Naruto lasted about eight seconds.
That was roughly how long our beautifully half-baked plan survived contact with reality.
He was supposed to wait for my signal. For Sasuke's first move. For anything.
Instead, Naruto exploded out of the bushes with a scream like a murder-peacock, kunai raised.
"KAKASHI-SENSEI, I'M GONNA KICK YOUR—"
Kakashi didn't even put his book away.
One sidestep, one lazy grab, and Naruto ate dirt so hard I felt it in my own teeth.
"Too slow," Kakashi said, sounding faintly bored.
From my perch in the tree line, all my careful thoughts about optimal timing died in a small, strangled noise.
Naruto spat mud and fury. "SHADOW CLONE JUTSU!"
Four Narutos popped into existence, all yelling mostly vowels.
"Loud," Kakashi observed.
He caught one clone by the ankle and used him as a club on the others. Ten seconds later, three puffs of smoke and one pained groan marked the end result.
The real Naruto ended up upside-down, trussed to a tree branch like an angry orange wind chime.
"Ninja use any advantage," Kakashi said, poking him casually in the forehead. "Remember that."
Naruto swung and cursed and promised bloody vengeance. None of it helped.
I watched from my hiding spot, stomach twisting. Humiliation had teeth, and it was currently gnawing on my teammate.
"You're just going to spectate forever?" I muttered at myself. "Or do something useful?"
Useful meant not repeating his mistakes.
I slipped away, keeping my chakra as small and tidy as I could, circling the clearing until I felt a sharp, familiar presence: Sasuke.
He'd set up opposite Kakashi, half-hidden in shadow, posture loose in that controlled way that screamed "predator pretending to be bored." Kakashi stood in the open now, book finally tucked away, bells chiming softly when he shifted his weight.
"This is taking longer than I thought," Kakashi mused. "Maybe they really are just Academy brats."
The air warped.
Sasuke moved.
A shuriken whistled past Kakashi's head, forcing him a step to the side—
"Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu!"
Heat washed across my face even from the trees as Sasuke's fireball roared across the clearing. For a heartbeat, Kakashi's silhouette was swallowed in orange.
When the flames cleared, scorched dirt smoked where he'd been, and a log dropped from the branches with a dull thud. Substitution.
Kakashi reappeared behind Sasuke, impossibly casual.
His hands formed that awful shape I recognized way too well from canon.
Oh no.
"Hidden Leaf Secret Taijutsu—"
Sasuke half-turned—
"Thousand Years of Pain."
There are some things you can only ever describe as a war crime on dignity.
Sasuke shot into the air with murder in his eyes, landed in a skidding crouch, and managed not to faceplant purely through spite.
"No bells," Kakashi said cheerfully. "No points."
Sasuke's chakra flared hot and sharp, ragged around the edges.
"You won't catch a jōnin with one flashy trick," Kakashi added. "Or even two."
His gaze brushed past my hiding place like a spotlight, and then he melted back into the trees.
Naruto had gone loud and straight and gotten tied up.
Sasuke had gone big and clever and gotten outplayed.
That left me.
Fantastic.
The thing about fuinjutsu—sealing techniques—is that it does not care how stupid you look while setting it up. Punching through trees is glamorous; smearing ink on roots is not. But ink remembers things, and I was very invested in being remembered as "alive."
I picked a shallow dip in the ground along the path Kakashi kept unconsciously circling toward.
First: a smoke tag. Plain paper on a buried root, a simple spiral seal, primed with just enough chakra to go whoosh instead of crater. Surprise fog machine.
Second: a sticky patch. A wide, dark circle of ink on hard-packed dirt, with an adhesion seal curling around the edge. My very own embarrassment field.
Last: a tiny tag, delicate lines looping inward—a hacked-together gravity nudge meant to tug at the bells if I could stick it to his belt. Working title: Please Work Just This Once No Jutsu.
By the time I crawled into the branches above my little hazard course, my hands were trembling with chakra fatigue. The pleasant, "wow I sure did study too long" kind, not the "about to black out" kind. Yet.
Kakashi wandered into range a few minutes later, hands in his pockets, like this was a stroll and not the exam his students' futures balanced on. Somewhere, his kitchen timer ticked toward noon.
"I wonder if they've figured it out," he said to no one. "Or if they're still thinking like Academy students."
He stepped around the smoke tag. Then over the sticky patch. Not even close.
Right. Jōnin. Of course he'd seen the whole layout.
"Plan B it is," I whispered.
I flicked the tiny gravity tag toward his hip. It brushed his vest. My chakra reached—
Kakashi stopped. The air sharpened.
"Oh?" he said pleasantly.
His hand snapped back, catching the tag like I'd tossed him a pen. Then he looked up, directly into the tree where I suddenly regretted all of my life choices.
"Fuinjutsu," he said, tone turning crisp. "At your age? Ambitious."
I tried to flee.
He was faster.
A tap on my shoulder from behind. "A ninja should watch their surroundings," he said.
I screamed internally and spun—straight into the edge of my own sticky circle.
The seal activated instantly, eager to demonstrate that it definitely worked on something.
I hit the ink face-first. One hand glued, one knee stuck, half my dignity evaporating on contact.
