Chapter 13: Class A Performance

Hayate smiled when his clone's memories came rushing in. This team was certainly a colourful bunch. They handled the introductions without requiring much input on his part, and seemed unphased by the added stipulations before getting accepted as genin. He doubted the fresh graduates were aware just how difficult his test would be if he truly chose to give it his all.

The forest's shifting shadows and bustling critters made for an ideal hiding spot. Therefore the majority of Hayate's preparations had focused on making things easier for his prospective students. A few snapped twigs, footprints, even drops of blood were added to select locations, emulating the scene of an injured target's harried escape. With obvious hints to his passing in place, all he had left to do was lie in wait and evaluate.

And wait.

And wait some more…

Maybe he'd made this too hard after all? Hayate was reminded of the time when a colleague's genin team lost a prisoner in this very forest, only to find them casually stepping through Konoha's gates with a completely different set of freshly purchased clothes. Perhaps his three prospective genin assumed he wanted them to scout throughout Konoha. No, the thought was discarded as soon as he rationalised they must have been smart enough to figure out he wouldn't start them on such an impossible task.

Indeed, when his students returned a few minutes later it became immediately apparent what they'd been busy with.

Yuu, who had been wearing a long flowing robe earlier, was now dressed in a short, knee-length kimono with a light armour vest strapped over his torso. He had a tanto holstered at his side alongside multiple pouches, presumably filled with various ninja tools.

Frizzy-haired Akuma was dressed in heavier gear. A flak jacket was draped over a mesh armour shirt, with metal shoulder and knee pads added in for extra protection. She also had a katana strapped to her back.

"Man, where the heck is Satoya!?" Akuma shouted. "He's the one who told us to meet back here by now. We need him to—"

Her friend shushed her before she could continue babbling about their plans—at least one of them was covert. Yuu mumbled something that Hayate couldn't hear, and they began setting up a few traps. Hayate mentally subtracted a few points from his evaluation. Starting a mission despite a handicap would be dangerous in active duty.

Then again, they knew he wouldn't truly hurt them, just like he knew it was not fair to assume they'd take risky missions if they were less aware of such a fact.

Let's see what they came up with. They've taken nearly forty minutes to prepare, after all.

Akuma pulled up a small sheet or parchment and wrote something down as she walked through the forest. Yuu followed close behind her, keeping a lookout for potential hiding spots. Eventually Akuma raised up one of her fingers in a strange hand sign. She must have noticed something.

Smart. They invented a code I can't read.

Even so, he wouldn't make the capture too easy. The test was meant to examine teamwork and strategy. He'd get out of just enough traps to see if proper contingencies were in place, before letting himself get captured. Of course, if the third never showed, they'd automatically fail the teamwork portion.

He watched them follow his trail a bit further, Akuma scribbling down a few additional things, before they suddenly froze. Another signal, and Yuu started laying traps in a perimeter around a location decidedly not where Hayate was hiding. He quickly reevaluated his measure of the team's capability.

As the minutes went by, Hayate became more and more baffled. Yes, that Yuu kid was quite creative with his trapping. Everything from tripwires, to snares, to sinkholes. But that didn't change the fact that they were in all the wrong places!

He'd already determined that the Akuma girl must have some kind of scouting ability, as she dutifully led her companion around a specific spot, making sure they couldn't get spotted. Still, whatever she noticed had been a complete false alarm.

Hayate had no choice. Originally, he'd vowed not to use his chakra-enhanced hearing to make it a bit harder on himself, but he simply needed to know what in the world those two were planning.

"Are you sure we haven't been noticed?" whispered Yuu to his colleague. "He proclaimed himself an infiltration expert."

"Yes, I'm sure!" she hissed back, "We never got into line of sight, and he hasn't moved from his spot! If he has some kind of sensing ability, then he's not using it."

At least her assessment was half correct. Not that he'd ever engage them unless they were about to spring their trap.

"If you say so, it must be true," Yuu replied with a shrug, "My preparations are nearly complete anyway."

The girl gave him a thumbs up, and stored away her writing supplies. Yuu's frown deepened.

"However, I don't think we should start without Satoya," he said, "Where is that treacherous coward, anyway?"

