Once Naruto awoke, he looked around and felt tied down, hungry, and a little dirty. Once he saw his teammates, who had food, weren't tied down, and weren't as roughed up as he was- he realized what'd happened.

"So… he got me, huh?" Naruto asked, grinning awkwardly.

"Of course he got you, dobe," Sasuke teased, " as if anyone else but you could be enough of a loser to get caught by a closet-pervert," he finished, feigning a distaste for the blonde.

Sakura caught on, and continued the facade by berating the blonde aswell. It was after this that Sasuke and Sakura began siphoning their meals into condensed portions and discretely gave their food to the boy, to which Naruto silently accepted. As he finished eating, the students noticed the sky was black and there was lightning everywhere, flinching in unison, and the other two freed the blonde before assuming a basic three-way stance, preparing to defend against any ambushers. They were all equally bewildered when they noticed that it was their sensei, and even more confused when he happily announced that they'd passed.

"You see, you three passed for a plethora of reasons. One: You had decent teamwork in the exercise. Two: you fed Naruto when he was tied down. Three: You all made a simple plan, silently which- four: included stealth and deception. Five: you all assumed a battle position quickly when your surroundings were altered. I'd say you're some pretty good genin already," Kakashi eye-smiled, something the trio found endlessly offputting no matter how often he did it.

Elsewhere, Lu was focusing on the exercises Anko had provided to him, honing his chakra control little by little in the very same clearing he'd sparred with Naruto and Sasuke in. By this point, he could hold and control three bubbles the size of a person's head and within a meter of range surrounding himself easily. It seemed like the bubbles were similar to chakra puppets because they could be controlled with thin lines of chakra to direct them if needed. What this meant for Lu was that he could further improve his control of the bubbles with planning, but it doubled as a facade as the chakra streams aren't needed and don't result in the destruction of the justu of destroyed. After about an hour of coming up with strategies, he walked to the village's mission board and saw a C-rank mission for taking out a bandit camp between fire and rice country. He took the mission, and within three hours, spotted a bandit camp in a clearing around the location he was given. As Lu silently descended onto the grass, he built chakra up for creating the bubble style: creation jutsu and approached a bandit.

"I'd hate to kill you," he said, covering his mouth and placing a weak seal on his throat, using chakra to silence him. Taking the man hostage, he got a good distance away from the camp and peacefully began interrogating him and learned these men were under orders from a man named "Gato" in wave country to extract materials from rice country to continue his empire in wave country. What Lu found interesting is that wave country wasn't too far, so the man's story did add up. After finishing his interrogation, he knocked the man out and went back to the camp and waited until sundown to take all of their materials, siphon their chakra, thus their energy, and take their weapons. After this, Lu got a messenger raven with a scroll to request for a recon group to get all those materials and ship them to the nearest village in rice country. After this, he tied them all up and requested for a genin squad's assistance the very next day. After the night had passed, he waited for the genin squad to arrive, and once they did, they all took the bandits back to the village to get them arrested on accounts of theivery, and the genin and Lu got their pay of 10,000 ryo each.

"That wasn't so bad, but the intel I got is a bit more important than the mission I just had," he sighed, making a trip to the hokage's office. Once he got there, he checked in with the secretary and waited for Hiruzen to call for the boy, and he entered the room.

"Hokage-sama, if I may, I have intel regarding those bandits," Lu announced, waiting for the old man's response.

"And that intel is…?" Hiruzen inquired, waiting for the boy to respond.

"It seems as though those bandits work for Gato in wave country- and that same man is holding a monopoly over those people. I see this as valuable information because if I recall- that same man employed the demon of the mist… Zabuza Momochi," Lu began,"meaning-"
"Any mission regarding wave country should be treated as an A-S rank mission, am I right? Now that seems to be a problem because we just got a mission request for a genin squad to protect a bridge builder from "bandits" in wave country," Hiruzen concluded, nodding and taking a puff out of his smoking pipe before thanking the boy for his information and sending him away.

'It didn't seem like the hokage was too worried about that information, as if he already knew? I wonder if any genin squads will take that mission," Lu thought as he ran through the village, looking for Naruto and Sasuke to inform them of the information he just gave to the hokage. After a few hours, he found the two discussing how they wanted better missions after merely a day of D ranks in a nearby ramen stall named "Ichiraku's Ramen Shop".

