Chapter 12: Almost as Planned

Morning classes sucked, mostly due to my sleep deprivation. The clone I'd left in bed dispelled around lunch time and gave me enough of a kick for the afternoon, but my toils had only just begun.

Taijutsu was spent keeping Naruto from pestering Sasuke with waves of clones, which eventually led to inquiries on why I kept calling him shishou. Since Naruto and I both refused to reveal anything, Akuma resorted to teasing me mercilessly while Kiba, Yuu and Choji threw out one wild theory after another.

It honestly would have been easier to just reveal the truth of my technique troubles. Maybe that way I would have remembered to mentally prepare Naruto for the Jinchuuriki reveal that evening instead of just letting Hiruzen dump it on him like a bucket of ice water.

"I… What? Kyuubi? How does that work?" Naruto asked, wrinkling his nose. "And why's this the first time I hear about it?"

Hiruzen winced and gave him a pitying look. "It was kept secret for your own good. You would have been in grave danger if your status leaked to the wider world."

Part of me was tempted to interrupt this momentous scene with some snide remark, but Naruto beat me to the punch.

"People used to whisper monster all the time," he said. "Sure is some S rank secret if everyone knows."

"Forcibly quelling the rumours would have only sown discord," Hiruzen reasoned. "We could not afford civil unrest with the other nations so eager to jump at our first sign of weakness. Why, the Daimyo of Rice Paddies declared war mere days after the attack."

"Doesn't explain why you couldn't tell me," Naruto argued.

"I had hoped for you to live a normal childhood, free from the mental burdens that Jinchuuriki commonly face," he explained. "It was what your parents would have wanted."

Naruto seemed mollified for a moment before pullinga grimace. "Parents that I still don't even know the names of," he grumbled. "And lemme guess, that's another S rank secret."

"Naruto…" Hiruzen sighed deeply and took off his Hokage hat. "I cannot divulge anything."

I sensed my friend's chakra flicker in agitation and placed my hand on his shoulder to soothe him. Naruto relaxed a tad, but a scowl was firmly affixed to his face.

"So somehow my parents are a bigger secret than the big angry fox inside me," Naruto said, rolling his eyes. "I must be the son of the Sage."

I choked back a laugh and Naruto smirked at the reaction. Hiruzen didn't find it as funny.

"The secret is not bigger. It is better kept," Hiruzen corrected. "I tried to hide your status, but far too many people were aware of what happened that night to quell the rumours. Your parentage, however, is known only by a select few individuals."

"And I'm not allowed to be one of them," Naruto concluded.

Hiruzen's face was marred by a guilty frown. "Your parents were great shinobi. They gave their lives to protect the village and you on the night of the attack," he offered. "Due to their positions in our ranks, concealing their identities is a matter of national security. Perhaps if you were of higher rank…"

"But that'll take so long! Can't I at least know what they did as ninja?" Naruto pleaded.

The Hokage pondered for a while, finally deciding to reveal, "They were involved with Jiraiya, Konoha's spymaster."

"They were spies!?" Naruto gasped.

"I will say nothing more on the subject," Hiruzen responded. "How are you progressing with the technique I provided?"

Naruto's face lit up. "It's totally awesome Jiji,"—he created a clone—"Now I have an alibi for—I mean, uhh…"

I spoke up before Naruto demolished his plausible deniability. "If you do not mind, I have been meaning to ask a few things regarding the technique."

"You have both already succeeded?" Hiruzen chuckled. "Why am I not surprised? Feel free to ask whatever you wish."

"Thank you, Hokage-sama," I said. "My main concern is whether there are lasting effects—potential dangers."

"It is difficult to say. For most people the very act of splitting one's reserves in half or less would be dangerous," Hiruzen replied. "However, with a higher capacity this becomes less of a problem."

I already knew as much. Regeneration was self-catalysing, so a higher absolute concentration meant incomparably faster replenishment.

Praise be unto logarithmic scaling.

"This may not apply to you both," Hiruzen continued, "but since so few can regularly use shadow clones for extended periods, we do not know the long term risks."

"Has nobody used them for training in the past?" I asked.

"I have, at times," Hiruzen confirmed. "However, it is usually inefficient. Most would be left too drained for extended physical practice,"—Hiruzen gave his stack of paperwork a forlorn look—"and I quickly came to learn that clones are not suitable for mental tasks."

