3- The Test
The team to be sits before Kakashi, all looking deflated, frustrated with the situation. "I should send you back to the academy, but I see potential here. I'll give you an hour to prepare, but I only brought two lunches, which go to Naruto and Sasuke since they did the best so far, even if you all missed the point here." Kakashi retreats to a hiding spot to watch. |Since the original motivator was nulled by Naruto, they'll have to try to get the bells again.|
As soon as Kakashi left, Naruto passed his lunch to Sakura, who eyes him with a mix of contempt and confusion. "What?" "Naruto! This better not be another attempt at a date!" Raising her fist Naruto backed up blurting out, "You haven't eaten yet, and if any of us are going to pass, we'll need to be at our best. I ate earlier so it's only right you get the lunch." Sakura pauses in her advance, "Thanks, I guess?" A brief silence falls over them as Sasuke and Sakura demolish their food, broken by Sakura. "What do you think he meant by us 'Missing the point?'." Naruto looks blankly at Sakura as Sasuke adds, "I think he started the test as soon as he told us to meet here, telling us to skip breakfast." Sakura catches on, "Do you think you were also meant to fight over the lunches as well as the bells, but part of his plan got messed up when he saw Naruto had eaten." Naruto, desperate to add something, goes with the first thing that comes to mind, "It's weird that he has us fighting over two spots, why not just make teams of two genin instead?" The blonde sweats as both his teammates turn to him, expecting to be called an idiot, Sasuke palms his face as Sakura becomes exaggeratedly depressed, in unison saying, "I can't believe we fell for that..." bringing a smile to their masked sensei.
"Round 2!" Kakashi exclaims as he flickers in between his currently huddled team causing them to split, Naruto performing his Leaf on the Breeze jutsu as he falls back before speeding back forward. "You don't learn do you?" as he gets ready to take care of his blonde student, he's forced to substitute to avoid the ninja wire provided by Sasuke's shuriken, surprised to hear Sakura call out his new location, immediately gathering Naruto's attention. Watching the cycle repeat itself, he is forced to substitute again to avoiding being ensnared by Sasuke, and his position called by Sakura. |I'll need to mute her to break this up. They do this enough time they'll have a ninja wire net to catch me anywhere.| Breaking off from Naruto, he makes to engage Sakura, only to be engaged by Sasuke. Pulling Sasuke into a tighter bind than their first, Kakashi feels the air next to his head pressurize, making both Sasuke and Kakashi substitute to watch the logs violently vibrate to Naruto's air popping technique, deducing it is a way to end his held jutsu early as he drops to the ground normally. Just as Kakashi turns to face Sakura, he finds her hand in his face with the seal of confrontation form, before being momentarily deafened. The real Sakura rushes past him from the shrubs tossing a bell to Sasuke, as the transformed clone pops.
Waiting nervously for Kakashi to get his bearings back, they watch as he settles into the grass, chuckling at manic intervals. Sitting up, smiling under his mask. "You pass." Expecting cheering, he's surprised as they just fall back in relief. "But did you get the point of the test?" "It's teamwork right?" Sakura asks. Kakashi moves to the stone monument, "Yes, those who break the rules are called scum, but those who abandon their comrades are worse than scum. That is what my best friend told me, whose name now sits here with the rest of my team's, Konoha's greatest heros..." Naruto, enraptured, "I want my name on that stone." "Those who gave their lives for Konoha." Kakashi finished, as Naruto blanches at his ill timed statement. "As of now we are Team 7, and I do not allow my comrades to die. My dream is to have you all outlast, and out pace me." Kakashi, feeling his weight lighten just a little as he holds his fist out to his official students.
-One Month Later-
"Is this how we outlast you Kakashi sensei? Babysitting and pet retrieval?" Naruto asks as they walk to the mission hall to deliver one Tora, who is currently giving Naruto a beyond healthy blood-letting as they walk. Walking into the room with the Hokage and Iruka who has been handing out missions for the past week, Naruto rubs a welt courtesy of Sakura, as a plump noble woman snatches the terrified Tora from Naruto, squeezing him half to death. |Ha! Serves him right.| As the woman pays the accountants the Hokage muses, "So what next for you? We have several more requests for babysitters, some weed pulling, or perhaps trash collection?" "NO! Thank you, but we're ready for a REAL mission!" Naruto, unable to contain himself, prepared himself to being cracked beside the head, this time by Kakashi. |About time.| Kakashi and Hiruzen aligned in thought.
Iruka, chiding Naruto immediately as if instinct, "Idiot! You all have just left the academy, you are not ready to leave the village!" As he goes to continue, he is stopped by the Hokage's indistinct chuckles, Kakashi's lack of reinforcement, and oddly the potent pointed look Naruto has plastered on. "I'm not the little prankster looking for attention now, I'm a Ninja of Konoha. It feels like an insult to be used as one." This caught all his seniors, and teammates off guard. Hiruzen gives contemplation to Naruto's words, then looks to Kakashi who answers, "Throw them at a C rank mission outside the village, it'll give me a break from the complaints." Looking at the fresh genin, Iruka opens his mouth only to immediately snap it shut at the look from Kakashi and the Hokage ordering that the client be brought up, then doing is best to stifle his laughter at Naruto's visibly deflating fantasies of daimiyos and princesses as the belching drunk worker enters the room.
