Chapter Text
The sky was a dark, blueish-grey; cloudless. A few stars twinkled, but most had disappeared. It was almost time for the mourning doves to begin cooing, and the chill of night to recede along with the moon.
Naruto crouches on a branch, balancing himself against the trunk, and hisses as he feels sweat drip into the open cut on his thigh. Blood dribbles down lazily, staining his orange pants. He should’ve worn shorts. These were his favourite pair, but now they’re torn and stained. The wound wasn’t life-threatening, but it wasn’t shallow either. Naruto would easily recover tomorrow, but running on it still hurt.
He closes his eyes and focuses, taking in a deep breath. Three chakra signatures coming from behind, and gaining on him quickly. Two on each side, and one in front on the ground. They’re trying to surround him? This feels excessive. It probably won’t take long before they catch up, at most he probably has five minutes before they do.
Shit!
He hadn’t even gotten a chance to properly read over even one of the techniques in this dumb scroll! Much less the one he wanted to learn. But it’s not like he has any other choice in this instance, so…
The unfurled Scroll of Seals is much less dense than he’d expected it to be. Almost all of the techniques make his brain ache; most of them are so brutal or unethical that it makes him wonder how desperate they were back in the Warring States period. Thankfully, the jutsu Naruto wants to learn is towards the top. He reads over the contents quickly and forms the seal with his free hand.
With a poof! a second Naruto appears beside him, completely identical. He closes the seal again and nods at the clone he just conjured, who applies a henge to himself. A fake scroll is tied around the clone’s back to confuse his pursuers.
“Dispel when you’re far enough away from me, okay?”
Clone-Ruto nods and takes off from the branch, noticeably unbothered by any cuts. Naruto clicks his tongue in annoyance. How nice it must be to be a complete chakra construct. He doesn’t have long to moan about that though, and he quickly hides himself behind a cloaking seal against the tree, feeling his pursuer draw ever closer. He draws in a breath and holds it in his chest as he waits for the group chasing him to pass, silencing his chakra by stilling it and melding with the tree he was concealed by.
Thankfully his pursuers are all chūnin, so he doesn’t need to worry about advanced chakra concealment techniques. Not that he has those, anyway. Holding your breath wasn’t required to hide your chakra signature, but it did help severely, especially for someone like him with dogshit control over his chakra.
It takes longer than he’d like to feel his chakra coming back to him from his clone dispelling. Without a second thought, he leaps down from where he had glued himself to the trunk of a tree and bolts in the direction of the village. He’ll read over some of the other jutsu in the scroll and then return it to where he found it.
The one good thing about being the village freak was that no one paid attention to him even when he was very conspicuously dashing over rooftops with a very strangely-shaped object stuffed into his jacket. It would be more suspicious if it wasn’t him.
His apartment was in the backwards part of town where trash would build up because no one wanted to demean themselves by taking out garbage from there. Drunkards loitered in alleyways and cigarettes littered the ground. His door was on its last leg — almost completely broken and banged up enough that one corner bent outwards. The smooth metal coating had begun to wear off the doorknob long before he started to live here, but it had yet to completely disappear, which meant every time he wanted to open or close his door his skin would catch in the jagged parts where polish met rough metal and create little microcuts in his palm. Were it not for the thick callouses he’d formed from training, it would’ve still hurt.
Thankfully, it still shut well enough that he didn’t have to worry about it being forced open without waking him up. As much as people ignored him, there were still drunkards too boozed out to care whose house they were looting for alcohol, or money for alcohol. The ANBU that were typically stationed around his house had gone in search of him, so that meant he at least had thirty minutes of privacy for browsing through the scroll before he had to return it. He doubted he’d need that long — there probably wasn’t much in there that he specifically could make use of. Learning about the existence of shadow clones had been a mishap, and he had surmised it was a jutsu he could perform easier than regular clones, albeit he was right this time.
And he was correct. Several words jumped out at him, but they all blurred together into a mess of kanji. Dead Demon what now?
He gave himself about ten minutes worth of time with the scroll, and then it became clear that he had no more use for it after it had taught him shadow clones.