They… aren't? "My condolences, sir."

The Hokage chuckled ruefully. "In any case, while the two of you, especially Naruto, could make more efficient use of them than most, I recommend you remain cautious. Report any symptoms as soon as you become aware of them."

We agreed, and the meeting concluded.

Mizuki, the academy three, and the Kyuubi reveal were all checked off the bucket list. We had officially reached canon genin level. There was less than a year remaining to catapult ahead of the powercurve—before my comfortable academy life would end and I would be exposed to the chaos of a shonen battle manga.

Best get to it, then.

As I hoped to integrate shadow clone training into many different facets of my life, the first of my remaining months was spent testing the limitations of the technique. While it superficially functioned just as Kishimoto advertised, it was not quite the universal exploit I'd yearned for.

For one, the sizeable chunk of chakra necessary to create their bodies meant I couldn't just summon a hundred without becoming the immediate past president of the formerly alive club. Additionally, the summoned clones steadily lost their internal reserves just by existing. A single clone with half my chakra stuck around for at most 12 hours of sedentary inactivity, and far fewer hours when physically active.

Joining the ultra-capitalist grind and hustling in every civilian industrial sector at the same time would therefore remain a distant dream.

And that wasn't the only disappointment. My idea of forming a clone research team was practically dead on arrival. The first time I'd attempted to read up on two different subjects at once had resulted in,

"Storage in command sensory memory haven and short-term faction generally the outcast has a strictly limited construction lift capacity. By contrast, she spends most of the total capacity of abandoned free store established in larger quantities of ship."

Total nonsense, and yet my brain had been utterly convinced that this was the passage—singular—that my clones had spent precious minutes committing to memory.

Except for my tried and true exploit of using clones to compound sleep, my only option was to use them as God—read: Kishimoto—intended. They were great for improving procedural tasks—katas, ninjutsu, genjutsu, chakra control, etc.—but nothing much else.

I wound up allocating one clone per day for research and memorisation, while I and as many clones I could safely afford focused on everything else. It wasn't a flawless power booster—there was only so much you could achieve without dedicated instruction—but it was enough to finally start narrowing the distance between myself and our undisputed rookie of the year.

I prepared a second training plan for Naruto as well, which really put my organisational skills to the test thanks to Hiruzen's delivered instructions on the thousand clone technique. Naruto was so appreciative of my help, he even followed the parts about learning to contact Kurama.

A guilt trip? Me? Never.

Incorporating Naruto's swarm into collaborative training also had the added benefit of providing a limitless supply of training dummies.

This especially came in handy when our friends joined the fray. Fighting off the orange horde was like playing a cooperative wave-based survival game. Naruto and I even added some flair to it. Shifting through various colours, fighting styles, and weapons—blunted, of course. We even added 'elites' wearing real equipment that could tank some hits.

I recently referred to this weekly event as 'the clone wars', and to my surprise my friends all adopted the joke as its official name.

They did not realise what they'd unleashed that day.

"It's over, fools!" shouted a robed, bearded clone, idly spinning the sword in his hand. "I have the high ground!"

I dub thee Satobiwan.

He pelted us with volleys of shuriken a moment later, forcing our group of seven to break our defensive formation.

"How's he making his sword glow?" Akuma asked, dodging behind a tree.

"It's a genjutsu you goof," I replied.

She interrupted her chakra flow. "Ugh. Can I just jump up and burst him?" asked Akuma, slashing apart a Naruto clone before dodging another volley.

"Not now," Shino advised, "Why you ask? Because either he or the swordsman from earlier will no doubt strike you down mid leap."

One of the red clones punched through his chest from behind and got swiftly drained by the swarm of bugs that erupted when the disguise dispelled. The real Shino then directed his swarm into the forest to harass a group of ranged attackers.

Yuu scoffed. "Calling that pretender a swordsman is an insult to any true kenjutsu specialist. He's merely hiding and taking cheap shots."

"Hey, I learned that from you," I snarked, parrying a green's kunai strike with my wristguard.

"My strikes are not cheap. They are skillfully timed and executed with perfection. Any second-rate dimwit can hit someone when they are distracted by—" He was cut off when a group of blues flung mud at his face before retreating back beyond the treeline. "Naruto, stop trying to dirty my clothes!"

