Chapter 2: Team Seven

"This is so boring, " Sakura groaned, flopping forward onto her desk. She was itching to get out of the red dress-like attire she'd been wearing as part of what they called their "Academy Personas". She could more around well enough, but she hated anything resembling a dress, and she wanted something that looked and felt less impractical.

Sasuke ignored her and Naruto didn't hear her. He was by the window with his nose stuck in a book- which book, she didn't know, as he had a black book cover on the binding.

"Naruto, " she sing-songed, leaning over him. "Can you prank our sensei?"

At the word 'prank' , he looked up, a gleam entering his eyes. "Level?" he asked.

"Two to Three-ish," Sakura said, and Sasuke winced.

Naruto leapt over the desk with a grin that reminded them of a crocodile. He took a scroll from somewhere within the baggy orange jacket he was wearing (and would hopefully get rid of, now that they'd graduated) and went over to Iruka's desk, grabbing something off the board and muttering under his breath.

Sasuke and Sakura watched him in silence, still as statues but following him with their eyes as he pulled a stool over to the door to stand on. He placed a board eraser on the doorjamb, retreating to his seat with a grin on his face.

Sakura eyed the eraser. It looked like any of the others in the room, but knowing Naruto, he'd done something sinister to it. Sitting down, she waited for their teacher with a gleeful expression.

After several more long minutes, the door swung open, a smiling (she assumed so, at least, because he wore a mask but his eyes were upside down U-shapes) face appearing in the gap. "Hello, y-" the jounin started, only to be interrupted by the eraser clanking onto his head. A white dust cloud exploded.

Dead silence. Team Seven stared at him, unimpressed.

Is he that incompetent? Sasuke thought incredulously.

…is he stupid? Sakura sweatdropped.

He let that happen, Naruto deduced.

Like a jounin would get hit by an eraser stuck in a doorjamb and it not be on purpose, Kurama snorted.

"Jounin these days, " the ghost by the window muttered. Naruto ignored him.

"Let's all go up to the roof and get started, neh?" the man was saying. Naruto had zoned out. He disappeared in a puff of smoke, leaving the genin in the dust (literally and figuratively!).

Sasuke, their unspoken leader (Sakura had been sure it would have been Naruto, but it seemed Sasuke had an obsessive drive with making sure they took opportunities before they slipped past and Naruto was quite lazy), led the way upstairs. They each sat on either side of him on the roof, taking up their default positions: Sasuke, in Brooding Pose #1, Sakura, in what she called "Feminine Pose #14" , and Naruto, turning his book over in his hands…over and over and over and over. Sakura had never asked him about this.

"He looks weak, " the ghost hovering over Naruto's shoulder said. Naruto ignored him.

"So, why don't you all introduce yourselves?" the jounin said cheerfully.

"Like how, sensei?" Sakura questioned, asking an airheaded question on purpose. As expected, the man thought she was serious.

"Oh, you know, your likes, dreams, hobbies…"

"Why don't you give us an example, sensei?" Sakura wondered how many times she could get away with calling him sensei in one conversation.

"I'm Hatake Kakashi, " the man eye-smiled again. Sakura frowned down at her fist, wondering why she felt the sudden urge to punch the smile off his face. "My likes and dislikes, I don't feel like telling you that. My dreams for the future? I've never really thought about it. As for hobbies, I have lots of them. Now you."

"My name is Uchiha Sasuke, " Sasuke interrupted, just as Sakura opened her mouth. "I don't like much. I dislike very much. My aspirations are my own goals. My hobby is training."

Naruto bit his lip to restrain a laugh, keeping his face stoic. "My name is Uzumaki Naruto, " he said. "I don't dislike much and like a good training session. My dreams…? Well-known. Don't have many hobbies."

"I'm Haruno Sakura, " Sakura said sweetly, catching on to what they were doing. "I like and dislike many of the same things my teammates do. My dream, oh, it's not interesting. I'm sure no one wants to hear about my hobbies."

Kakashi stared at them with a blank expression. "Well then, " he said, voice flat. "I'm glad that we've introduced ourselves."

"That threw him for a loop, " the ghost lounging beside Naruto cackled. Naruto ignored him.

"Meet me at training ground seven at seven a.m. sharp tomorrow. And make sure you don't eat anything, " Kakashi continued. "You'll only puke it up."

