Kakashi stood, one hand resting on his cane and the other rubbing the back of his neck. About forty minutes remained until noon. In that time, the genin team was supposed to complete their task. Naturally, the shinobi was nearly a hundred percent certain that not one of his students would manage to take a bell — even if he lay down and read a book.
But the true essence of the test wasn't that. The essence was teamwork, and the willingness to "sacrifice something" for others. In his imagination, Hatake was already mentally tying Naruto or Sakura to a post and walking away, then watching the genin in secret. The picture formed so vividly in his mind that he even chuckled out loud.
Right, no time for daydreaming, Kakashi caught himself. With that attitude, his bells could be taken easily enough. One should never underestimate opponents. Back to reality. Hm… So — all ninja must master the art of concealment. For a shinobi, that skill is a matter of life and death. The thing is, though…
"Not everyone understands that," Hatake murmured quietly.
Sasuke and Sakura had hidden from him reasonably well. He could sense them regardless, of course. The fact that they hadn't attacked head-on already spoke in favor of their intelligence. Naruto, however, was still standing with his head held high and his arms folded across his chest.
Kakashi closed his eye and began mentally counting to ten, giving the genin time to go to his teammates and discuss tactics. But the little blond showed no intention of heading toward his teammates — instead he shouted:
"Alright, let's find out who's tougher, One-Eye-Sensei! I'm going to become Hokage, and before that I need to face as many strong opponents as possible! I'll beat you not with strength — but with cunning!"
Kakashi's palm met his face.
I thought he was smarter than that. Apparently not… Didn't you just say the gap between us is like the difference between a kitten and a tiger?…
"What are you just standing there for?!" Uzumaki shouted even louder than before. "Let's fight, dattebayo! Fight, fight, fight!.." the blond chanted.
The racket from Naruto was so intense that the Copy Ninja's ears rang. He winced.
"You're contradicting yourself, Naruto. You say you'll beat me with cunning, but then you plan to fight in the open. You're quite a strange young man," Kakashi drawled.
"Your haircut is the strange one!" Naruto kept shouting. "Get ready, One-Eye-Sensei — I'll use everything I've got to beat you! And I will absolutely never give up!"
Is this part of a plan? Or is he just an idiot? Kakashi thought. I said the main objective is the bells. Was he even listening?…
With a cry of "AAAA!.." the little Jinchuriki charged at the jonin. Kakashi's hand moved toward his pouch — Naruto registered this quickly, skidded to a sudden stop, leaped sideways, and produced a kunai.
"Not bad reflexes," Hatake commented on the genin's move. "Allow me to give you a few lessons and test your skills at the same time. So then — lesson one: Taijutsu."
"Taijutsu?" Uzumaki repeated. "Meaning you won't use any weapons?"
"Oh, none of that is necessary," the shinobi smiled under his mask and produced a book from his pouch. He then settled himself on the ground, set the cane aside, and began reading with visible enthusiasm.
"What?" Naruto drawled in bewilderment. "Are you going to read? What about the test?"
"Relax, kid," the jonin waved his hand, eyes fixed on his book. "Your yelling tired me out a little, so I decided to read. But you're welcome to attack — a book won't get in the way of a fight against you."
Uzumaki snarled, then threw a kunai at the jonin's head. The man dodged it lazily, still not looking up from his reading.
"Hey!.. Don't underestimate me!" Naruto shouted, charging the jonin in close combat.
The boy's first strike was blocked with an open palm by Kakashi, still sitting on the grass. A spinning kick followed immediately after. It seemed as though it was about to connect…
But the next moment Uzumaki lost his instructor from view, freezing in place. Looking all around, he shifted his weight from foot to foot, straining his eyes in a fruitless search.
"Stop hiding, dattebayo!"
"A ninja should never leave their back exposed," came a voice from behind Naruto.
"Naruto, run! He'll kill you!" a desperate cry from Sakura rang out from somewhere.
The boy froze — but a second later he was already preparing to run away from the jonin, who, judging by Sakura's cry, was preparing something lethal.
"Too late. Secret technique of two fingers: A Thousand Years of Pain!"
What followed was one of the most horrifying and ruthless techniques in the Copy Ninja's arsenal. However, when the joined fingers of the tiger seal reached the genin's backside, the latter dispersed with a soft "Poof!" in a puff of smoke.