"Your fault for not getting properly dressed," Naruto chided and got smacked in the face for his inattention.

"Ugh, why did I think joining you was a good idea," groaned Sakura. The blues had gotten her good—her hair more brown than pink at this point.

"You won't impress Sasuke if you aren't strong," Kiba responded. "So let loose and go wild!"

He embraced his own statement, diving into the red crowd to save Naruto from getting overwhelmed. Sakura wasn't convinced by his display, dodging away from more weaponized dirt and staying by Shino and his protective trench coat.

"I'll just stay at range…" she said, readying her kunai.

Of course, winding up for a throw wasn't the safest of stances, and my sneaky kenjutsu clone couldn't resist bursting Sakura's bubble. He shot forward and stabbed her shoulder with his blunted sword. Her attempted dodge angled her body just enough for the sword to catch her sleeve…

The fabric tore apart, plunging the battlefield into dead silence. Everyone froze in place and averted their eyes. The kenjutsu clone looked mortified—like me, he was well-versed in this trope. Sakura was primed to explode.

"Looks like you underestimated his power," Satobiwan taunted from above.

"I what!?" she snapped, her aura blasting outward.

Satobiwan quickly recognised his mistake, but it was too late. Inner Sakura had firmly taken hold and nothing was going to stop her from dishing out justice.

"Wait, this isn't my fault!" he pleaded.

Sakura didn't care, dashing up the vertical surface in record time. A metal clang sounded, followed by a poof.

"Aw man, did she really learn that faster than us?" whined Naruto. "We only told her about it two days ago!"

"Did she just dent your metal chestplate?" asked Akuma.

Kiba gulped. "Remind me never to get on Sakura's bad side."

"Fixing that is going to suck…" I mumbled.

As we closed in on the end of the academy year these weekly games steadily climbed in intensity. The clones had more allowances and no longer pulled punches, while our classmates put genuine effort into gearing up and strategizing. Naruto and I obviously weren't part of those prep sessions since we couldn't let the clones know, which meant we instead planned for the opposing team.

Naruto wasn't very enthusiastic about that at first. However, I was able to spark his creativity after turning our planning sessions into a tabletop wargame. When I convinced him to allow me to use genjutsu, I could even animate the battlefield and add little visual effects to make it more engaging.

The resulting one-upmanship between groups inevitably led to more mayhem, which eventually led to Iruka busting us for causing havoc in an unsanctioned training area. After explaining what we'd been up to, however, he actually commended our initiative. He even petitioned the Hokage to keep one of the training grounds reserved for our activities, and advised the rest of the class to join in.

Few embraced the opportunity, and even less returned after their first session. Sakura did get Ino to join a few times, and I knew Shikamaru enjoyed strategizing with the group even if he rarely physically participated. Sasuke was the inverse, never joining discussions but randomly showing up every third week to wreak havoc.

All in all, it was a nice bit of team building and I was happy to have introduced it, even if it wasn't a perfectly efficient use of my time. Taking the chance to enjoy myself every now and then didn't hurt me. Training progressed smoothly enough as it was.

Well, except for one thing.

"Why won't you pop damnit!"

I angrily tossed the rubber ball away and fell onto my bed. A stack of books collapsed from getting hit by my projectile. I groaned. How in the world had Naruto canonically learnt this in a week? I'd been at it for over a month yet did not progress any further than popping water balloons!

Peak of chakra shaping, I know. But also I know the tricks. Shadow clones should be making this a piece of cake!

My best guess was that my yin-leaning chakra just wasn't energetic enough to create a Rasengan. It would not rotate at adequate speeds when compressed into a ball. Perhaps I could learn yang release in order to increase the physical energy content, but when the heck would I have time to learn medical jutsu!?

Take a deep breath. In… and out.

Today was graduation. I was stressed and acting out because of it. The chunin exams and invasion were a mere few months away, and I absolutely needed to impress my jounin teacher if I wanted a chance to participate.

You will be fine. All is well.

I restacked my books, reminding myself I should buy another bookshelf, before meeting up with Naruto and heading to the academy. He could hardly contain his excitement all the way there, bobbing up and down as he walked and grinning from ear to ear.

His infectious positivity did a good job lifting my spirits, though that dropped away when Naruto proudly strutted inside the classroom to announce, "Your future Hokage is here!"