"Probably getting chewed out for some prank of his," Akuma growled, drawing her blade from the holster on her back, "Just typical that he'd come late."

She then wandered across to the other side of their encirclement, silently counting down. They were about to be very disappointed.

Yuu flung kunai in the direction of an inert shrub. They had explosive tags attached to them and promptly blew up, conjuring a spectacular ball of flame. Hayate sighed, but then his breath caught in his throat.

A silhouette. Something jumped out from the shrub. No, not something. Someone.

Said someone hopped from the brush and straight toward a web of ninja wire. Reacting in just the last second, the man unsheathed his lengthy blade and sliced the wire apart. The attack looked decently competent, and Hayate quickly surmised whoever it was knew at least the bare essentials of swordsmanship.

As the smoke cleared, Hayate sharpened his eyes and heard a distinctly male voice hack out a dry laugh, "You're going to have to try a little harder."

That man was...

Me? No. That can't be, it must be a transformation. Of course, it is. That's where the third teammate went, they're trying to bait me out. Why wouldn't they transform into someone else?

Despite the strange tactical choice, Hayate could at least admit it was a decent rendition of himself.

"You must realise I let you find me, right?" the transformed Satoya questioned.

Akuma snarled, "It was stupid to give us so long to prepare!" She then shot up from the ground and ferociously slashed at her friend. It would never land against someone of Hayate's calibre. A freshly graduated genin on the other hand...

She's overselling her act. Someone could get seriously injured.

Their blades clashed a few times before Satoya was nearly speared in the back by Yuu's ambush. Satoya dashed into the air to escape the attack and Yuu threw a Kunai after him. It appeared he'd whiffed completely, yet his true intentions became clear when the branch Satoya landed on snapped in half along the kunai's cut.

Akuma growled as she launched after him, swords colliding mid air, pushing the falling Satoya into a tripwire that triggered a hail of Kunai. Satoya then pulled off the miraculous stunt of flinging himself out of the way by yanking at the tripwire with his legs.

Yuu tried another slash from the side, barely parried by the transformed Satoya's sword. Now that he was on the backfoot, it became obvious just how outclassed Satoya was when it came to kenjutsu.

Akuma and Yuu worked like clockwork, each movement flowing into the next. They were incredibly advanced for fresh academy students. Hayate was honestly confused as to why they'd have their worst swordsman be the one to impersonate him. Were they trying to antagonise him? It was honestly unbelievable that Satoya hadn't been hit yet.

No, of course the attacks aren't connecting.

They couldn't connect, else the transformation would go up in smoke. Still, their mock-fight was impressive to watch. It would likely convince a less keen observer.

"What's wrong, sensei?" Akuma taunted, "I thought you were supposed to be a blademaster."

"I'm going easy on you," Satoya huffed, "These things are quite sharp. I wouldn't want to accidentally hurt you."

Akuma seemed to take that as a challenge, bashing her opponent's blade with ludicrous force. Satoya must have underestimated her strength, because he dropped his sword and a moment later Yuu stabbed him in the shoulder from behind.

Hayate heard him say "Shit!" as the henge dispelled and someone's shadow punched out and clipped Akuma in the chin. A split second later a man dashed forward and viciously swung at the girl's prone body with a kunai, barely getting intercepted by Satoya.

Something wasn't right about that.

"You bastard; About time you showed up!" shouted Akuma, clenching her sword and rising from the ground.

"So is this our teacher?" he asked, "Weird that he was transformed this whole time."

The man gnashed his teeth, "Rule number one of being shinobi: Look underneath the underneath."

Hayate's thoughts raced to come up with a plausible explanation for the scene as he noted the blood dripping from Satoya's freshly lacerated arm.

Yuu had disappeared into the shadows earlier. He must have transformed right as Satoya's transformation ended, with Satoya intercepting the attack. A good contingency plan for when they messed up as they had. The spectacle was a lot better thought out than Hayate had expected.

Getting each other injured, however, was unacceptable. Hayate was about to call them off, when Yuu once again attacked from the shadows, giving Satoya space to pick up the previously dropped sword. However, Yuu was caught by a thrown kunai in the process.

Hayate did a double take. There couldn't possibly be four people here. Shadow clones? No, hold on, the man was bleeding from his shoulder due to getting stabbed earlier when he dispelled. Could that really be a clone?