"Yo- what's up?" he greeted.

"Sup," Sasuke responded.

"What's up?" Naruto greeted.

The boys talked about their days between eachother, but when Lu shared the information about the Gato situation, Sasuke and Naruto decided if the mission came up they'll take it, but to do so, they'd need training. Lu decided there was no convincing them and went home.

"Hey, dobe, how exactly will we deal with a man in mist created from a justu?" Sasuke asked as they were walking to their homes.

"Obviously a sharringan won't work,not that you have a pair anyway,"he paused, smirking at the noticeable eye twitch of the Uchiha, "... what if we use a wind justu to create a clearing, or maybe use your fireball jutsu in tandem with something to increase its potency like- oh wait, a wind jutsu, " Naruto suggested, causing Sasuke to squint his eyes at the blonde for the second time, skeptical of his sudden genius.

"That'd be a great idea, but as far as I know I only can use lightning and fire jutsu at their maximum potency because of my amplitude for them," the noirette replied, still acknowledging the idea created.

"I wouldn't have just offered an idea without knowing that, I'm not that dumb, Sasuke. I have the wind chakra nature as well as the water nature. I think a couple of jutsu combinations can be useful for Zabuza, but there's the threat of fighting any support he may have and the skill of the man himself. Our best bet is to support Kakashi sensei and we need to bring Sakura up to speed," Naruto added.

"And as for the jutsu?" Sasuke asked.

"Maybe a wind bullet of some kind in tandem with your phoenix flower jutsu," he offered before realizing two glaring issues with his plan, which Sasuke intensified by glaring at the blonde.

"Listen, Naruto, we can finish this later and it's only been a day since we've become genin and its late," the noirrete began, referencing the now dimming sky as sunset began," at the bare minimum, we should at least wait two weeks before even going out for a mission of that nature, let alone we haven't even gotten the request. Have you considered that maybe we won't be the team chosen for the job in the first place? Lu did say the mission would have to be an A-S rank mission at the bare minimum based on Zabuza's involvement in the mission," he surmised, watching as the blonde deflated again. "Look, I get that you're excited to finally be a ninja, but our lives are on the line here. We should at least train to be able to deal with the situation and we don't even know the full capabilities of such a shinobi," Sasuke added, with a noticeable implication of training with the energetic teen that caused a near cartoonish resurgence of energy in the blonde, and as they parted ways, reduced to a stride of confidence as Naruto walked back home and finally went to sleep.

In Lu's room he began thinking of ways he could improve as a shinobi, especially his taijustu and his finesse in using the bubble style: creation technique in order to use it similar to the hyuga clan does their fabled gentle fist, a taijtustu style that uses chakra imbued strikes and targets an opponent's pressure points and charka system, thus disabling them similar to how a mantis would dismantle a wasp, negating the functionality of their limbs and ability to mold chakra. Lu theorized that if he could apply his chakra sapping bubbles to his strikes, he could ignore the range limitation and drain an opponent's energy similar to how the aburame clan would with their kikaichu, which are parasitic insects that sap chakra and in some cases, eat the flesh of enemies, thus weakening their opponent significantly.

A passing thought he had while pondering was 'Maybe if I work with genin squads that specialize in these jutsu and taijtusu alone, I could develop my own set of techniques, while also working with Naruto and Sasuke to learn other jutsu on the side and keep them up to speed when I progress so that we could be around the same level constantly,' which he accepted as a good idea and began doing research on each genin squad at the library, gradually falling asleep studying late.

Author's note : Yeah I'm sorry for that 5 month hiatus I took. It's annoying, I know. I'm not gonna promise consistency but I will at least try to produce more chapters within the next few weeks because I have my hands completely free.
Also, if you have any suggestions about characters and ideas, offer them in your reviews
NO, Lu is not related to kakashi, I saw this in a reveiw months ago and forgot to adresss it clearly, but Lu Awakatsu is an orphaned child from kumo. He has brown skin, yellow eyes, and white, curly hair. I'm sorry for any confusion.