"Yes sir, sensei! By the way, sensei, will you be as late as you were today? That gave us a very bad impression of you, sensei, to be honest, " Sakura chirped. His eyebrow started twitching.

"Just be there." And he disappeared in a puff of smoke, missing out on the smirks they wore.

"That took you a long time, " Sasuke stated, eyeing Naruto as he shuffled in the door from several hours spent at training ground seven. His book hung from one hand, the other grasping the strap of a duffel bag.

The ghost following Naruto smirked. "That jounin's going to be surprised tomorrow." Naruto ignored him.

"I set up a lot of level threes and twos, " he explained. "A few level fours. A level five."

Sasuke restrained a shudder. He'd only ever seen one level-five prank of Naruto's in action (the highest level of prank he had), and it had been traumatizing just to watch. He hoped this Hatake was actually competent- he may die otherwise.

Sadly, he wasn't exaggerating. When one had a demon living inside one's head, one learned the tricks of the trickster trade that quickly delved into the deadly.

Naruto bent over to take his sandals off, placing them in a cubby hole by the door. He shoved the bag in after it, ignoring the ominous ticking noise it made with each shove. He padded across the tatami mats of Sasuke's floor towards the kitchen, sniffing the air. "Is Sakura making ramen?"

"With steak and carrots added in," Sasuke said from his position on the couch. He was flipping through a book on clan laws.

Stars replacing his eyes, Naruto gravitated towards the kitchen, sliding into a bar stool. The ghost following him around watched Sakura move about the kitchen with interest.

The 'ghost thing' as his teammates called it had started a few months after he'd met them. One day he'd been walking by a cemetery when he saw a little old lady standing over a grave. He'd gone over and spoken to her, mostly about how horrible her grandson's eating habits were, and then she had disappeared into the ground.

It wasn't so much that he started seeing people who hadn't been there before as he was just finally noticing them. There weren't too many of them, but when they found out he could see them, a lot of them started seeking him out. It got boring being dead.

The same old lady usually came around every Sunday to water his plants for him. One time his neighbor, a middle-aged woman by the name of Haruna, had spotted the hovering watering can from her window and screamed loud enough to wake the dead. (Pun intended!)

She'd moved out ranting about the demon child and his voodoo three hours later.

He didn't have any neighbors anymore.

Mostly because he lived at Sasuke's, but he wouldn't have had any neighbors in his old apartment anyway.

Ninety-nine percent of the time they were friendly and just wanted him to take a message or help them with something. Sure, there were some who had died gruesome deaths or lived gruesome lives and were rather gruesome themselves, but he avoided them in general.

And then there was Izuna, the man with freaky eyes who looked like an older version of Sasuke and seemed rather mad about something half the time.

Kurama didn't like him.

"Kurama doesn't like you, " Naruto said, staring at the back of Izuna's head.

The ghost snorted. "He wouldn't," he muttered.

Sakura ignored them.

"Have you found your brother yet?"

"No," Izuna complained, sinking halfway into the floor with sudden depression marks over his head. A moment later he came back up roaring with anger. "That moron! I can't believe he messed this up!" Then he was slumping again, murmuring under his breath. "It's all Tobirama's fault, that bastard."

"Okay," Naruto said, turning to the ramen Sakura plunked in front of him. "Sasuke! Dinner's ready!"

"In a minute," Sasuke mumbled from the other room. Sakura's fist slammed down on the counter, rattling the whole thing. "Not 'in a minute', now!" she screamed.

Wincing, Sasuke slunk in to the chair beside Naruto, and Sakura nodded with a smile. "See?" she said sweetly. "When dinner is ready, everyone eats at the table." Naruto decided to not point out they were sitting at Sasuke's breakfast bar instead of the table behind them. He'd had a total remodel done, not wanting to be reminded of his family- the kitchen was just to the right of the entryway, where the cubby holes were, and was a cozy little thing, with a breakfast table set partially inside a half-octagon of windows and with a long booth instead of chairs- completely un-Sasuke-like in Naruto's opinion. Then again, Sakura had been the interior decorator.

Maybe that was why the booth's cushions were decorated with a print fabric with hundreds of tiny tomatoes. Or maybe that was Sasuke.