I stopped in the doorway and covered my face out of second hand embarrassment. If I tried hard enough I might even be able to convince myself I wasn't smiling.

Someone bumped into me from behind, and grunted. "Whoops, sorry Sasuke."

He rubbed at his nose and huffed in agitation, before snorting as he shook his head.

"Laughter from an Uchiha?" I asked. "That bump must have really rattled your brain."

The barest hint of a smirk painted his lips. "I just found it amusing how you can only land a hit against me on accident," the saucy punk replied.

Naruto pushed past me and got up in Sasuke's face. "Bastard, Satoya's a way better shinobi than you!"

"Ehh, you don't have to say that, Naruto," I said with a nervous chuckle, trying to defuse the situation before the slowly amassing fangirls could get involved.

"Hah, as if! Sasuke-kun can beat both of you up at the same time!" shouted one of said fangirls.

In a way, he can even take hundreds of us at the same time. Stupid second tomoe…

"Hmpf, that's just because my clones don't do well against fire," grumbled Naruto. "But there's no way I'll lose against him after training with a jounin, believe it!"

Please don't start another one of these arguments.

These two truly were incorrigibly antagonistic, no matter how much more social Sasuke was compared to his original broodiness. I could tell he was seething with anger as he challengingly walked even deeper into Naruto's personal space.

Somehow I feel like I've seen this before…

"Now kiss!" Akuma suddenly spoke up from behind them, pushing the two the rest of the way toward each other and cackling madly.

I gasped in shock. The surrounding crowd of fangirls collectively desaturated and gaped in stunned silence. Someone—Hinata?—snorted in the background. Moments later a wave of killing intent was projected onto Naruto, Akuma, and myself.

"ARGH, MY MOUTH IS ROTTING!" Naruto shouted, blissfully unaware of the looming death.

"Haha. We're in danger," I said.

Akuma peered at our audience, lightning crackling in the background. "Maybe not my smartest move."

Thankfully, Sasuke came to our rescue, glaring at the crowd. "I don't need you to get revenge in my stead. I can fight my own battles."

"Yeah, kick his ass, Sasuke!" Keiko said, the rest nodding in encouragement.

"Later," Sasuke said, walking to the sink and rinsing out his mouth.

Iruka entered the classroom soon afterwards and gave us a long winded speech about what it meant to be a ninja and the importance of protecting the village.

Will of fire this, fighting for what's right that… Ugh just get on with it.

At least after this exam I wouldn't ever need to listen to village propaganda again—or at least not nearly as much.

"Alright, I've held you hostage long enough. I'm sure you're all nervous about the exam," Iruka finally announced. "This year you will all have to perform the Clone Technique. Enter the next room when your name is called so Yume and I can evaluate you."

Perfect, just like canon. No written part, no physical exam, no other jutsu. This really was more like a formality than a 'final exam' in Earth terms.

Being fairly high up in the alphabet, Choji and I were the first two of our group to receive our headbands; I got a 'victory chip' with for my efforts. Kiba filed in right afterwards, eventually followed by Akuma and Shikamaru. They soon suggested we move outside to escape the stuffy waiting room. I wound up gazing at clouds with Shikamaru while the others debated fighting styles.

"Oh shut it! With your dumb clan techniques of course you wouldn't do anything else!" Akuma snapped at Kiba. "I'm gonna beat you all up with my own kenjutsu style some day, just you wait!"

Her conviction made me snort. She may have gotten a lot better at forging blades over the past six years, but her kenjutsu was far too straightforward. In my eyes, our best swordsman was clearly Yuu. Despite spouting on about honour, the guy was totally ruthless.

Speaking of which, "Oho, you actually made it?"

He dramatically whipped his blue ponytail over his shoulder like the pretty boy™ he was. "It was never in question. Though I suppose the standards must have dropped to an unacceptable degree if scum like you managed to pass."

I was about to give him some witty retort, but got cut off by Akuma zipping by and fiercely glomping the target of my ire. "You did it!" she shouted gleefully while Yuu tried to ply her off. "That means we're all ninja! Let's go celebrate!"

Celebrate? But what about Rasengan practice? The hard part was only just beginning!

Of course I couldn't really tell them that.

"What about the others?" I asked instead. "Once we all finish up with the exam, I could set up a picnic or something."

Really, I just wanted to make sure Naruto passed before we left to do something else.