The preteens encircled their opponent. Akuma with her bruised chin, Satoya with a sliced-up arm and Yuu with a gash on his shoulder. If none of them were clones, who was that man? Had they convinced a fellow ninja to transform into Hayate for this ruse?

"Okay kids, three on one hardly seems fair now, does it?" the unknown man chortled.

"You're the one who gave us the test!" Akuma bit back.

The fourth frowned for a moment as he answered, "That I did. Honestly, I was wondering when you'd finally team up. You really went all out in this place, huh? I shouldn't have stayed still so long."

Who was this man? He knew most of Konoha's higher ups by name, and he'd recognize most people's faces. Could they have truly found someone he didn't know?

"So, do we pass?" Akuma asked in a hopeful voice.

Their 'teacher' gave a friendly smile. "You haven't caught me, but honestly even landing a single hit is more than adequate a display of teamwork. Why don't I invite you out to a celebratory dinner?"

Stars shone in the three friends' eyes as they collectively whooped in the affirmative. The stranger motioned for them to lead the way as he followed close behind. Hayate barely noted the mystery man's grin turning malicious when the kids turned away. The interloper moved his hands to the pockets on his hip.

Hayate held the hilt of his sword in a tight-knuckled grip and flickered from his hiding spot to press his blade up against the possible infiltrator's spine.

"Identify yourself!" he commanded with a harsh tone.

The man slowly raised his hands, behind his head and kneeled on the floor. "Okay, easy now… we don't want anyone to get hurt."

There was a clear undercurrent of panic in the stranger's voice. "Identify yourself!" Hayate reiterated.

The infiltrator mumbled something in a foreign tongue. "{Okay everyone, now is the time.}" A moment later Hayate was pelted from all sides, he gasped in shock only to immediately regret that decision as he began wheezing uncontrollably.

Dust!?

Preoccupied by his overreacting lungs, the four ninja made quick work of him.

We actually did it. I could not believe that worked. Sure, it was my plan and all, but I was probably the one least confident in its success. Hayate really went easy on us by letting that whole charade play out. The poor guy still hadn't quit coughing even after being tied up for a good five minutes. Luckily, he didn't seem to be angry at us for it. He actually seemed quite relieved—maybe even proud.

"This was all planned, then?" he rasped between choking out bits of blackened phlegm, "I sure hope my kids won't be so abusive."

"Then you better never dare them to catch you," I snarked.

"As long as I don't allow for outside help," Hayate said, narrowing his eyes at me. "Speaking of which, who are you?"

"What an odd question," I answered. "Don't you recognize your own student, Sensei?"

The other three snickered at his dumbfounded expression. His head swivelled between me and the other Satoya. He coughed again. I nodded at Naruto and we both cancelled our transformations.

"Tadah!"

Hayate already seemed confused before. Now? Utterly stupefied. His mouth mechanically opened and closed without any sound passing his lips. That is, until the coughing started back up again.

I pushed up the rim of my imaginary glasses. "You must be asking yourself how we could pull off this ruse," I proclaimed in a snooty voice, "Elementary my dear Watson. This right here is Naruto Uzumaki, my longtime childhood friend. The poor lad has to wait until tomorrow before his own jonin sensei's test and was more than willing to join in and help us with ours."

Hayate looked less and less enthused as I went on with my contemptuous act. "You know, I have not technically passed you yet."

I cut my tirade short and returned to my normal speaking voice, "Okay so basically Naruto here learnt an alternate version of the Transformation Technique last year, and we workshopped it into something more usable."

"I call it the Sexy J—"

"Perfect Transformation," I quickly interjected. "We used Perfect Transformation to bait you into the line of fire, and the rest you already know."

Hayate gave us a long, hard look. I tried teasing out his emotional state from his aura, but he noted my scrutiny and squashed down his emotions.

"I didn't explicitly forbid outside help, so I suppose I have no choice but to pass you three," he finally said. "Count yourselves lucky that I disregarded your intentional injuries. We'll meet here and start our training tomorrow at eight o'clock sharp. Get your scrapes treated and rest up until then."

We all smiled wide and Akuma threw her arms around Yuu and me. "We did it!" she cheered, pulling us along. Before we got anywhere Hayate grabbed my unwounded shoulder. When did he get out of his bindings?