Goddamn broken system, he grouched in his mind as he resealed the Scroll of Seals and tried to make it seem like it had been untouched, particularly by his hands, I have to do all this just to pass the goddamn academy.
Had it not been for the old man’s age catching up to him, Naruto would’ve never learned of its existence, and therefore never had the chance to graduate. How old was he now? Fourteen? This would be his third attempt at the graduation exam, and he would be damned if he was going to fail it again.
It had all been that goddamn clone technique’s fault! After failing the exam for the second time last year, Naruto had given up on learning it normally. Instead, he had thrown himself into studies of jutsu and chakra theory to find a loophole or some other jutsu he could do in its place. His search had pretty much ended in failure, but he’d at least learned that he was fully incapable of learning it.
Had he been on his first try at it, or even his second, he would’ve just declared he would learn it and attempt to brute force his chakra networks to follow typical paths, but he was smart enough to realize that there was no way he was going to rewrite his genetic code in time for his exam — or in this decade!
Typically, a shinobi would start on learning chakra and jutsu theory once they were appointed jōnin so they could start building on existing techniques and making ones of their own, but Naruto had been grasping straws for three years, so theorem seemed like his best bet. An intimate understanding of the laws governing their society would, at the very least, come in handy.
He wanted to dissect the theorems behind the jutsu here as well, but he didn’t have very much time. Once jutsu started to draw on the metaphysical aspects of a person (like souls and life force, stuff you couldn’t see even with a Byakugan or Sharingan), Naruto had a mental block that made it nigh-impossible to keep learning. Understanding these metaphysical attributes themselves is difficult — understanding them enough to interact and draw upon them is unimaginable. He supposed that’s why the Nidaime Hokage is revered as a genius even to this day.
Still, as grim as many of the jutsu listed may be, it wouldn’t do well to lose how they were crafted to time. Here it only listed how they were performed, not the theorems or calculations that were used to get there. Another reason to become Hokage, he decided, and stood up to stretch.
“…Good job, Naruto.” Iruka hesitated in handing him the headband, his eyes squinted and lip curled. Naruto met his eyes with a smile and grabbed it out of his hand. The cold metal was harsh against his warm hand, but it filled him with clear, bursting heat — like explosions.
“Thank you, Iruka-sensei,” he returned, trying to keep his voice casual. He would’ve taken a bow, but that felt way too uncharacteristic so he just waved his hitai-ate in one hand and left the room.
He took his time walking to the room of graduates, wanting to savour his first victory in so long. His stomach was full of butterflies and his heart pounded in his chest as loud as cymbals. His hitai-ate fit snugly around his forehead, the cloth warm but the metal cool. He’s done! He’s really, finally done! He’s imagined this moment for so long it didn’t even feel real. Everything is sparkling and shining and blending together.
The last two years had been hell — he had to sit in sparse classrooms with kids younger than him, listen to their jabs about his inadequacies without throwing a fit. Last time he did, Iruka had sat him down in an empty classroom after school and for two hours lectured him about acting his age — or something. Just to avoid having to go through that again, Naruto endured two years of this humiliation with not a peep.
His silence seemed to embolden his classmates somewhat, but he took joy in the fact they would never attempt to get physical with him. He was far taller than his grade by now, and had figured out a way to make sure he was actually eating well to supplement his growth and lifestyle. A healthy amount of fat and muscle had been built up under his jumpsuit.
Ah, speaking of his jumpsuit, he was still bummed out about ruining his favourite one; it would’ve been perfect to wear it today. He could stitch it up or patch it with another fabric, but then it wouldn’t be the same anymore. Naruto didn’t know much about fashion, but he did know that he looked good in his favourite jumpsuit. Maybe once he’s started going on missions, he’ll save up enough to get an identical one. Yeah, that sounded good.
As Naruto mused, he walked into the classroom of graduates. No one paid him any mind, engrossed in their conversations with friends, as he sat down on one of the back tables, next to some napping kid. He should celebrate this, he thinks, with a few bowls of Ichiraku’s special tonight. Ah, but he shouldn’t spend a bunch of money too soon. He had to make a good impression on his sensei and teammates, after all. So he should probably celebrate after he’s gotten his team. That would mean he’d have to hold off on celebrating his victory, and it would turn into being about his team in general, rather than him. Ah, what to do—
“Naruto?” The kid that had been asleep beside him stirred, wiping some drool off the corner of his lips. The boy blinked a few times, trying to get rid of the sleep plaguing his eyes, and stared at him. “Did you finally graduate?”