"Yes, it would be impolite not to ask the others," Yuu affirmed.

I underestimated how many would say yes.

I invited Naruto who invited Kiba who invited Shino who invited Shikamaru who… you get the picture. Save for Sakura—poor girl had plans with her parents—all rookie twelve members were gathered on the grassy hills near the Academy.

"We'll have to squeeze together a bit," I said after spreading the blanket out, "I hope none of you care about personal space."

Akuma smirked at Naruto and Sasuke. "Petition to move these two next to each other."

"Denied!" they replied in tandem.

"Why don't you sit next to him instead," Naruto suggested. "I bet Sasuke would love some payback."

Akuma blanched. "I'm already sitting next to Yuu, right Yuu?"

He feigned ignorance. "What? I assumed I would sit between Shikamaru and Satoya."

"I could sit next to him," Ino offered.

"Just take a random seat for now," I advised. "We'll also need more food so I'm going to come back and sit wherever later."

Hinata shot her hand up. "I'll go."

I glanced at her. "You want to go shopping with me?"

"I can go on my own," she clarified. "Please stay with your friends."

Ah, I get it. She was feeling shy around a large group of people and needed an excuse to get some breathing room. I should have considered this might be uncomfortable for her. Going shopping together could be a good opportunity to more sedately ease her into the group.

"I'm sure they will be fine. If we go together there'll be more space," I offered. "We can also get another blanket on the way."

I might have heard Hinata click her tongue, but she agreed. The two of us excused ourselves and we walked back down the hill towards the market district. It was then that I realised I had no clue what topics I could even talk to her about. Awkward.

"So Hinata… how's life?"

She gave me a blank look. "Fine."

Yeah… not my best opener.

"Are you happy to have finally graduated?" I continued. "I know I am. Sitting in a classroom day in and day out felt like such a waste."

"Happy… I wouldn't say that."

She did not elaborate.

"And why is that?"

She suddenly stopped in place. "Do you actually want to know, or are you struggling to find a conversational topic?"

"Uhh… both, I guess."

Again, she gave me a dull look. "Thank you for your concern, Satoya-san. I see you're trying to be nice. However, you don't need to pretend to care about me. I'm fine being left out of your social circle."

I furrowed my brows. "You don't need to exclude yourself, Hinata-san. We're all happy to have you here. I'm sure Kiba wouldn't have invited you otherwise."

"Do you truly believe he did it of his own volition?" she queried. "The only reason Kiba-san and Shino-san speak to me is to improve clan relations. Our camaraderie is a farce. Unlike you with whom people have no ulterior motives, I am only called upon to keep up appearances."

My eyebrows rose up so high they would have flown away if it were physically possible. "Nobody's"—I shook my head—"Look, I don't know about the rest, but you can trust me when I say I want you there with us, alright?"

"Whatever you say, Satoya-san."

This was my fault somehow; I just knew it was.

Forming a big happy friend group without Hinata must have jaded her opinion on relationships. Then again, a non-verifiable hypothesis is a bad hypothesis, and I had no way to confirm anything without asking Hinata herself.

'In an alternate universe you're way nicer than you are here, what gives?'

Fat chance of that. This would just have to remain one of life's great mysteries.

Thankfully the picnic was a lot less awkward than the shopping trip, so my mood wasn't totally ruined. We all went home in high spirits, eagerly anticipating our team assignments.

Except Hinata…

Dangit.

The next morning was filled with another superfluous speech wherein Iruka explained the three-person squad system. I only lent him half an ear in case he announced anything unexpected, but it turned out to be for naught.

"We tried to balance each team's strengths," Iruka declared, finally getting to the point and listing off the assignments.

Yeah right, the only team that explanation makes the slightest amount of sense for is the original team 7.

And even if it somehow had truly been the case in the original timeline, the teams would have to be different now than they were in the manga. If the first four no-name teams were any indication, they were not.

"Team five, Satoya Ibui, Akuma Nakao, and Yuu Ogura."

None of us exploded into cheers, but I could see Yuu's shoulders relaxing and Akuma grinning at the two of us. I wasn't exactly surprised about the result, but definitely felt relieved to hear it spoken aloud. It would have been idiotic to break up three students who'd practiced together every weekend for multiple years, after all.

"Team Seven, Haruno Sakura, Uchiha Sasuke—"

"YEAH!" Sakura squealed in delight.