The dining hall, with a large rectangular table that stretched for days and could host a feast, was through the door at the end of the kitchen. It was connected to a second, larger entryway, so that, in Sakura's words, "guests wouldn't have to walk through the kitchen to eat".

They never had guests. Naruto didn't see the need.

After dinner, he wandered back to the first entry, into the living room, and into the hall containing all the bedrooms. He would need to find his maps of training ground seven (he had maps of all of Konoha, how else would he organize his pranks?) to brief his friends.

It would be terrible if they got caught in his level-five.

After eating a hearty breakfast, Team Seven jogged to the training ground at seven minutes before seven in the morning. They liked the number seven.

Sakura had stayed over discussing battle plans in what Naruto had dubbed the "War Room". It was one of the bedrooms, void of any bedroom furniture in lieu of a round table in the middle and maps strewn all over the walls. They kept their supplies of kunai and shuriken in neat bins at the back, along with all the family heirlooms Sasuke had inherited, that is, the ones he hadn't thrown out. He'd kept the cream of the crop, aka his deceased family members' best swords.

The most he did for the other clan buildings was keep them clean. At the very least, they could house a few hundred people if the need ever arose. (Naruto had a thick binder full of plans to search for Uzumaki, but he wasn't optimistic enough that he thought they would find even a hundred.)

The fence around the Uchiha clan property had been "pathetic" , as Naruto put it. Sasuke had set to twitching before Naruto explained there wasn't even any sealing protecting it. And then he had watched Naruto throw a fish onto the fence he'd just electrified. They'd had salmon that night.

"He'll probably be here around ten, " Naruto said cheerfully. He set to whittling a few wooden sticks into replicas of kunai.

Sasuke frowned down at his watch. "Maybe this is a tactic of his to try and make us nervous," he suggested. "Lull us into a state of boredom so deep even when the test starts we'll have trouble focusing."

"I wouldn't give him so much credit," Naruto grinned.

"Test?" Sakura asked, eyebrows creased in confusion.

"Test," Sasuke confirmed, lifting his eyes to the sky. "A man like that wouldn't take a genin team without testing them himself."

"He's gone through a lot of trauma in life," Naruto said. "He was in Anbu, probably seen a lot of blood, but more than that he's probably lost everyone close to him." They both turned to stare at him. He'd read every book in the library on human behavior, including those in the restricted section usually reserved for Anbu training. There wasn't really any place in Konoha Naruto couldn't sneak in to. Or if there was, his ghosts could just go inside for him. It also helped to have a demon inside one's head that could read even the most secretive shinobi. "I haven't looked up his bingo book entry. I thought that would be cheating."

"Cheating," Sasuke repeated dully.

"Well, the other genin teams don't have access to their sensei's bingo book entries."

Sasuke rubbed his forehead and turned away from him. "Genin don't tend to have access to bingo books at all, " he said sourly. "You need to stop worrying about being fair."

Naruto rolled his eyes. "I like him, " Izuna snickered. Naruto ignored him.

Sakura pulled a board game out of her backpack. It was dark green, blending in with the scenery around them, like the rest of her attire. She'd traded out for a pair of shorts, a high-necked tank top with her family's circle on the front, and a short-waisted jacket. There was fabric wrapped around her knees. She and Sasuke had learned many years ago how bad a skid could hurt their knees after attempting to get in a prank war with Naruto.

Sasuke hadn't changed much, simply adding more pouches to hold weapons. Naruto had meandered out of his room in the orange jumpsuit before Sakura shoved him back inside and slammed the door, refusing to let him out until he lost it. Therefore, he sat next to Sasuke in a pair of pants with an innumerable amount of pockets (she honestly didn't want to know what he had hidden away in them) tucked into thick boots, a tank with even more pockets (they were intimidating, dammit, what did he have in there? Why did he need so many pockets?) and a zip-up orange hoodie. She had twitched at the orange, but had given up. There was no separating Naruto and orange.

When Kakashi arrived, Naruto was doing a seated dance with his fisted hands waving in the air. Sakura had her face in her hands, and Sasuke's teeth were gritted, the cards in his hand crumpled. "Dammit, Naruto, " he hissed. "You stole the hotel from me."

"Business is business, Sasuke-kun, " Naruto replied, still doing his jig. Kakashi watched them from the top of the bridge with a sweatdrop, eyeing the Monopoly board.

"You set up a suicide zone!"