The boy — Naruto had never bothered to learn anyone’s name — had small eyes and black hair pulled into a ponytail behind him that looked like a crow’s tail. Naruto puffed out a breath of air and rolled his eyes. “No, I’m just an illusion, ooo~.”
The brat seemed to consider it for a few seconds before stretching out his arms and burrowing his head between them, murmuring, “Troublesome,” before going back to sleep.
Naruto decides he’ll have one bowl tonight, as a celebration of him, and it has nothing to do with how convincing the smell of Teuchi’s ramen is on an empty stomach. Naruto could’ve gone straight home, but it didn’t feel right to not at least tell one of his few cheerleaders that he’d finally passed.
“Just the one tonight, Ichiraku-san,” Naruto requested, putting some crumpled ryō and a few coins on the counter, “I have to save until I start making money from missions.”
“Naruto!” Teuchi pushed the money back into Naruto’s palm, grinning, “Tonight we’re celebrating you! Don’t worry about paying. You can pay me back tenfold when you’re Hokage.”
Teuchi had always been like this — offering him a free bowl or three when he didn’t have the funds, or when the day was special enough to warrant it. Still, it made Naruto’s eyes water a little, which he’d never admit, of course. Blame it on the hot steam caressing his face. “Playing the long game, are you, Ichiraku-san? You’ll extort me for all I’m worth when I finally make it big, right?”
“Exactly!” Teuchi guffawed as he set a pair of chopsticks down next to Naruto’s bowl of the special. “Once you’re rich, we’ll bleed you dry until we’re swimming in money!”
“Looking forward to it, jissan.” The crack! sound that came from breaking apart his chopsticks already had his mouth drooling.
“Who are going to be your teammates, you think?” Ayame had come from behind the shop, wiping her fingers with a small towel. “There’s usually at least one girl per team, right? Anyone you’re hoping for?”
“Ew, Ayame-san. Everyone in my grade is two years younger than me.” Ayame’s sparkling eyes dim as she remembers. “But, if I had to guess… dead last usually gets put with top kunoichi and the one with the best scores. So I’ll probably get put with Sakura Haruno and Sasuke Uchiha.”
“You’re still dead last?”
Naruto throws his hands up in mock defeat. “Turns out just acing exams isn’t enough to make you get a good score. You have to actually do the worksheets too.” He paused. “Ah, but I would’ve probably been put with them regardless. This year’s spread is mainly kids from clans. Every year, there’s quite a few clan groups that get put together no matter their scores. It’s tradition, or whatever.”
“Do you think you’ll at least come to like your teammates?”
At this, Naruto paused and frowned, pondering over his bowl of ramen. Would he? They were fine shinobi— for their age, that is. Plus, they seemed more mature than the average graduate, from what he’s heard. After much deliberation, he comes to a consensus, “Probably. They seem tolerable enough. You’ve seen last year’s slapdash. Everyone on it was insane. Makes me almost glad to not have graduated with them.”
The three of them at the ramen stand all visualized just which team Naruto was referencing, and each of them shivered with terror as the image of bright green spandex came to mind. Thank god, they all think.
“Ah, more than that, my bigger worry is that my jōnin-sensei is gonna be a lousy one. Lousy teammates, I can get through, because their influence wouldn’t be as direct. But a lousy sensei…? How am I gonna learn anything if I get one that just wastes my time?”
Naruto’s hand paused, his grip on his chopsticks loosening as his brow tightened and he started to chew his lip. Ayame took notice and gently smacked his arm.
“Worry about that tomorrow. Your free ramen is getting cold, Naruto.”
“Ah! Sorry, Ayame-san!” With a grateful nod, he leaned back down to focus his attention on his free bowl and slurped everything up at record speed. It had started to cool by then, so it didn’t burn his mouth. “Ish good! Is this today’s special?”
