I really enjoyed writing this chapter and I hope you enjoy reading it. Nothing else to say, so let's get on with it.
Getting to the training grounds was fairly simple and straight forward, as nothing of any particular interest occurred during the ten minutes it took him to reach them. Figuring that his clones would be at training ground three, as that what the one he was most familiar with ended up being a correct assumption as when he arrived he saw a bunch of clones of himself practicing various jutsu as well as chakra control with leaves sticking to some of them as they either sat still or were attempting to walk up some of the trees.
The clones practicing various jutsu had spaced themselves out further away from the rest, as well as each other probably so as to not accidentally destroy one another. All in all, it was a fairly simple, yet useful way of training that the blond knew wouldn't be possible for most other shinobi, least of all to the extent that he was doing it to already. It wouldn't be long before he could use even more clones for training as he knew that the amount of clones he could create would only increase. With that in mind, he decided to start off on his physical training, or working out as it's more commonly referred as, since only the original could do that part of the training.
Before starting his workout, he dispelled all of the clones and made new ones. The amount was about one hundred and he was quite surprised at the lack of feedback or mental fatigue, that he thought he would receive upon his dispelling of the clones. Shrugging, he figured that it was a good thing and thinking about why would just be looking a gift horse in the mouth. Deciding not to waste any time on that, he sat down and filtered through his newly acquired memories for about five minutes. What he found was kind of a surprise, as he found that his clones had already learned how to perform the body flicker, as well as the fireball jutsu and were already starting on other jutsu such as the hidden mist jutsu and the mud wall jutsu.
Noting that the jutsu all seemed fairly similar in difficulty, he decided that getting his clones to further practice using the jutsu they had learned to get closer to actually mastering them, would be the best course of action. Dividing the clones into a couple of groups, they then spread out across the training ground and got to work. He himself got to work on the physical aspect of training as well.
One and a half hour later, found Naruto sweating a little but otherwise not exhausted at all.
'I should probably get some training weights or something. Maybe I should try my hand at fuinjutsu, so I won't have to purchase them.' With that thought, he left his clones at the training ground with orders to dispel at around 4 am and to not leave a mess of the training ground, while he made his way to Ichiraku's. The way there was as uneventful as he expected it to be and he soon himself walking inside the stand and sitting down.
"Hey old man, give me two bowls of miso ramen!" He exclaimed in an excited manner.
"Coming right up, Naruto." Teuchi said as he made his way further into the stand to prepare the two bowls of noodles.
"So Naruto, you graduated right? Who are you on a team with?" Ayame asked, seeing that no other costumers were there at the moment, leaving her with a little free time and in her own opinion, a well-deserved break that she could use to talk with her favorite costumer.
"Yeah, I did. I'm on a team with Sasuke Uchiha and Sakura Haruno. Could be better, could be worse so I'm not gonna complain too much." Naruto said while waiting on his order of ramen.
"Well are you at least happy about your new sensei?" She then asked, noticing that the blond didn't seem to care much about his teammates.
"He's alright. He is one of the strongest Jonin in the village, but he's also really lazy. If I can get him to actually teach me anything, then I won't complain. Though it is pretty fun pressing his buttons." He explained, grinning smugly at the end.
"Oh that's good to hear, I think. Anyway, here's your order. Please enjoy." She said, mildly concerned for the blond's teacher, but not caring enough about the man to further ask about it.
Devouring his food as he usually did, it didn't take long for him to be done with his meal. He put the money on the counter as he was saying goodbye to the father and daughter, before making his way home to take a shower and go to sleep.
The way home was uneventful and it wasn't long before he was home, clean and ready to fall asleep. Not seeing a reason to postpone his precious beauty-sleep any further, he laid down and fell asleep within ten minutes.
Waking up at 7:30 left him enough time to eat breakfast and still be at training ground 3 long before his sensei would arrive. He didn't need to rush, so he took his sweet time with everything up until arriving at the training ground where he found Sasuke and Sakura waiting on their sensei.