"Business is-"

"If you say business is business so help me I will end you!"

"Oh hey!" Naruto's face lit up. "Dog-sensei is here!"

"Dog?" Kakashi questioned, eyes curving upward.

"Because you're a dog, " Naruto explained, leaping up. He kicked the Monopoly board into the river, causing Sakura to yell. "They wanted to play."

"Who wanted to play?" Kakashi asked, dropping down in front of them.

Naruto turned a sinister grin upon him. He almost shivered. "The people who live in the river, " he said. "They drowned here five years ago."

"He talks to ghosts, " Sasuke explained wryly.

"Ghosts…?" Kakashi stared at them incredulously. They're probably trying to put me off. If they think that's going to scare me, they really are immature genin.

Naruto eyed the girl their age with purple marks on her face behind their sensei and waved. She grinned widely at him, waving back, and Kakashi turned to look before giving Naruto a dubious look. "Well, we should get started, " he said, waving them toward a few stumps.

He proceeded to explain the rules, and as soon as he mentioned only two of them would pass, the three traded a look, a simultaneous thought passing through their heads.

A teamwork test.

As soon as he said 'go' , they scattered in different directions.

Well, all but Naruto. Except the real Naruto had been hiding in the woods for the past two hours, and the Naruto confronting Kakashi was nothing but a kage bunshin.

As soon as Sasuke and Sakura came upon his hidey-hole, Naruto opened up a scroll he'd been hiding in his hoodie. An explosion back from what he called the 'Stump Area' made them both cringe. His clone's laughter was cut off abruptly.

"Guess he isn't so incompetent after all, " Sasuke said.

"That was only a level two," Naruto smiled.

"I can't wait until he finds the level five," Izuna grinned. Naruto ignored him. Sasuke cringed again.

"Here's your part of the plan, " Naruto said, handing the scroll to Sakura. She looked it over and nodded with a giggle, leaping into the branches and disappearing.

Naruto and Sasuke turned to stare at each other. "Okay, " Naruto said, holding out his hand to see who would take the next part. Sasuke did the same. "Rock- paper- scissors- go!"

Kakashi wasn't having a good day.

He had been prepared to have underestimated them a little. They had appeared to at least know each other better than their interactions at the academy had ever suggested. But this, this was ridiculous.

Everywhere he turned, a sealing array lit up on the ground (or on trees or rocks or blades of grass?) and set another prank loose on him. He had known Naruto was a prankster- he'd chased him down on a few occasions- but these weren't just pranks; they were traps. He wondered who he'd gotten to make the sealing arrays for him, or even how he'd found the time between the previous day and that morning. There were literally thousands of them. And thousands of clones to match.

It was difficult for even a jounin to handle. Hell, he thought even the Hokage might have at least mild difficulty picking his way through here without getting a scratch or two. The only real solution was to nuke the whole area with a fire jutsu and set them all off at once.

Except he couldn't do that, because his students were hiding in the trees.

And knowing Naruto, he'd probably made them fireproof or something equally annoying.

It was a trap shinobi's heaven and any other shinobi's trap hell.

Sighing, he dodged a skewering attempt from a spear that came barreling out of a tree. His whole right side was covered in bright blue paint, and his right leg was on fire. Something had dumped itching powder onto it, and halfway through his scalp had started to burn.

Was it his shampoo? He'd been using it for a week and nothing had gone wrong-

The eraser incident popped into his head. Kakashi frowned, before a hot feeling caught his attention.

He reached up to his hair, jumping and drawing his hair back. Fire?! His hair was on fire.

With a yell, he lunged for the pond, submerging himself before the fire could spread. He sunk into the water, taking a breather- there didn't seem to be any traps down there.

Speak of the devil, something caught his attention as it floated by. Narrowing his eyes, Kakashi turned to examine it, visible eye slowly widening.

A blue tennis ball?

It drifted around, showing the other side. As it did, he finally spotted about three hundred more in the pond around him, camouflaged with paint.

They all had exploding tags tied on.

He wasn't having a good day

The ground shook beneath Sakura's feet as she ran back towards Kakashi, and she paused with a sweatdrop. Just how many exploding tags had Naruto used in the pond?

Far above her head, she saw Kakashi sail through the air, landing somewhere in the trees to her left. Restraining a snicker, she sprinted for his location, bursting out of the brush just as he pulled himself to his feet.