“Mhm. Hopefully, a new recipe that gets added to the menu if it impresses enough customers.”
“Or a few good customers,” Ayame tacked on and winked at Naruto, which he took as a compliment of the highest degree.
Naruto blitzes through his bowl and gives both Teuchi and Ayame a firm hug before waving them goodbye. It was a shame to not talk for longer, but he didn’t want to be late meeting his jōnin-sensei. If they’re the strict type, being late could put him in an unfavourable position. Being early or just on time could also net him some points. Win-win, probably.
He tugs his thin blanket over himself and looks out the window at the half-moon. A zephyr blew through and lightly caressed the skin not under his blanket. It was nicer out today than it had been for a while. Stars glimmered lazily in the sky as clouds floated by. Tomorrow… was going to decide if the next few years until he made chūnin would be easy or hard.
He just hoped it would be the former.
Their assigned jōnin-sensei was, well, late. Naruto half-expected it, sort of.
He’d felt a rather mature chakra signature on one of the trees around the front of the school when he first got to class, but that signature had disappeared as soon as he had sat down. It was the only unfamiliar one outside the building, but it hadn’t been trying to hide itself all that well. He was sure all the teachers would’ve picked up on it, and they had said nothing, so it probably wasn’t an enemy.
It had meant nothing before, but with each unfamiliar signature coming into the classroom to claim their team, Naruto was starting to think their jōnin-sensei had taken one look and decided to abandon them.
Which… ow. Naruto hadn’t even gotten the chance to prove himself likable before his own jōnin-sensei had decided it wasn’t worth it! That was just too cruel. From the villagers, he could understand. They were terrified civilians, having to walk around knowing there was a dormant bomb that could explode at any time and raze Konoha to hell. But a shinobi, a jōnin at that, should know that that’s not what Naruto was.
It hurt Naruto more than he cared to admit. But. Whatever.
He was bored, oh-so bored. That was the problem. He wouldn’t be getting emotional over this nothing if he had something to do. Find something to occupy himself — either his mind or his hands. He could meditate and practice chakra control, but that required him to dull all his senses and just use his chakra to feel and see, which he did not want to do while waiting for his jōnin-sensei. It forced him to negate his sensor abilities, which was supremely uncomfortable.
It was one of the reasons he had such shit ability to control, to begin with. Most methods they teach at the Academy force you to dull all your other senses and just use chakra. Naruto did not have enough control over his chakra to do that and compensate for losing his sensor ability without alerting all the nearby shinobi that they were being mapped by chakra. It made him anxious to not be able to feel the chakra signatures all around him. They worked like second eyes, kept him safe all his life. It felt wrong to turn it off or dull it out.
There were other methods, but they needed more chakra control than Naruto had to properly execute, so Naruto had reached an impasse. He could try to meditate in general, but that usually left him feeling… grassy. Like he had swallowed a ball of grass.
Ack! Why was everything always so boring and slow!
Naruto cursed the sages, the gods, and Konoha for good measure.
Sasuke had said nothing the whole time and had just been staring out the window. Sakura had yet to say much either but she’d been making… noises. Weird, squeaky, fawning noises. There was no chance he was going to attempt to talk to these two.
In his soliloquy of boredom, Naruto almost misses the unfamiliar signature returning. He tries to not let it show that he felt them come back, but if they’re experienced he’s sure they’ve noticed how his shoulders tensed at the suddenness of their chakra signature reappearing.
His bones went cold when he felt it completely disappear from the tree outside the window. Shit. They definitely knew that he knew they were spying on him. He tried to be inconspicuous by grabbing the chalkboard eraser, and then realized that made even less sense.
A maladroit fool holding a useless chalkboard eraser in his useless hand in his useless stupid orange jumpsuit that wasn’t even his favourite because his favourite was fucking torn. He wants to laugh, not because anything’s funny but because he always laughs when the only option is to cry or hide away.
He picks up the chalk and writes the kanji for penis before making a crude doodle above it. Sakura’s gaze slowly turns to him as he quickly wipes it off, but the eraser is crap so it leaves clear residual lines. When wiping stops working, he harshly pats it against the board, creating a thick fog around the room. Jeez, when was the last time someone cleaned this thing?