"Wait a moment. Satoya-san, Naruto-san, you two will need to come with me for a bit. There is something that must be discussed." he said. Upon seeing the others' distraught faces, he continued, "Don't worry, team five has definitely passed. This is about something else."

I gave Akuma a reassuring nod and then winked at Yuu when she turned around. "You should enjoy each other's company. I'll see you guys tomorrow."

Yuu didn't quite catch what I was winking for. He'd get there eventually.

"So, sensei… We heading to T&I?"

He didn't deign to respond and instead asked a question of his own. "How many people have you told about this new technique?"

Naruto and I shared a look. "We worked on it a bunch when training with the others," Naruto said.

Hayate's concern was palpable in his aura, though his expression remained blank.

"Nobody ever managed to follow our explanations," I added, hoping to soothe his frayed nerves.

Naruto smirked. "Even Sasuke couldn't copy it with his dumb eyes."

Hayate hummed. "And how many people know you're a sensor, Satoya?"

"Wha-Where'd that question come from?" I stammered.

"You made sure to fight in line of sight to me, and you also angled your face to show off a malicious grin," Hayate explained.

"Well, most of my friends know about it. The Hokage should know too. At least he's aware of my hypersensitivity."

Hayate furrowed his brows. "I'd have hoped the Hokage would be more forthcoming about my students' abilities," he mumbled. "For now, we need to get your shoulder treated. After that we can meet the Hokage."

The three of us fell into silence while Hayate led us up through Konoha's streets.

"Hayate-san, to what do I owe the pleasure?" Hiruzen asked with a pleasant smile.

"Team five completed their test with the help of Naruto," he responded, "Their fire burns bright like the morning sun."

Hiruzen's face went stiff. A tingling pulse arced out from his desk and along the room's walls.

"Truly?" Hiruzen asked, his emotions unreadable.

"I believe we have quite the discovery on our hands."

Hiruzen chewed on his pipe and looked me in the eyes. "What is this new Jutsu you've found?" he questioned. His eyes clearly signified he'd tolerate no deceit.

My throat suddenly felt very dry.

"Jiji, it's the coolest. Remember when Mizuki taught us that weird transformation? We made it way better!"

"Weird transformation?" Hiruzen asked. "Ah yes, of course; Shintai Kirikawaru no jutsu."

"The what? I just call it the Oiro—"

"Kanzen Henge no jutsu," I interrupted again.

Hiruzen's eyes twinkled. "Naming it a 'perfect' technique might be going a bit far, no? I am greatly interested to see what improvements you have made."

While I'd been rather hasty to name it that originally, at this point I could proudly proclaim the technique to have completed development. It was all thanks to the Shadow Clone.

And no, not just via some 'practice makes perfect' nonsense.

I started off by shaping a cross hand seal, pushing a vast amount of chakra through my primary tenketsu. Just like with shadow clones, I formed a branching duplicate network outside of my body. Unlike clones, however, I didn't sever my connection to this new network. Instead I allowed the resulting vacuum to suck the contorting branches back into my body, seamlessly merging the newly created pseudo-network into a larger supernetwork.

Hiruzen now faced a mirror image of himself, pipe and all. I took a long drag for effect only to violently cough.

Note to self, burning chakra constructs taste like molten plastic.

Hiruzen circled around the office to view my—or should I say his?—body from every angle. "A faithful visual recreation," he eventually announced, "However, texture, signature, and stability are what truly matter."

His second inspection was far more meticulous. The Hokage's eyes turned distant as I felt waves of chakra tingling over my skin. He ran his hands through the artificial garments and even pulled at my newly added beard.

The Hokage stroked his chin in deep thought. "I suppose you can keep this guise up longer than you used to?"

I closed my eyes, focusing on the tug at my stamina.

"By my estimate… about an hour," I said. "The closer to my original body, the better, and leaving out the clothes and pipe would increase the duration to multiple hours."

"How much force can it sustain without getting disrupted?" he asked.

"Anything less than killing me," I replied. "The effect does not break, even if I am wounded or in pain. Once transformed I no longer need to hold concentration."

"Are you willing to provide evidence of this claim?" he asked.