"Messy execution," Kakashi observed.
"Ha ha," I said into the dirt. "You're hilarious."
"I like the structure," he said. "Traps, seals, misdirection. But you telegraph your chakra. And you're relying entirely on technique against someone who has seen that exact trick a hundred ways already."
"Sorry I'm not a genius with a thousand years of combat footage," I muttered, struggling against my own seal.
"You're low on reserves," he noted.
"Incredible deduction."
"Don't push yourself just to impress anyone," he said mildly. "You'll only get yourself killed."
The casual way he said it lodged somewhere cold in my ribs.
"Wasn't trying to impress you," I said. "I just really, really wanted to wipe that lazy look off your face."
His visible eye curved. Hard to tell if that was "impressed," "amused," or "this child is an idiot." Possibly all three.
He flicked my tag onto the ground beside me, turned, and headed back toward the clearing.
Eventually, I managed to release the adhesion seal and peel myself upright. My hands, knees, and pride were all varying shades of ruined.
"At least the ground and I are close now," I muttered, limping after him.
By the time I reached the main training spot, Kakashi had escalated from individual bullying to group performance review.
Naruto was tied to the central post now, rope digging into his arms, still a bit wobbly from inverted blood flow. Sasuke leaned against a tree, arms crossed, murder tamped down into elegant irritation.
Kakashi glanced at my ink-stained everything. "Sylvie. Nice of you to drop in."
"I left a very strong impression back there," I said. "The earth will never forget me."
He ignored the joke.
"Individually…" He ticked us off on his fingers. "Naruto rushes in without thinking and gets caught. Sasuke bets everything on one big jutsu and gets punished. Sylvie relies on traps and finesse alone and gets herself stuck."
No bells. No lunch. No praise.
"No teamwork," he finished. "At this rate, none of you are passing."
My stomach answered with a miserable growl. Naruto winced in sympathy. Sasuke's eye twitched.
Kakashi sighed. "I'll give you one more chance this afternoon. Think about what you did wrong."
He vanished again, more habit than show-off.
Silence settled around the three of us. Naruto's gaze kept flicking from Sasuke to me to the empty air where our sensei had been.
"…So we bombed it," he said finally.
"Spectacularly," I said.
Sasuke snorted softly. "Speak for yourself."
"You got a war crime to the ass," I pointed out. "You're on the scoreboard with us."
His chakra spiked, then smoothed. "Next time, I won't give him that opening."
"Next time," I said, "we don't give him the chance to treat us like three separate solo attempts."
Naruto frowned. "We tried planning."
"We sketched something and then you sprinted at him like a sugared-up raccoon," I said.
He opened his mouth to argue, then shut it, cheeks puffed. "…Okay, yeah. A little bit."
"A lot bit," I said.
That was when Kakashi reappeared, this time carrying the real horror: lunch.
Bento boxes. Three of them.
Naruto's eyes went huge.
"New condition," Kakashi said. "Uzumaki Naruto attacked without thinking and got captured first. As punishment, he doesn't get lunch."
Naruto's head snapped up so fast the rope creaked. "WHAT?!"
"You two may eat," Kakashi went on, looking at me and Sasuke. "If either of you shares so much as a bite with him, you all fail and go back to the Academy."
The words hit like a kunai between the ribs.
"That's messed up," I blurted.
"Is it?" Kakashi asked mildly. "On missions, resources are limited. You can't waste food and chakra on someone who can't keep up."
Naruto sagged against the post. "I can keep up!" he yelled. "Tie me to two logs, I'll still beat these losers!"
"Rude," I said automatically.
Kakashi just told us to "use this time to think" and wandered to a nearby tree, settling with his book in that relaxed way that meant "I can see everything."
Sasuke and I sat down across from Naruto and opened our lunches. The smell hit like a trap. My hands shook a little around my chopsticks.
Naruto watched every movement like a starving fox pup.
"I'm fine," he said, in the tone that meant "absolutely not fine." "I've gone without food before. Lots of times. I'm used to it."
His chakra twisted, thin and brittle around that confession.
"Yeah," I said quietly. "That's exactly the problem."
Logically, the correct move was obvious: follow orders, keep the food, pass the test. Emotionally, my soul was standing on a table screaming absolutely not.
Sasuke started eating with tight, controlled movements. "You're making that weird thinking face again," he said. "Eat. It's annoying."
"I always make a weird thinking face."
"Exactly."
I forced a bite down. It tasted like rice and guilt.
Naruto tried to look anywhere but at our food and failed. His chakra—usually loud and sprawling—had curled in on itself, just a small, stubborn flame.
"If this was a real mission," I said slowly, "and Naruto was hurt, you'd expect us to help him, right? Not step over him because 'orders'?"
Kakashi did not answer. Page turned. Wind rustled.
My arm moved before my brain finished the argument. I held up a rice ball.
"Open," I told Naruto.
He swallowed. "S-Sylvie, he'll fail us—"
"He already knows everything that's happening," I said. "You're allowed to need things." I nudged the food closer. "Mouth. Use it."
He stared at me like I'd handed him the nuclear codes. "If we fail because of this," he muttered, "I'm haunting you."