He looked up at her with a surprised expression. "Don't tell me you're a bomb," he said, on guard.

"Not this time," Sakura said ominously. His eye briefly widened- he'd only been joking, but he guessed it wasn't beyond Naruto to make a shadow clone, have it transform into her, and tape explosive tags onto its back.

She jumped forward, adjusting her gloves before rearing back for a punch. He dodged easily, as expected, but she hadn't been aiming for him anyway.

Her fist slammed into a tree, a simple storage seal lighting up upon impact. Kakashi gaped, raising his arms to block anything that came out of it, and a puff of smoke left-

A bright red book in her hand.

"I-is that-?" Kakashi stammered.

"The ultra-rare special edition of the first volume of Icha Icha," Sakura explained seriously. "Only ten copies were ever printed, and it included an extra two mega chapters and an extra short story unique to the printing."

His eyes had gone wide, arms slack, and she flipped it open with a sharp grin. She hated these books, loathed them even- but she knew an opportunity when she saw it.

She settled on the last page. "Want to know the ending, sensei?" she asked, voice coated with so much sugar Konohamaru's teeth would rot and fall out.

"No!" Kakashi yelled, hands flying up to cover his ears. "No spoilers!"

"Oh, Akami, I have to confess to you-" Sakura began.

"Nooooo!" he shrieked, closing his eyes. I can read her lips! Dammit!

Feet slammed into him out of nowhere, sending him flying. Sasuke had come flying out of the trees on a vine, Tarzan-style, propelled by a trap Naruto had set.

Kakashi flew straight into a gap in the trees where a pentagram-looking symbol was carved four times into two trees. They started to glow an ominous red, and Sakura sealed the book into the scroll Naruto had given her before leaping onto a similar pentagram that appeared in thin air. It catapulted her into the air into another, and another, before sending her flying at Kakashi, who was suspended in midair.

What the hell are those?! he thought in a panic. Those aren't seals!

They weren't. The Kyuubi cackled. The pentagrams let his chakra flow into Sakura's fist, made compatible by Naruto himself- he may have been young, but it was easy once he and the Kyuubi had reached a unity.

Sakura's fist slammed into Kakashi's cheek as he tried to shunshin away, sending him flying for a mile.

Quite literally.

Naruto was waiting when Kakashi crashed through a tree and skidded through the dirt.

He was beaten, and singed, but they'd only gotten one hit- one excruciating, painful hit- but one hit on him. Dragging himself to his feet, Kakashi surveyed the blond with a twitching eye. Irritation rolled off him in waves.

"Hello, dog-sensei, " Naruto said mildly.

He examined Kakashi's burnt clothes, slightly burnt hair, the paint coating his side, and the way the ghost behind him had her hands covering her mouth to restrain her giggling.

"He doesn't look so good, " the river ghost beside him guffawed. Naruto ignored her.

But then he smiled, nodding a bit. "You're right, " he agreed.

Kakashi eyed him. "I admit, I wasn't expecting this, " he said. "I thought you three would attack on your own."

"We've been a team a lot longer than a few days, sensei, " Naruto replied, backing up a few steps. He started to circle around the clearing, not having any particular goal in mind but enjoying the way it put Kakashi on guard.

"Have you?" Kakashi asked, keeping his distance.

"We stacked the team formations, " Naruto replied, making the man blink in surprise. "Sasuke, the perfect but brooding last Uchiha. So cold and unattainable that no one approached him or could get close enough to realize we live in the same house. Sakura, the airheaded civilian girl with a naïve crush on him who could never manage to hit the target center with a shuriken, appearing so mediocre in anything but book smarts that no one ever noticed the bandages on her fingers from making them raw every night practicing with blades. And me, the village buffoon everyone hated who yelled in class and failed every exam so utterly well even you wrote me off as an idiot before you knew me."

Kakashi jerked back in surprise, something like guilt entering his eyes. "Teams are formed for balance. This way, they were forced to put us together. Only the two geniuses could balance out the piece of crap dead last," Naruto smiled wryly.

"So you three are friends, " Kakashi muttered. "Well, if nothing else, you have a career in acting if the ninja thing doesn't work out."

"Oh, it will work out, " Naruto said. He held up two bells, making Kakashi startle. The man reached for his belt, eyes lowering to check, only to find the bells still there.