"Naruto-baka! You're late." Sakura screeched at the blond.
"Has Kakashi-sensei arrived yet? No, well then I'm not late." He said matter-of-factly, effectively shutting the pink banshee up for a while.
Not seeing much else to do, he started on a mild workout as a warm-up for what Kakashi would have them do in an hour or so. Interestingly, Sasuke also chose to start warming up, seemingly having not thought of the idea himself. Sakura just sat in the shade of a tree, seemingly not interested in training in the least, while obviously staring at Sasuke with an almost hungry look on her face. Yes, it was very creepy. No, she is not entirely right in the head.
After about twenty minutes of light exercise for the two boys and twenty minutes of stalking from the creepy fan girl, Kakashi finally decided to show up. All three Genin noticing the presence of their sensei, stopped what they were doing and gathered in front of him, Kakashi seemingly waiting for them to do so.
"Alright you three, I'll tell you about the test. See these two bells?" He said as he held them up.
"You're going to be trying to get these. As you might have noticed, there are only two of them, which means that whoever doesn't get a bell, will be sent back to the academy." He finished explaining.
"Now I'll set a timer to ring at noon, meaning you have what amounts to about two hours to get a bell. Any questions?" He asked, with none of the Genin speaking up.
"No? Alright then. Three, two, one, begin!" He counted down before jumping back while saying the last word.
All three Genin disappeared into the trees and brush surrounding them, with Naruto following after Sasuke and coincidentally Sakura doing the same.
"Why are you both following me!?" Sasuke whisper-yelled at the blond and the pinkette. Sakura didn't say anything, which was probably for the best.
"I think I know how to beat the test. You guys remember what I told you yesterday about teamwork being very important to Kakashi? I think this test is designed to split us up, ruining our chances for success. Neither of you can't possibly think that you can take on a Jonin and have you ever seen a Genin cell with only two Genin? No you haven't because there is no such thing in Konoha. I propose that we team up and if it works, you two can have the bells if it makes you happy." Naruto explained with a shrug.
Sakura was about to yell at Naruto for 'thinking he's smarter than Sasuke-kun,' but didn't get to do that as Sasuke surprisingly agreed to the plan.
"I hate to admit it, but I think you're right, Dobe." Sasuke said, smirking at Naruto.
"Get used to it, Duck butt." Naruto said smirking back.
"Alright listen up, I have a plan…" Naruto whispered to the two other Genin.
Kakashi had assumed that at least one of the three Genin hopefuls would have attacked him on their own within the first ten minutes of the test. When that didn't happen after about an hour and a half of waiting, he decided to go around looking for them while getting in some reading, because he could and would do both simultaneously.
The training grounds were rather peaceful, if not rather uneventful at this time of year. Normally he would have stopped to admire the nice and comforting atmosphere, but right now was not the time for indulgence, it was the time for teaching the kids a valuable lesson. Yes, beating all three to a pulp and then failing them for not grasping the real meaning of his confusing test, was a valuable lesson indeed.
His musings about who would be tied to the stump ended abruptly, as he was suddenly approached by all three of the Genin at the same time. Deciding to put his book away to enable the usage of both of his hands, he got ready for whatever the three would try and pull.
The first to approach was Sasuke who came from the front, with Naruto and Sakura coming in from the left and right, respectively. What came next was a little unexpected as Sasuke abruptly stopped in front of him, ending his hand seals and launching a fireball straight at him. Jumping to the side, Kakashi was met with Sakura throwing kunai at him. Ducking and weaving in between all but two of them, he grabbed one of the two remaining kunai out of the air and used it to deflect the last one.
Throwing the last one towards Sasuke, not aiming for a vital spot of course, he looked around looking for Naruto. When he didn't see him, he narrowed his eye and looked around. Finally seeing him somehow behind Sasuke, what came next greatly shocked him. In his hands was one of the most valuable things in existence.