"Hokage-sama, I have witnessed Naruto and Satoya both sustain injuries without dropping the technique," Hayate said. "Additional bodily harm is unnecessary."

"I see. My apologies for doubting your statement," Hiruzen said. "It isn't every day that I come across a new A-rank technique, especially not one created by fresh academy graduates."

"A-rank!?" Naruto gaped.

A firm nod. "Indeed. An improvised henge can be discovered by a mere cursory inspection, and even a masterfully crafted cover identity is not foolproof. A technique that not only so vividly emulates tissue, but even exudes an entirely different chakra signature…"

His face lost its lustre. "This technique could cause immeasurable chaos," he said. "The information will not leave this room. Understood?"

"Yes sir," I quickly responded. "However, I must add that I doubt anyone but Naruto and myself could replicate the technique."

The Hokage glanced at Hayate, who shrugged, before looking back at me. "And why is that?"

"From what I can tell, this method of casting the transformation requires unusually large tenketsu," I explained. "None of our friends have been able to emulate it, and neither has Iruka-san."

He hummed. "It would certainly explain why Tobirama-san discarded development."

The Hokage followed it up by mimicking the hand signs and flushing the room with his chakra. I was at the edge of my metaphorical seat as I sensed his branching pathway collapsing back inwards. However, as I had hypothesised, his nodes were not permeable enough to allow the secondary stream back into his body.

The supernetwork sputtered and collapsed, winking out of existence a moment later.

"It seems we may not need to worry about the world devolving into chaos by the discovery of an improved infiltration technique just yet," he declared. "Though I would appreciate you two staying here to make absolutely sure."

The remaining afternoon was relegated to trying again and again to teach my own teacher how to use my—Naruto's—technique under the watchful gaze of a byakugan, courtesy of Hyuuga Ko. The session drove the final nail into the coffin. Very few people could ever hope to replicate the jutsu.

We arrived at home late that evening. I dusted off my shoes, and sank down into my sofa's cushy seats. "Man, I'm beat."

Naruto sat down next to me. "I hope our test won't be as intense as yours."

"To be fair it wasn't ever meant to be a combat exercise," I said. "We just sorta turned it into one to trick Hayate."

Naruto grimaced. "Kakashi said tomorrow will be bad enough we'd puke up any food we eat beforehand."

"What a load of bull," I responded. "I mean, that guy's a total troll. I'm sure he's just trying to mess with you."

I shifted to place my head on the armrest, closing my eyes for a short snooze.

"You really think he's messing with us?" Naruto asked. "I guess he did screw around when he walked into class."

I snorted. "Serves you right for having a chalk eraser drop on his head."

"Huh?"

I cracked my eyes open. "You know, that classic prank? Placing a chalk eraser on the door so when someone walks in it falls on them."

Heck, the first thing Kakashi canonically tells his team is he doesn't like them.

"Satoya, is your brain fried? I didn't prank my sensei," Naruto reiterated.

"What? Of course you…" I paused and thought for a moment, before lurching up. "You didn't prank him!"

"That's what I'm saying."

"No you don't get it. Kakashi was supposed to be late!" I stood up and paced around the kitchen muttering, "Kakashi is always late, right? I mean, he was on time today I guess, but wasn't he originally late?"

"Okay so you fried your brain again," Naruto concluded. "I'll make some tea."

That eraser prank definitely happened, right? Was that fanon? How socially competent was Kakashi? Was his introduction as lame as I remember? Shit, did Sasuke even like tomatoes?

"Naruto!" I snapped, making him flinch and almost drop a cup. "What did Kakashi tell you guys today?"

"Not much? We only talked for like fifteen minutes," he said, placing the mug on the table and reaching to touch my forehead.

I swatted his hand away. "This is important. What exactly did you four talk about?"

Naruto tried touching my forehead again and huffed when I dodged backwards. "I don't know, just personal stuff? He asked what kinds of things interested us and how we felt about each other and the team?"

Okay no that's not right. He was definitely supposed to say he likes some things, dislikes other things, and dreams for the future. Did stealing that format somehow rob Kakashi of the ability to use it? But their conversation happened before ours…

"Here, drink this," Naruto ordered. Somehow I'd wound up seated at the dining table. "And explain why you're so freaked out right now."