“Oi, Naruto—!” Sakura goes to scold him and inhales the smoke, coughing as it enters her throat. Sasuke sneezes (and if Naruto weren’t in a state of panic he’d comment that it was offendingly kitten-like) and covers his mouth with his hand, standing up to either go confront Naruto or leave the room.
With no better ideas, Naruto decides to put the eraser against the door. Call it instinct from when he was a prankster.
When the smoke starts to clear Naruto has finally made it back onto a desk and sat with the soles of his shoes touching, looking at the doorway, trying and failing to not seem high-strung.
This was stupid. He was stupid. He could wave goodbye to his career as a ninja and prepare for his fourth year retaking the last class at the Academy. And then his fifth, his sixth, seventh, until he was an old, old man with brittle bones and no sight.
The chakra signature returned, but this time outside the door. Like, right outside the door. Like, walking up to it and opening it in T-minus now. Belatedly, he realizes that the ninja outside had specifically made themselves visible to him before walking in.
Naruto’s heart spiked as the door slid open and the eraser dropped from the crook of the door he’d put it against. Everything fell into slow motion as if he were witnessing a minute per heartbeat.
And when it falls, an eternity later, it makes a dull ‘thmp’ sound that vibrates in his mind. Their jōnin-sensei stares at them with dead, almost fish-like eyes with how unfocused they seem to be, and says, “My first impression is… I hate you guys.”
Naruto kisses his ninja career goodbye.
“My likes are Sasuke-kun! And getting good grades! My dislikes are Ino-pig! And people who make fun of my forehead. My dreams for the future are—” Sakura looks off the side and Naruto realizes it’s at Sasuke’s face, and then she blushes and giggles and starts fidgeting with her thumbs. “Well… you know…”
Sakura’s face had been dusted the same pink as her hair, and it made her look a lot like an alien from his comics, Naruto mused. He supposes they’re not the… stupidest dreams out there, but they still made him cringe. Who the hell declares their love for someone like that, right in front of them too?
It takes a while for Sasuke to get the hint that he’s supposed to go next, and clicks his tongue with annoyance. “Tch. My name is Sasuke Uchiha. I hate a lot of things and I don’t particularly like anything. What I have is not a dream, but a goal. I’m going to restore my clan and kill a certain someone.”
Sakura’s might’ve been bad, but Naruto decides that Sasuke’s is worse. Does he expect anyone to take him seriously after that spiel? If anything, it makes Naruto want to push his buttons to see what other edgy bullshit he can spout.
A few seconds pass after Sasuke’s done his intro and nothing is said by anyone else. Kakashi raises his one visible brow expectantly. Right, it’s his turn. But he doesn’t really have anything to say about himself, nothing worth saying that people don’t already know, that is.
“Um… My name is Naruto Uzumaki. I like ramen. I dislike not having ramen. My dream for the future is to become Hokage, or someone with that level of clearance. That’s it.”
“Level of clearance…?” Sakura stares dumbfounded. “Do you want the job of Hokage or not?”
Naruto shrugs. “I guess.”
“You guess?!”
“Mah, I guess that’s that,” Kakashi interjects Sakura before she can start ranting about the importance of the Hokage’s role in Fire Country. “Tomorrow we’re going to have a survival exercise at 5 in the morning. I’ll be conducting your actual genin exams.”
“But, didn’t we become genin already? We took the exams just yesterday!” Sakura frowned.
“You can’t be a genin for long without a jōnin-sensei. If I fail you on your survival training tomorrow, you’ll go back to the academy for another year.” Naruto shivered at the thought and tried to not look squeamish at the idea. “The failure rate for this exam as a whole is 66%, so don’t even think about not taking it seriously.”
Naruto already knows all of this. Even if he hasn’t graduated with kids his age, he does sort of keep in contact with them, and it had been enough to learn of the secondary genin exams at the hands of their anointed sensei. Naruto isn’t worried about passing — the tests themselves are pretty simple, more about proving a point of character instead of skill, but he is worried about the sensei just deciding they failed anyway.