"Whats this? I pay good money and you give me children?! I mean, look at the short one, what can he even d-..." The worker just coming out of his middling years stunned out of his sentence as Kakashi's hand brushed his nose, whilst holding Naruto's fist. "It's bad form to assault our clients Naruto." Kakashi chides jovially, "I assure you these three can handle what petty thugs come for you, and what they can't I can." "Alright then, well then I'm Tazuna, a bridge builder in the Land of Waves, and I need protection while I finish my bridge." Shaken by the speed of both student and teacher, doesn't notice his cracked sake bottle leaking its content to the floor until he attempts to drain it. "We'll leave tomorrow morning, around seven. Make sure you're packed appropriately. Dismissed." "Naruto, a word before you leave?" Hiruzen calls out before Naruto can dash out, leaving the others to look at him confused as they leave. "What is it gramps?"
The Hokage makes a show of rummaging in his robes before pulling a small scroll and a larger one and placing them before the energetic blonde. "I would like you to have these, one is a wind jutsu, the other is blank. I would like you to record the jutsu you have created." "But they're mine, why should I write them down for someone else to use?" "I said nothing of sharing them with anyone, except maybe myself and your sensei. Writing a jutsu down in a instructive manner can help you work out flaws in the jutsu, or in others you might try to create. I have given you a jutsu as an example." "Will either of you share it once I show you?" "No, I share many secrets of the clans here, as does Kakashi, but neither of us will ever divulge them, your secrets are no different." Naruto looks to the smaller scroll, labeled 'Wind Release: Wind Bullets', "Thanks Old Man, I'll be sure to practice this!". "I look forward to see what you do next."
The next morning a party of six strolls down a road away from Konoha, Sakura chatting idly between Tazuna and a silent Sasuke, Kakashi leading the group trailed by two Naruto's hauling heavy packs down the road, one holding a scroll open while the other steers him straight as he reads, oblivious to the glances of his teammates. Eye ahead, Kakashi takes notice of a lone puddle on a clear dry day. |This should be interesting, ninja. Lets see who you are.| Leading the group past the puddle, Kakashi feigns an opening and is pleased to see chains in his view before substituting and falling in to a hidden position to observe. The jonin watches as Sakura puts herself in front of their client, and Sasuke moves to intercept the Mist ninja coming their way. The other had dispelled the shadow clone kicking a stunned Naruto into gear, putting distance between himself and the rogue chunin.
Naruto, relieved that he was able to distance himself, sheds the pack after forming the handseals for his jutsu without realizing it, and dashing forward then over his opponent, catching sight of Sasuke already driving his on the backfoot with a kick to the head. Not to be shown up, Naruto creates three clones as he flips over the heavily shrouded ninja turning to engage him. Waiting for him to take the first step to close the distance, Naruto reverses his direction nailing him in the back of the head as one clone sweeps his feet out next to fall into the knee of the second clone. The thir clone drops on top of the prone ninja pinning him to the road with a hand ready to deafen him. Turning back to see how Sasuke is doing to find Sakura fawning over him as he finishes tieing up his foe. Before he can begin to stew over this he feels a hand clasp his shoulder, and Kakashi's voice in his ear, "Don't get distracted Naruto." looking back in relief as Kakashi has his foot on a now broken senbon spitter hidden on the clawed gauntlet. |The Demon Brothers, Gozu and Meizu, seemed intent on turning our client into pig feed. Naruto was a tad slow, but the shadow clone dispelling shook him out of it. Sakura went by the books while Sasuke took initiative, I guess we could move to the next lesson.|
Tazuna, relieved that his primary protector is safe quickly gives way to indignance. "You claim to be 'elite' but you leave the work for the kiddos! I'm-" "Lying on your forms?" Kakashi supplies as his interruption sets the tone. "Care to explain why two rogue ninja are after your head?" Looking at Kakashi, he swallows his next argument at the jonin's hard half stare, "Gato has put a price on my head to prevent the bridge from being built. It would destroy his hold on my country." "The shipping magnate? shouldn't your Daimiyo be financing this instead of the worker? This should be B rank at least, but likely A rank given they sent two chunin first." "Gato has squeezed us all into poverty, this is what he could afford to give. It's okay to leave me to my fate, I lied. My cute grandson and beautiful daughter will hate Konoha for the rest of their likely short lives when I die on the road." Finished with his guilt trip he turns and begins to make his way painfully slow down the road. Kakashi turns to his team, silently waiting for opinions which did not wait long to be heard. "We can't leave him here! It'd feel wrong, and we handled ourselves fine." Naruto states with a sense of finality to his voice, before being embarrassed by the next "You froze scaredy cat, but we should continue, we've just started." At Sasuke's words Sakura brightens and adds "We've got this!" Tying the brothers to a tree, Kakashi states "We should leave him, this mission is beyond genin, but far be it from me to squash a rare agreement in the team, we'll continue." Tazuna barely eight feet from the group sprints back and expresses his deepest gratitude until stopped.
After leaving the tied assassins on the road side for detainment in Konoha, the group gather itself and continues it journey, more alert than the start as they pass the well beaten path. Naruto has taken to walking with two clones, while he concentrates on holding his jutsu for as long as possible while they keep double his watch. |I should tell him to stop and conserve some energy, but I haven't seen him reach close to exhaustion. This may be a benefit if he can do it on demand without need for hand seals.| Kakashi's attention is drawn to a nearby shrub just before a kunai sails into it courtesy of Naruto, followed by him stomping over to reveal a frightened white rabbit. "Naruto, what did you do that for, you scared us and the poor bunny, for no reason?!" |A white rabbit in summer!?| "DOWN!" As everyone hits the ground, Sakura looks forward mid rant only to be pushed over by the clone she was ranting at as a huge blade bisects it before embedding into a tree behind the group, followed by a cruel chuckle as their new assailant lands on the oversized cleaver. "Good instincts, for corpses."