Naruto had somehow managed to swipe Kakashi's Icha Icha and was now holding it in front of Sasuke as the Uchiha was readying another fireball jutsu.
"Give us the bells and we won't burn your precious porn, Sensei." Kakashi said with a serious look.
Not seeing any other way of regaining one of his most valuable possessions, his favorite of the series nonetheless, he threw the bells to Naruto. Naruto caught them with one hand and threw the book back to Kakashi with the other hand. Giving Sasuke and Sakura each one of the bells.
'RIIIIIIIING' It came from the little timer that Kakashi had set earlier.
"And that's that. I guess we pass now, eh Sensei?" Kakashi asked with a smug grin.
"Well, Sasuke ad Sakura do. You though, will be tied to a stump while you watch your teammates eat lunch." Kakashi said with an eye smile.
Soon Naruto was tied to the middle of the three stumps on the training ground while Sasuke and Sakura were given each a box of bento. Kakashi had told them not to share after telling them the truth behind the test, leaving shortly after.
"Sasuke, Sakura, I'm not really that hungry since I ignored Sensei's advice and ate breakfast, but I'm pretty sure that this is another test. To see if we'll do what he says again, or if we'll stick by each other as a team. Now I don't particularly like either of you and you don't like me, but this is probably our only chance of passing." Naruto explained with a serious look and with no hint of deceit in his voice.
"Are you stupid? Why would we help you? Kakashi-sensei already said that Sasuke-kun and I passed the test. Are you trying to ruin it for us Naruto-baka!?" Sakura screeched.
"You were right about the test, regardless of how absurd that is. I'm willing to bank on you being right again, since you seem to know an awful lot about Kakashi, Dobe." Sasuke said, only slightly hesitating.
With that, he took a rice ball from the bento and fed it to Naruto. Immediately after, Kakashi appeared in between the three of them in a puff of smoke. The sky darkened and he was looming over them.
"Why did you feed Naruto when I told you specifically not to do that?" Kakashi asked in a commanding tone.
"Were a team aren't we? We'll take whatever punishment you'll give us as such." Sasuke said, with obviously fake bravado.
"Does that go for all of you?" Kakashi asked, looking to first Naruto and then to Sakura.
"Yes Sensei." "Oh for fuck's sake, yes dammit!" Sakura and Naruto said simultaneously.
"YOU THREE… pass." Kakashi first yelled, then eye smiled.
"As of today, you three are Genin under me as your Jonin sensei. We are now team seven." Kakashi said, sounding proud.
With that said, he cut the ropes used to tie up the blond and led his students to a weirdly shaped stone on the outskirts of the training ground.
"Do any of you know what that stone is?" Kakashi asked, ready to explain in case none of them knew what it resembled.
"It's a memorial stone. It has the name of all the Konoha ninja that got killed in action." The Jinchuriki said, with an indifferent expression.
"Yes, that's right Naruto. It has the names of my closest friends and my sensei on it." Kakashi said with a somber look.
"Well, we'll meet on this training ground every day except Sunday at 8 am. from tomorrow and onwards." Kakashi said. He left in a puff of smoke immediately.
"Well this has been fun, see ya tomorrow Duck butt, Fan girl." Naruto said as he too disappeared in a puff of smoke.
"How the hell does that baka know the body flicker jutsu?" Sakura asked with surprise.
"Hn." The Uchiha intelligently said, as he turned around and started leaving as well.
"Hey, Sasuke-kuuuun. Wait up! Let's go on a date." Sakura screeched like the fan girl she is.
Appearing in a different and unoccupied training ground, Naruto made an absurd amount of shadow clones that got to work with his training, with him as the original doing a bunch of physial exercising. Remembering his idea to start learning fuinjutsu, he made a clone go to the library for some books or scrolls to learn from.