I tried coming up with a reasonable explanation. "I stalked him after I found out he saved my life and know that he's normally late to stuff," I blabbered.

How in the world was that the best I could come up with?

Naruto nodded in understanding.

And why did you believe that so easily?

"Guess he got better over the years?" Naruto shrugged. "Better for us that he's on time."

"But that's—" It's all wrong! I dropped my head in defeat. "Fine, doesn't matter. What did you guys say during the team talk?"

"Sasuke said that as long as we didn't annoy him he didn't care, and Sakura said as long as I didn't get between her and Sasuke she'd agree to work together. I just said that both of them should be happy to have the future Hokage on their team."

I facepalmed. "Naruto…"

"They started it! Kakashi just laughed it off anyway," Naruto grumbled. "He followed it up saying as long as we didn't annoy him too much, he might consider not sending us back to the academy."

I sighed. "Are you nervous about tomorrow at all?"

"Not really. I just wish… I don't know. Why couldn't I have ended up in a team with anyone else?"

I shrugged, "Isn't having a rival on your team good motivation? Just like Hashirama Senju and Uchiha Madara," I reasoned. "Sasuke's even an Uchiha, it's a match made in heaven."

Naruto shuddered. "Don't call it that, please."

"How hurtful," I said, covering my mouth in mock-affront. "And after you shared your first kiss? Truly scandalous."

"Ewww why'd you have to remind me," Naruto whined, sticking his tongue out in disgust.

I clapped his shoulder. "You'll be fine. Why don't we get started on dinner?"

Naruto's expression instantly brightened before souring again. "You sure I should ignore the no food advice?"

"Dinner should be fine. For breakfast I'll cook something easy on the stomach, so you definitely won't feel sick tomorrow even if it was a sincere warning."

I'd be damned if I let Naruto go through Kakashi's stupid test on an empty stomach.

As we made dinner, Naruto complained about how early they needed to show up tomorrow, making me question whether Kakashi actually meant for them to meet early or if that was one of the times he came late on purpose. For safety's sake I advised Naruto to come on time. Afterwards, our discussion veered back to our meeting with the Hokage about the 'sexy technique', which degraded into a debate on which name was better.

We finished dinner and our argument ended in a stalemate once again. "Perhaps we could settle this over a game of chess?"

"Never, ever again will I play that with you," Naruto deadpanned.

He then headed outside to train a bit more for his exam tomorrow, leaving me home alone, unsure what to do.

I stared from my overfilled bookshelf to my writing supplies. I'd read it all before and didn't feel like continuing my manga rendition of Lord of the Rings. I could just train some more, but I wasn't keen on fruitlessly perpetuating my Rasengan failures.

My arms still sting from that anyway. Maybe…

I summoned two clones. "Wanna try some Starcraft again?"

Satwoya rolled his eyes. "You're the one who summoned us, what do you think?"

"Ah hell, am I really the numbers guy?" Ibuthree groaned.

"We'll rotate, don't worry," I responded.

"Three games?" Satwoya asked. "We're gonna have such a bad headache tomorrow."

"Practice makes perfect," I said. "Think about how awesome this will be once we get used to it."

Satwoya sighed and Ibuthree patted his back. The three of us stepped into a triangular formation and brought our palms to each other's temples and flushed Yin chakra into our skulls. Once the link was fully established, there were two new desks with gaming PCs standing on opposite sides of my bed.

Satwoya and I each took a seat, with Ibuthree between us in a lotus pose. "Give me a minute to set things up," he said.

You might think it's a bit overboard to create a genjutsu specifically to emulate a computer, and you'd probably be right. Getting a two dimensional, non-realistic image to move was fairly simple. Getting it to move in response to user input took literal months.

Getting two different user inputs to function in tandem and influence one another?

The screens lit up. "Supply cap is set to thirty for now," Iburthree said. "Please don't spam click too much."

This literally took three people working together with one doing nothing but mathematical processing.

"What's the game speed?" Satwoya asked.

"0.1, as usual," he answered. "Build time is reduced to one fifth to compensate."

"At that rate we should just go back to turn-based mode," I grumbled.

"You're the one who said we should practise," Ibuthree replied. "Now shaddup, I need to concentrate."

The game began.