"—and Uzumaki Naruto," Iruka finished, making both Sasuke and Naruto stare balefully at each other.

That's another one down for the count.

Just like team 7, the rest of the announcements went exactly as expected—though Shino and Kiba both gave disgruntled sighs when they heard they were on the same team as Hinata. After my conversation with her I could see why. Thinking back on her participation in the clone wars, she was scarier than even Sasuke at times…

Is there some way I can make this better? Now that canon has started I don't think I'll even have the time.

After assignments were finished, Iruka told us to enjoy some lunch and return to the classroom in the early afternoon. The break was spent speculating who would get which jounin, though I hardly knew any of the names that were dropped besides Asuma.

He also happened to be the first teacher to show up, followed closely by Kurenai. After that came a bunch of randoms, and eventually there were only 6 genin left waiting. I finally sensed a foreign presence hovering at the door. Iruka must have noticed too, since after a minute passed without any movement on the other side, he walked up and opened the door himself.

"Team seven, I present your teacher, Kakashi Hatake," Iruka announced. My heart skipped a beat when the man in question entered the room in all his poofy silver-haired glory.

Kakashi took a look around, scratched his chin, and walked straight towards Akuma, Yuu and myself. "You seem decent enough. Let's go."

"Hey, that's team five!" Naruto exclaimed.

Kakashi slowly turned in place, his half-lidded eye resting on Naruto for a good five seconds. "Hmm, no. That can't be right," he said. "I was told team seven had the class's best."

"Hey!" Sakura and Naruto shouted while Sasuke rolled his eyes.

"Kakashi-san," Iruka groaned. "Please don't make things difficult."

The jounin sighed in defeat, slumping his shoulders. "Oh dear. I suppose I have no choice. I'll have to go complain to the Hokage later. Naruto Uzumaki, Sasuke Uchiha and Sakura Haruno, meet me on the roof in five minutes."

He disappeared before his team could react to what he'd said.

"That bastard knew," Naruto said.

"You better leave quickly if you want to get to the roof on time," Iruka advised, the corners of his mouth twitching in amusement.

Great, that means I have to wait even longer.

My own team's real teacher showed up about half an hour later, apologising profusely for having let us wait so long. His clothes were fairly standard for konoha jounin—a green flak jacket and black undershirt. He wore his headband unfurled into a blue bandana. A narrow fringe of brown hair hung above his nose. The bags under his eyes and pale complexion gave me the impression he was sick.

He eyed us three, coughing lightly as we stared right back at him. "So, you guys are my team," he said, himself unsure whether it was a statement or a question. "My name is Hayate Gekko. I'm a tokubetsu jounin and specialise in swordsmanship and reconnaissance."

I could sense the others' apprehension give way to excitement as soon as Akuma and Yuu heard about our teacher's forte. It seemed like more thought went into the selection than I had expected.

Why in the world was Kurenai selected for a tracking team, then?

Perhaps this Hayate fellow just wasn't a very competent teacher. If his continued silence was any indication, the man had no idea what to do with his students.

I took charge and raised my hand.

"Yes, Satoya-san?"

"As you know, I'm Satoya Ibui," I said, "My hobbies are drawing, reading and cooking. I dislike… people betraying my trust. And I dream of retiring with a loving family in the future. Why did you decide to become an instructor, Hayate-san?"

The jounin mentally noted my personal information and answered, "I applied as a jounin instructor so I can practise dealing with kids." The slightest blush tinged his cheeks. "As for my likes… I can't come up with anything I love more than my partner."

How cute.

Yuu quickly stepped in with an introduction of his own. "My name is Yuu Ogura. I like fashionable clothes, shopping for interesting wares and spending time with my friends. I dislike stupid people, seeing my friends get injured, and my friends making stupid decisions that get them injured."

Ouch, the triple threat aimed directly at my soul.

"My dream is to help firmly establish peaceful relations between the lands to enable free trade," Yuu concluded.

Akuma barely waited a second before starting her own introduction. "Akuma Nakao. I like forging, fighting and debating. I dislike stupid teammates who act haughty just to annoy me and people telling me how to live my life. I'll be the greatest Swordmaster in the five nations and forge blades to rival the seven swords of the mist!"

Damn this just confirmed it. She really is the Naruto of our group.