After about two hours of breaking his body and rebuilding it, with Kurama's chakra quickly healing him, he decided to have a couple clones read the scrolls and books he now had on fuinjutsu. With his clones grinding his already existing skills and also learning new one's as well, the blond quickly realized that he didn't have much to do. Deciding on taking a walk and maybe visiting the Hokage, he set out at a slow and lazy pace.
Walking through Konoha was generally a nice experience, for everyone except the jinchuriki. As the village periah, it was a little difficult to enjoy the village, when ninete percent of it's inhabitans either mildly diskliked him, to passionately hating him. Well, they hated the biju sealed in him, not him specifically. That didn't stop a lot of them from taking it out on him anyway.
He knew that it was common for civilians to know very little if anything at all, about any shinobi related topics, but he still found it somewhat irritating to not even be able to mingle with the people he saved on a daily basis. Knowing that most of the civilians were simply misguided, he didn't do or say anything to them, but the few that tried being violent would come to regret it.
Had he not been a shinobi, he wouldn't do anything to the civilians, regardless of what they did to him. He wouldn't have been able to, knowing what would most likely happen to him if he did. Now it was different, as before he was a civilian himself and thus had to follow the same rules and laws that they did. He was a shinobi working under the Hokage now, so the rules were a little different. Now he would have more responsibility, but also more trust to his words. If he defended himself against a couple drunk civilians and explained himself honestly, he wouldn't be punished like he would have before.
Knowing this, he was fully prepared for the four drunk men, stumbling out of a bar on the other side of the empty street. It was only slightly past 5 pm, so most people would be at home after either a day of school or work. It came of no surprise to the blond that some would go to the bar and drink before going home, but it was still a little surprising to him, when they yelled at him to 'disappear' and 'just die already.'
Didn't they see his headband? Or were they possibly too drunk or stupid, maybe even a combination of both, to know that he was a shinobi now? They certainly didn't seem to care at least, when they walked up to him, most likely to do something very dumb.
He was correct in his assumptions, when the closest of the four threw an empty bottle at him, which he easily sidestepped. All four of them soon tried to attack him together, stupidly assuming that it would be easy because of his age and size. If they had noticed the headband, they would have known that he could easily kill them all in a second or two. Of course he would only knock them out, since he still had to be responsible, but he would have his fun anyway.
"Aren't you four out past your bedtimes?" He asked cheekily as he continuously ducked, stepped and otherwise evaded their futile attempts at attacking him.
"Why you little… Come on boys, let's show the demon brat what we think of him." The one that threw the bottle and seemingly the one in charge, said.
It didn't take long for Naruto to get bored of avoiding their attacks. It was like four little five-year old's trying to beat up an adult man. Having had enough, the blond swiftly knocked all four of the out, by blitzing them and using his hand to give them a chop in the neck. It only took about three seconds, for the four drunks to be knocked out, now sprawled across the street.
Two anbu showed up and picked up the unconscious drunkards, both of them having witnessed it all. One of the anbu nodded at Naruto before disappearing with a body flicker, while the other stayed back to let the blond know that it would be reported to the Hokage that the blond was simply acting in self-defense. Having said that, the second anbu also left the scene.
Thinking it best to go home to avoid further conflict, he too disappeared in a body flicker, seemingly not knowing that someone had been watching him since only a couple minutes after he had left the training grounds.
When the blond reappeared before his front door, he thought it a little curious that the chakra signature that had been shadowing him, hadn't acted neither for, nor against him during his little scuffle. Deciding that it was probably not something to worry about, since the signature had only been around Genin level, he shrugged and went into his apartment to eat dinner, shower and go to sleep.
The next following week had been boring as all hell to say the least. Team seven had been doing at least 3 D-rank missions every day for a week straight, with Sunday being their only day off. Every time they were done with their missions, Kakashi would have them spar with each other, where he would give a couple pointers and tips, but otherwise not teach them anything.
