The next day, Naruto arrived at 7 am, only an hour after the others had arrived.
Naruto completely forgot about not eating, and so arrived with not only a full stomach but completely energized. Then an hour passed, and another, until it was half an hour till noon. Eventually Kakashi sensei arrived and immediately showed two gold bells. Kakashi then set an alarm for noon.
"There are these two bells. Retrieve them from me. Whoever doesn't will be tied to the stump and the others will eat in front of them. Since they didn't get a bell they also will lose."
Naruto thought, No way! They can't separate us so quickly!
Sakura understood why Kakashi had told them not to eat, and looked at her two teammates to see if they had. Sasuke seemed like he had, but she was never truly sure with someone so cool. Naruto definitely looked like he had eaten, he was grinning like a Cheshire cat.
Kakashi continued, "You won't get one unless you come at me intending to kill me. So shuriken, kunai, ninjutsu, they are all ok!"
Sakura said, "What if we hurt Kakashi-sensei!"
"You won't, I can promise you that."
Naruto nodded to himself and waited for Kakashi to tell them it was time.
"Go!"
Naruto and Sasuke stayed and Sakura ran off to scout Kakashi's ability.
Sasuke said, "He to try to kill him. Let's see how good our training was last night."
Kakashi was outwardly unsurprised but internally though, they actually trained? Does that mean even Sakura leaving is part of their plan?
Before he could humor that thought, Naruto and Sasuke rushed him. As they did, they both aimed, shuriken at him. Naruto stopped, just behind Sasuke and grabbed a Kunai out of his pouch. As the shuriken hit, smoke showed it to be a substitution jutsu.
Naruto groaned as he didn't see Kakashi anywhere near.
"Sasuke! Let's stay here. I have an idea."
Sasuke turned to Naruto and saw Naruto form a hand seal. Immediately, six shadow clones appeared and Naruto ordered them to search the forest with haste. Naruto was unaware of the shadow clone's hidden capability, until he saw an image of Kakashi disabling Sakura. His eyes widened, and a grin came across his face.
Naruto said, "I found him."
Sasuke didn't question it and followed the blonde. They landed near where Sakura had been and woke her up.
Sasuke asked, "Where did-"
He was cut off by the sound of shuriken. Naruto and Sasuke split apart, only to put their backs together again. They slowly moved, circling Sakura, trying to figure out where Kakashi was. Then they heard the ground crumble underneath Naruto. Sasuke turned trying to grab Naruto but was unable to.
Then Naruto poofed and in his place was… Naruto. Sasuke's eyes darted around, and there he saw Kakashi moving into the clearing. Sasuke tossed ten shuriken, and watched Kakashi dodge them with ease. Before forming hand seals.
[Katon: Fireball Jutsu]
A flame erupted from Sasuke's mouth and enveloped Kakashi. Naruto, from the trees, saw Kakashi ascend from under the ground. However, he threw a kunai at the hand before it could grab Sasuke. Kakashi's hand retreated and Sasuke turned around.
Kakashi, hidden in the trees opposite to Naruto, wondered why the blonde was hiding. He was about to jump out the trees when he felt a chakra approaching. He turned just in time to be kicked by Naruto out the forest into the clearing. Kakashi landed on his feet and turned to look at Sasuke. Who began to move his hands again.
Naruto then did the shadow clone jutsu. Once again summoning six of them. This time, Naruto rushed Kakashi as he waited for Sasuke to finish his jutsu. Naruto threw a right hook, then jumped above Kakashi. Aiming for an axe kick, Naruto faked out Kakashi and landed instead, punching the sensei in his stomach. Then he jumped away, letting his clones take hold of the man.
[Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu]
Naruto grinned as the flames engulfed both his shadow clones and his sensei. Then they heard the sound of steam. Naruto and Sasuke turned to look at Kakashi, who put himself in a water prison. Kakashi clapped his hands slowly as he released the water prison jutsu.
"Good job you two. Time's up. However, I'll pass you. On one condition…"
Naruto and Sasuke looked at each other, Naruto grinning and Sasuke smirking.
Sasuke asked, "Which is?"
"You two and Sakura have to do one group activity outside of your shinobi missions everyday for the first month. You guys completely excluded her."
Sasuke replied, "We wouldn't have if she wasn't useless."
Kakashi immediately thought, he's not wrong. Perhaps I should ask someone to train her in medical ninjutsu. The other two have more than enough attack power.
Kakashi said, "We shouldn't speak like that about our teammates. You should try your best to be friends with each other. In the shinobi world, those who break rules and codes are trash. But in my opinion, those who don't take care of their comrades are worse than trash. Right now, what you did was worse than trash."
Naruto nodded solemnly, and Sasuke let out a quiet grunt.
"Good! That ends training! All of you have successfully passed."
A couple hours later, Naruto was resting when he realized he was not tired.
Deciding to explore what he found out about the shadow clones. He told one of them to make him ramen and another to walk around the village. When the ramen was done, he dispersed both of them. Indeed images of the village and staring at the microwave, appeared simultaneously in his mind. He decided he would go to train some more.
Most days would precede in similar fashion. Despite becoming a ninja, they were sent to do other people's chores. One of these chores was repeatedly catching the fire daimyo's wife's cat, Tora. Tora was a pain in the butt, however Naruto and Sasuke found a way to make the mission fun.
They'd practice their weapons mastery by slowly guiding the cat with kunai and shuriken towards Sakura or Kakashi-sensei. Kakashi was surprised by the innovative technique but it allowed them to get more missions done in a day. On one of the days they had to catch Tora, they returned him to Madam Shijmi but before the could get another mission Naruto spoke.
"I'm tired of these missions, Hokage-sama! I want something more incredible, something to test our ability!"
Before the Hokage could reply, Genma who had replaced Iruka spoke, "Naruto-san, you're speaking to the Hokage. Second, you all only graduated two months ago, you have to wait at least a couple more months."
"I refuse. Hokage-sama, give me something better! A C rank or B Rank. I'm tired of these D ranks!"
Sasuke silently nodded his head in agreement.
Hiruzen Sarutobi nodded and said, "Alright Naruto, here's this one. You'll be protecting a certain individual. It will be C rank, expect to deal with bandits or something similar. Come in Tazuna."
Tazuna walked in, a towel around his neck, and a bottle of beer in his hands.
His first immediately pissed Naruto off, "What are these? A bunch of stupid brats, I'm a super bridge builder! I deserve super ninja and that short one with that yellow hair doesn't look like much."
Before Naruto could show the old man how super he was, Kakashi grabbed him by the collar and sheepishly replied to Tazuna.
"Don't worry Tazuna san, I'm a jounin, if anything goes wrong I'll be there to help. But of course, you aren't expecting that, right?"
Kakashi looked at the bridge builder and watched as he nervously shook his head.
Within an hour, the group gathered at the gate of Konoha. Naruto was the second last to arrive, right before Kakashi. Who for once was only a little bit late. Sasuke and Naruto began to chat amicably as they walked towards Tazunas country.