"Great," I said. "You can rattle cupboards and complain about ramen quality."
A laugh flickered across his face. He leaned forward and took a bite. His chakra flared a little warmer, a little less hollow.
"You're an idiot," he said around the next bite. "A nice idiot, but an idiot."
"Eat your crime," I said. "If we're going back to the Academy, I want you conscious enough to yell about it."
Sasuke's bento slid just slightly closer to Naruto's reach.
"I don't remember agreeing to a team suicide pact," he said dryly.
"That's a dramatic way to say 'thanks for sharing,'" I said.
He clicked his tongue. "I'm not letting dead-last drag us down by fainting from hunger. If I'm going to beat him, I'll do it when he's actually trying."
Naruto's grin came back in pieces. He took a bite from Sasuke's box too, eyes bright and suspiciously damp.
For a few minutes, we just existed there: Naruto tied to a post, Sasuke pretending not to care, me feeding contraband carbs to our loudest link. Our chakras tangled in the air—wild orange, hot blue, ink-smudged gray. Not blended. But touching.
The air snapped.
The book vanished. Kakashi stood in front of us, presence suddenly heavy.
"So," he said. "Enjoying your lunch?"
Naruto froze with rice on his cheek. Sasuke went still. My heart tried to bail out through my ribs.
"This is a direct violation of my orders," Kakashi went on, calm as ever. "And you remember what I said would happen."
"If we feed him, we fail," Naruto said hoarsely.
"Correct," Kakashi said. "So why did you do it?"
Naruto inhaled to take the blame. I talked over him.
"Because it was a bad rule," I said. "You don't let your teammate pass out when you can fix it with a rice ball."
Kakashi's gaze locked onto me. "So you believe you know better than your commanding officer?"
"I believe," I said, voice shaking but not stopping, "that if this were a real mission, and Naruto got hurt, you'd expect us to help him. Not abandon him because 'orders.'"
Sasuke snorted. "I'm not abandoning my teammates," he said. "Even the loud ones."
"HEY," Naruto protested automatically.
Kakashi watched us for a long, slow beat. His chakra shifted, something old and tired stirring under the surface.
"If I wanted to test your individual skills," he said quietly, "I would've done that directly."
He stepped forward. Shadows stretched long.
"Those who break the rules…" His voice dropped. "Are scum."
Right. I'd grown up under rules like that—don't talk back, don't make trouble, don't tell. Rules that kept adults comfortable while kids learned how to disappear.
Leaving Naruto tied up and hungry because an authority figure said so wasn't discipline. It was the same cruelty in a flak jacket.
Naruto's breath hitched. Sasuke's shoulders went rigid.
"But those who abandon their comrades," Kakashi continued, gaze sweeping over us, "are worse than scum."
The clearing went very quiet.
Naruto swallowed. "I broke the rule first," he blurted. "If you're gonna fail anyone, fail me, not them—"
Kakashi lifted a hand.
"You," he said, pointing at Naruto, "broke the rule because you were worried about hurting your teammates. You pushed them to eat."
Naruto blinked. "I… I mean, yeah, but—"
"You," he said to Sasuke, "backed them up, knowing the consequences."
Sasuke looked away. "I told you. I refuse to lose to him because he's half-dead."
"And you," Kakashi said, eye landing on me, "recognized an order that clashed with your values and chose your comrades anyway."
"That's a poetic way to say 'fed the loud boy,'" I muttered.
His eye curved. "I'm a poetic man."
His chakra finally eased, heavy tension bleeding out of the air. He stepped back, taking us all in. There was a faint, unreadable warmth at the edges of his presence now.
"Team Seven," he said. "You pass."
My brain glitched out. I suddenly understood how Naruto felt sometimes.
"WE PASSED?!" Naruto screamed. "WE'RE A TEAM!! BELIEVE IT!"
"Don't yell," Kakashi sighed. "You'll scare the wildlife."
Sasuke's mouth twitched upward before he smoothed it out. My knees went watery, and I let out a breath I hadn't realized I'd been strangling.
"We really passed," I whispered.
Kakashi untied Naruto, who tried to sprint immediately and nearly ate dirt again. I grabbed his arm.
"Easy," I said. "If you faceplant now, I'm telling everyone you tripped the second you became a genin."
"I gotta do something cool first," he grinned.
"Please don't interpret 'cool' as 'reckless self-endangerment,'" I said.
"No promises!"
Kakashi shoved his hands back into his pockets like this hadn't just been an emotional demolition derby.
"Those who break the rules are scum," he repeated. "But those who abandon their comrades are worse than scum. I won't pass a team like that."
He looked at us—at the ink on my hands, the rope marks on Naruto's arms, the dust on Sasuke's knees.
"Starting tomorrow," he added lightly, "your real missions begin."
Real missions. Real danger. Real paperwork.
As we packed up the empty bento boxes and trailed after him toward the village, something solid settled in my chest.
The lesson wasn't "obey orders no matter what."
It was this: skills matter, missions matter, rules matter—but people matter more.
I could work with that.
We walked back through the trees.
Konoha had absolutely no idea what it had just cleared for active duty.