Which meant judging by the scale of our dreams… Oh god, I really am the Sakura of our squad. I'd accept that truth over my cold dead body.

Hayate coughed to get our attention. "Now that that's out of the way, come meet me at training ground three."

Hayate had a slight smirk on his face after he said that. Before I could question why, the sickly-looking man took a note out of Kakashi's book and flickered out of sight.

"As you may have already guessed, the academy exam isn't truly all it takes to be accepted as a genin of Konoha. Frankly, after the wars we don't have the manpower to occupy so many high ranking ninja in teaching positions even if we wanted to," Hayate explained, "Typically it is expected that only 3 out of nine teams pass this follow-up test."

I looked him straight in the eyes as I asked the question that had been nagging the back of my mind this whole semester, "How is that possibly fair? If I recall correctly, three out of nine teams have future clan heirs in them. By all accounts, you might as well fail us right now."

Yuu furrowed his brows in contemplation, the wrinkles deepening when he concluded the same. Akuma only glared at me as if it were somehow my fault.

"You would be correct in your assumption, Satoya-san. However, just because it is expected does not mean it is mandatory. Though to be honest, it is indeed rather unusual for a fully civilian team to pass, as they do not have the same training options as the larger clans."

Yeah and the unspoken part is that those same clans would throw a hissy fit if their special kids didn't pass.

"Well then bring it on, sensei!" Akuma exclaimed, "Whaddya want us to do so you'll accept us as your team?"

In response he flashed us a challenging half-smirk and said, "You have one hour. Capture me if you can," before disappearing in a puff of chakra smoke.

Shadow clone, huh? Guess every Konoha jounin and their mother knows that one…

The other two were a bit more befuddled than me. "Satoya, isn't this the shadow clone technique?"

"The very same," I responded.

"Didn't you say only Naruto and you can learn it?" Yuu asked. "And that if any of us tried, we might perish?"

"Well, I did say might," I said. "An adult jounin has enough stamina to use it just fine."

"So you're saying we're just too weak to use it?" Akuma asked, frowning.

"That's not what I… Look, the Hokage just didn't want us to teach anyone without special permission," I explained. "Anyway, we have a jounin to find. Where do you suggest we begin?"

Personally, I found the forest right next to us was the most likely contender. Unless the guy was ordered to give us an impossible test.

I noted the gleam in Yuu's eyes. "Finding him will not be enough. We need a plan of action," he argued. "You two must have noticed it too—our teacher's issue. It is most fortunate that we weren't forbidden from leaving the training grounds."

"How devious," I responded, "We could probably get just the thing back at the forge."

"Yeah that sounds great and all," Akuma added, "but abusing his asthma isn't a plan if we can't find him in the first place. That forest is huge!"

Huge was an overstatement. Then again, everything seemed small when compared to Hashirama's summoned monstrosities. Finding Hayate, a jounin whose specialty was reconnaissance—ergo infiltration—would be no easy feat. I doubted my chakra sense would be of much help against him at long range.

"What if we don't have to find him?" I question, "Why don't we just bait him out of hiding?"

"How the heck are we gonna bait him out? Threaten his girlfriend?" Akuma challenged.

"Not quite," I replied, "But you're right about giving him a scare."

"And how would we scare him?" Yuu asked. "I highly doubt that we can come up with something that he'd fear enough to override his caution."

"Don't be so sceptical," I responded, "There's something that every teacher fears. Probably every adult who's had to look after kids, actually."

Perhaps I was being a bit too abrasive. From a kid's point of view, you rarely gave these things much consideration.

"Akuma, what would bring your father into the room more quickly than anything?" I asked, trying to lead their thoughts in a certain direction.

"I guess if he heard kissing noises?" came her unthinking reply. Her cheeks flushed pink moments after what she'd spoken registered in her mind. "Uhh, I mean—"

"Alright no, stop," I interrupted. "I'll just go out and say it before we delve any further into that rabbit hole. We need to make him believe we're in danger."

"We can't just spar, it'd be too obvious," Yuu stated. "Going at each other with killing intent might get him to step in, but I find it dubious to imagine passing his test that way."

"Well then; How about I let you in on my dazzlingly brilliant idea?" I announced.

Yes, I'd failed to learn the Rasengan, but there was a reason I only started working on it so recently.

It was time to reveal my trump card.