing fair'."

Kakashi threw back his head and laughed, "How can I put this? I'm actually beginning to like you guys."

Sakura fidgeted, "Does that mean...?"

The Jounin held his chin and closed his eye in thought, "Let's see. You three showed the teamwork absolutely vital to all Genin, managed to accomplish the mission within the time limit, and lied and cheated just so you wouldn't be separated from each other."

Sakura took a deep breath and gathered her courage, "Some things are more important than the rules. Friends are one of those things."

Sasuke took a protective step forward, "We are Konoha Shinobi, we help each other out, no matter what."

Naruto smiled, "We are more than we are: we are one."

Kakashi took them all in, "You're one, hmm?" He was in front of them without even a blur of moment to betray him, finger pointed at them, "You all... pass."

Sakura blinked disbelievingly, "We... pass?"

"A ninja must see underneath the underneath. In the shinobi world, those who break the rules are scum -that is... true- but those who abandon their friends are worse than scum. Congratulations you three. The training exercise is over. Squad Seven begins its first mission tomorrow."

Naruto almost didn't believe it, still waiting for the shoe to drop. Then it felt like her ribcage expanded about three times its size and her shoulders slumped in relief. I did it... She looked at her two team mates, Sasuke and Sakura both showing their own relief in different ways, the raven-haired boy more stoically than Sakura's jumping for joy. No... we did it. Naruto beamed hugely, so much so that her cheeks hurt, and pulled both of the other teens in for a group hug, "YAAHOOO!"

Kakashi eye-smiled at them all and turned, "Come on, team. Let's go home."

Naru giggled and followed after him backwards, pulling Sakura and Sasuke along with her by the hand, "Let's."

xxx

The reason Naruto and the others are all so close is because the Yamanaka clan creed is to be as open and friendly as possible and hold close your bonds. Something that Ino might have continued doing in canon if Sakura hadn't ended their friendship the way she did- which she wasn't given the chance to do here.

Omake:

"So... Who gets the bells?"

The three looked at each other and converged in a mini war council, after a minute of talk, they all nodded and stood up, staring at each other intently. Kakashi watched their odd focus with blatant curiosity. There was only one way to settle something as momentous as this, and all three moved at the same time.

"Rock-Paper-Scissors, shoot!"

XXX