Having had enough, Naruto had decided to go to the Hokage after their most recent day of D-ranks and training. Walking through the doors, he was greeted with the sight of the secretary looking as bored as she usually did. Waving and saying that he wanted to speak to the Hokage, he was sent up to the village leader, as he wasn't in a meeting and thus could make time for him. Not caring about manners in the slightest, he pushed open the doors and walked straight in without knocking.
"Yo, old man. I need to speak with you, it's important." The blond said, as he let himself fall down in the chair in front of the old leader.
"Naruto my boy, how have you been? What do you need?" The Hokage asked.
"I'll get straight to the point, no sugarcoating. Kakashi is being a lousy teacher, only having us spar and giving us some tips. That's it, literally nothing else." Naruto said, obviously disappointed in the laziness of his teacher.
"What! That is not acceptable. I'll speak to him about it, don't worry Naruto." The old Hokage said with a grandfatherly smile at the end.
"Thanks old man, I can always count on you." Naruto said with a grin.
"Now I'm afraid you must leave, Naruto. I have an important meeting with a certain lazy teacher, I'm sure you understand." The Hokage said.
"No worries, thanks again old man, I'll see you later." The blond said, as he leapt out of the window.
'Just like Jiraiya. I just hope he doesn't pick up his more perverted traits too.' The Hokage thought with a smile.
"ANBU!" The old man said in a commanding voice. Immediately an anbu was kneeling before him.
"Let Kakashi know that I wish to speak to him immediately." The Hokage ordered.
"Yes sir." The anbu said, before vanishing in a puff of smoke.
It wasn't long before the Hokage heard a knock on his door.
"Enter." The old man said, before the door opened and revealed who was on the other side.
"You called for me, Hokage-sama?" Kakashi said.
"Yes, sit down Kakashi." The Hokage said sternly. Kakashi, noticing the not-so-pleasant mood of the village leader, sat down and kept quiet, waiting for Hiruzen to explain why he wanted him here.
"I have been informed that you aren't taking your students' training seriously, Kakashi. Explain yourself." The old man said, clearly not very happy at the moment.
"I have been training them in taijutsu, as well as teaching them to work in a team with D-ranked missions." Kakashi said.
"Now that's all well and good, if it wasn't for the fact that those are only two facets of shinobi skills. What about everything else, like ninjutsu, genjutsu, medical ninjutsu, fuinjutsu, kenjutsu, bukijutsu, need I mention more? I can go on if you want me to." The Hokage said, visibly getting agitated at this point.
"No Hokage-sama, I understand and I'll do better from now on. I'm sorry." Kakashi said while looking like a kid getting scolded by their parent.
"I expect you to, but if I find out that you have been continuing to slack off after this meeting, you will be tasked with doing only D-ranked missions for a year without any assistance, as well as a personal ass whooping from me. Is that understood?" The Hokage asked with a sinister smile, while emitting all of his killing intent.
"Y-Yes Hokage-sama." Kakashi managed to stutter out through the thick pressure in the room.
"Now get the hell out of my office." The Hokage said with authority. Kakashi immediately vanished in a puff of smoke, the only thing indicating that he was ever there, was the pool of urine left on the floor.
"ANBU! Clean this mess up off the floor." Hiruzen said, as he got up off his chair, to take a well-deserved break.
Kakashi would never neglect the training of his students ever again, or he would suffer the consequences.
I hope you enjoyed the last scene, as that was definitely my favorite one to write so far. Let me know what you thought of this chapter, or tell me if there's something I could do better in a review.
Also, I don't have any ideas on pairings as of now, but I'll see what the most popular suggestions are and maybe make a poll. I'm not really worried about that at the moment, I'll just cross that hurdle when we get to it later down the road.
Constructive criticism, ideas or any other similar input is greatly appreciated.
I was very positively surprised at the amount of positive feedback I got, so thanks for that.
Until next time, see ya.
-Donateio out.