When he looked up, Naruto's foot was barreling towards his nose. He grabbed it by the sole, swinging the boy around and tossing him into the air.

Naruto exploded.

Exploding kage bunshin, who knew a simple genin would know how to make one?

There were twenty-five ghosts in the woods with them (not counting the river ghosts and Izuna), giving Team Seven an advantage Kakashi wouldn't realize they had until several years later.

"He's heading this way," Izuna said, laying on the ground as they strategized with one arm over his eyes. "The exploding clones slowed him down a little."

"Thought they would," Naruto said in amusement.

Kakashi blazed into the stump area with wild eyes, heaving breaths leaving his body. "Thousands of traps, " he said, pointing at Naruto's forehead. "Tennis balls, exploding kage bunshin?" he demanded.

"I stole the Forbidden Scroll under duress from a teacher, " Naruto smiled calmly. "Didn't you hear?" He'd already known the kage bunshin from Kurama, along with beginner and intermediate sealing techniques- the beast had spent a lifetime in Mito and half a life in Kushina, he'd been bound to pick up some things.

Twitching, Kakashi returned his book to his pouch. It was half burnt up, a side effect of him trying to look cool. He gave it a forlorn glance.

"I have to compliment your skills, though, " Naruto said, popping a grape tomato into his mouth. They were each seated on a stump, lunch boxes open on their laps. "We still haven't gotten the bells, even though we've been trying the whole time."

"The bells are moot at this point, " Kakashi muttered, glaring at him. "You know what the test is, don't you?"

"Yeah."

"Yes."

"Hmm-mhm."

"You three," Kakashi sighed, running both hands through his hair. "What are you?" Naruto, at least, was chuunin-level. He'd briefly fought Sasuke, and his taijutsu was competent.

Sakura started to list off the components of the human body. He held up his hand, silencing her.

Naruto was staring behind him. "Your ghost says you look like something the cat drug in, " he said, mimicking Kakashi's eye-smile.

"Naruto, " Kakashi said flatly. "You can stop with the ghost thing now."

Naruto gave a thumbs-up to Rin, who returned it. Kakashi rubbed his forehead.

"You three pass, " he said tiredly.

"That's good, " Sakura said, poking the bells in her palm. "I was worried you would try and enforce the two-rule or something."

They turned to gape at her. "Where did you get those?" Naruto cried.

"Where did you get those?" Kakashi exclaimed simultaneously, grabbing the bells missing from his belt.

She smiled at them, all sugar. "I've got my secrets too."

"Here you go, doggy, " Naruto said, cheer coating his tone as he held the Icha Icha edition out to Kakashi. He took it gingerly in his hands, eyes starting to water.

"You guys are my favorite team I've ever had, " he sniffled. They gave him a flat look, fully well knowing he had failed all his other teams.

"Well, we'll see you tomorrow bright and early for training, sensei!" Sakura chirped, skipping toward the bridge. Sasuke and Naruto flanked her, waving at their sensei as he waved with one hand, eyes still on the book.

As soon as they were out of earshot, Sasuke gave Naruto a questioning look. "Naruto."

"Hm?"

"What was your level five?"

Naruto's head came up with a grin. "Oh, " he said, voice low. "That was." They stared at him in confusion, turning to look at Kakashi.

Kakashi hurriedly flipped to the extra chapters, eyes going wide and a giggle escaping his mouth. He settled into a walk back towards the village, glued to the pages.

He'd gotten no further than the first page when the book started to warm up.

Confused, he flipped it over, paling when he saw the pentagram on the back.

The jounin had all gathered in the Hokage's office, giving their reports about their teams. Several had failed, but Kurenai and Asuma had given a positive report.

"Well, that just leaves Kakash-" Sarutobi began. The window burst open. They all leapt back away from it, startled, as a shape raced through and collided with the wall. Weapons slid into hand and bodies braced, but the sight that greeted them was anything but an attack.

Kakashi slid down to the floor, neck twitching, facing towards them. His hair was smoking, clothes burnt and covered in blue paint, arm bent at an awkward angle. A strange box attached to his chest flipped open, a sign popping out like a doll did out of a Jack-in-the-box.

We passed! was written in bright orange paint. "Passed" was marked out, with "won" written over it.

"The river ghost wanted to play, " Kakashi slurred.