There had been just one jōnin-sensei Naruto didn’t want. Horror stories came from him, of a highly skilled jōnin who had failed every trio handed to him with no mercy. He was blanking on the name, but he knew the man carried the epithet of Copy Ninja.
But — there was no way Naruto had gotten him, right? The world would not be so cruel. Naruto could not be so unlucky. Already, he had to deal with an edgelord and a fangirl, no way the Hokage would assign him someone who would almost automatically fail them and force him to go back to school. Again.
Naruto watched as Sasuke and Sakura cleared out from the rooftop, Sakura going down the stairs and Sasuke electing to jump from roof to roof. Kakashi was still lazing against the banister, likely waiting for him to leave so he could sunshin away. He wanted to stay for a few more minutes so he could familiarize himself with his sensei’s chakra, that way it wouldn’t catch him so off-guard next time and he could actually use the information.
“Random question, Kaka-sensei, but do you carry any famous monikers? Ones they’d put in bingo books, or stuff.”
Kakashi considered him for a very long time, saying nothing. Naruto didn’t notice his posture change at all, but he certainly felt the vibe go sharp. Very sharp.
“I carry a few,” Kakashi starts, almost hesitant to give it up as if it wasn’t usually the first thing someone would notice about him. “I suppose my most famous one is… The Copy Ninja.”
Naruto tries his very best to keep the expression on his face neutral but he fails. If it’s not his face, it must’ve been his body, because he’s sure he tensed after hearing that name.
“Is there a problem with that?”
There’s every problem with that!!!
“None! I was just curious. Are you really famous, Kaka-sensei?” Should he even make the effort to show up? He’s not going to pass anyway. It would just be wasted energy on his part. Ah, but it would probably piss his teammates off. He doesn’t really want to anger the one remaining Uchiha. That would probably cause some curse to befall his bloodline, or something. Sharingan users are scary.
“Ah, you know Naruto, being famous isn’t actually—”
Before Kakashi could finish his sentence, Naruto had disappeared. There stood a leaf dancing in the breeze where he had previously been. Kakashi focused for a few seconds and realized that Naruto had taken off as soon as he’d asked his last question and was jumping through the rooftops.
He scratched the back of his head in concern, befuddled. Weird.
The alarm clock blares at exactly 5 in the morning. The horizon kisses the cusp between the sky and the rising sun. Naruto whines as he blindly gropes for the blasphemous machine. It had stolen from him his last, precious few winks of sleep before he had to get up and waste a good meal on nothing. Maybe he should pay a visit to the Hokage before he left for the training grounds to beg for another jōnin-sensei, just in case it worked.
“Good morning, Konoha,” he gripes under his breath as he finally manages to grab the clock and turn it off. Rubs the crust out of his eyes and stands up, leaping back in bed when his feet touch freezing cold hardwood floors. Using chakra to warm his feet, Naruto makes it to his shoddy little bathroom and undresses, staring at his dirty mirror. The cabinet held cleaning supplies but he hadn’t cleaned in god knows how long.
He’d honestly just never found a reason to. No one visits him, and he’s never cared that much about having a clean house. As long as he didn’t smell like shit when he went outside, he thought that was good enough. Ah, but maybe he should do it now. If yesterday was going to be any indication of how seriously Kakashi was going to treat them, if he even passed them which Naruto highly doubted, then Naruto was sure he had plenty of time to clean his bathroom, clean himself, and eat a good meal.
With that, Naruto washed his face with cold water, grabbed his cleaning supplies from the cabinet, and got to work.
It took only about forty-five minutes to deep-clean the entire place, but that was also because he had the help of shadow clones. Why didn’t they teach it to everyone? It was so useful! Everything that would usually take Naruto hours he could speed through if he just made enough clones to help out! And, since the memories always came back to him after they dispersed, he could get through reading even quicker! He wondered if he could use it to train muscle memory as well. Can’t hurt to try, right?
A nice, warm shower and a balanced meal later, Naruto creates a clone and orders it to work out in his apartment while he goes to meet his team and his sensei who was going to fail him. The chakra strain means nothing to him, but it does leave him feeling noticeably more empty. He doesn’t think he’s ever had a day where he’s used enough jutsu to even feel it.
When he finally arrived at the third training ground, the sun was high, Sasuke and Sakura had sat down and were relaxed against each other, and Kakashi was still nowhere to be seen.
“Sakura! Sasuke! Good morning!” he chirped as he skipped towards them, mood a little lighter now that he’d had a good breakfast. He should try cleaning out more often! Really cleared up his mind, plus it feels good to exist in a clean space.
“Naruto! You’re late!” Sakura’s reprimand has very little effect when she’s so weary and sleepy. It seems the two really did take Kakashi’s advice and not eat breakfast. Sucks to be them. He wasn’t going to tire himself out over nothing.
“Sakura, am I late, or are you stupidly early? Kaka-sensei is late, just like last time!”
“I— well— he told us to be here by 5! If your disobedience is why we fail, I won’t forgive you!”
“Sakura,” he adopts the deepest, most serious voice he can muster, “As a ninja, you must be able to look underneath the underneath. Kaka-sensei might’ve said one thing, but what has he shown us?”
“…That he’s chronically tardy?”
“Right. So what should that mean for us?”
Sakura blushed pink like her hair again and scoffed, turning away from Naruto and leaning back against Sasuke. Ah, young love. Not that Naruto’s super old, but — well, he feels old on a team of babies like Sakura and Sasuke…
Thirty or so odd minutes later, Kakashi finally decided to make his grand entrance.
“Naruto,” he singled him out specifically, which definitely felt like an agenda, “You were late.”
Sakura smirked at him before remembering this meant she would fail too and sighed mournfully.
“So then you were watching us like some kind of pervert.”
“Touché.”
Kakashi clapped his hands to fully wake up Sasuke and Sakura, who were startled out of their reverie. Sasuke, to his credit, didn’t make too big a deal out of getting away from Sakura, and did it casually enough that the average onlooker would think he was just too hot from being next to a body instead of desperately trying to salvage his reputation. “The survival exercise will have you going up against me.”
Naruto raised an arm. “That’s unfair.”
Kakashi smiled back and ignored him otherwise. A chime’s sound caught Naruto’s attention, as Kakashi brought out twin bells from where they had been secured by his hip. “You must take these bells from me to pass my exam. You must have at least one bell to pass.”
Naruto raised an arm again. Kakashi looked at him expectantly, but there was a little tenseness to it. Had Naruto already managed to get under his skin? “You’re lying.”
“Naruto! Don’t disrespect our sensei—!”
“What a bold claim. How am I lying?”
“Okay, for one none of us can get one of those bells from you on our own. For two, you showed us two bells to specifically make us less willing to work together to get them, but you passing two out of three of us makes zero sense. I’ve never heard of a single genin team having two genin in it. That would mess up, like, the whole teaR-building process at the academy.”
Kakashi seemed almost impressed by Naruto’s deduction. Almost. He’d come to the conclusion by himself, but he did have an extra few clues from previous classmates. “Well done, Naruto. I suppose I should expect a little more from someone who’s taken the final class thrice.”
Naruto does not miss the jab. He clenched a fist and smiled, trying his, very, very best not to look like he was seething. He vows that he will land at least one hit on Kakashi, and it would have to be square in the face.
“So, if we’re not really supposed to try to get the bells, what’s the point of this exercise?” Sasuke was frowning and had his fists clenched as he stared up at Kakashi.
“I think… we’re supposed to work together as a team,” Sakura offered, hesitant. When they’re all back in the academy, Naruto should take the girl under his wing and teach her a few things, if she doesn’t protest too much. She was far too smart and resourceful to be fawning over this guy.
“Tch.”
He really doesn’t get what she sees in him. Sure he’s… cute? Mildly? But he thought girls went for more than just looks. Sasuke didn’t seem to offer much past that.
Kakashi sighs as he realizes his plans of tricking them all into failing had been dashed under the foot of one Naruto Uzumaki and holds the bells up in his fist, a jingling sound emanating from the hollow inside that caught the three genins’ attention. Well, if he’s going to have to pass them now, he can at least have some fun with it.
“Come at me,” he says, his eye gliding over the clearing, “with the intent to kill.”