"What?" Kakashi exclaimed. "A shadow clone?…"
Uchiha Sasuke sat in the bushes watching their new instructor and the noisy blond. The latter, it appeared, had no intention of hiding. Yes, the team assignment had not gone in his favor. One of them was an annoying weakling, the other an idiot. For a brief moment today Sasuke had thought that Uzumaki was actually quite sharp — that all the behavior he had displayed earlier was a front, meant to throw people off and lower their guard.
But now, watching this fool shouting something about figuring out "who's tougher," the Uchiha had once again begun to doubt Naruto's sanity. And when the blond started chanting "Fight!" across the entire training ground like a small child, he had finally convinced himself that his teammate was an idiot.
"Psst… Sasuke-dumbass…" a quiet voice distracted the brunette from his thoughts.
The Uchiha recoiled sharply from the source of the voice, spinning around and drawing a kunai. But when he saw who had called to him, he was — to put it mildly — surprised. He shifted his gaze back to the clearing, then back to the one who had spoken. Several times.
"Easy, Sasuke — it's me, Naruto. The one with Kakashi is my shadow clone. It's a distraction," Uzumaki explained in a whisper.
Coming out of his brief shock, the brunette gave a grim nod.
Drawing up almost level with his teammate, Naruto continued in a hurried, barely audible voice:
"Hatake Kakashi is one of the strongest shinobi in the Leaf. A genius. Made chunin at six years old. Made jonin at roughly our age. They say he knows a thousand techniques. Our chances of taking the bells in an open clash are basically zero. And as for actually beating him — if he doesn't hold back, it's genuinely impossible."
Sasuke swallowed. If Uzumaki was telling the truth, it was quite possible that their team — like all the other candidates who had ended up in this man's hands — would also fail. He slowly put the kunai back in his pouch.
"How do you know all this?" the Uchiha asked darkly.
"I'll tell you everything. Later," Naruto stated firmly. "Right now we don't have much time — we need to fall back deeper into the forest. We'll discuss the plan there. Let's go, quietly."
"What about Sakura?" Sasuke asked.
"Heh," Naruto scratched the back of his head. "Don't worry — I sent a clone for her…"
The brunette immediately pictured a scene where a copy of Naruto was trying to get Sakura to come with him while she brushed him off. But he didn't argue. Nodding, he followed Uzumaki deeper into the forest.
The pink-haired kunoichi lay on the grass beneath a spreading bush, trying not to make a sound. Before long, however, she realized all her efforts were pointless — the noisy blond was shouting like a fish seller at the market. She began to suspect him of using some special voice-amplifying technique, since an ordinary child, in her opinion, couldn't produce a sound that powerful.
"Sakura-chan," a quiet voice nearby distracted her. "It's me, Naruto. Come with us."
The girl, startled, let out a small squeak — but there was such a commotion on the training ground that the sensei had most likely not noticed. She slowly turned her head and saw Uzumaki's grinning face.
"Naruto?" Sakura stared in bewilderment, shifting her gaze back and forth between the clearing and the blond lying beside her.
"That's my clone. It's distracting Kakashi," the genin explained. "And I'm a clone too, by the way."
"Naruto-baka," she hissed angrily. "What does this mean?"
"Shh-shh-shh…" Naruto pressed a finger to his lips. "No time to explain. This is all Sasuke's plan. He's waiting for us nearby. Let's go quickly…"
"S-Sasuke-kun's plan?" the kunoichi breathed dreamily, cheeks going pink.
"Yep, yep," the blond muttered glumly. "Come on, hurry."
Shortly afterward, yet another Uzumaki clone and Sakura were crawling quite briskly deeper into the forest. After a few dozen meters they rose and jogged toward their destination.
Haruno Sakura had no idea that in that moment, another grinning "Sakura" with characteristic whisker marks on her cheeks was crawling to take her place, murmuring:
"Well, One-Eye-Sensei, you're going to get what's coming to you. Genius or not…"
Watching the spectacle unfolding on the training ground, the clone wearing the pink-haired girl's likeness was barely suppressing its laughter. But the next moment there was nothing to laugh about — the jonin on the clearing had appeared behind clone number one, preparing some fire technique.
"Damn," the Naruto copy muttered. "Too soon. Naruto-1 needs to keep distracting him for at least a few more minutes."
Naruto-2 cleared his throat and, doing its best to copy Sakura's voice, cried out:
"Naruto, run! He'll kill you!"
But it was already too late, and the plan threatened to go up in the same smoke as a ramen bowl.
Uzumaki and the Uchiha moved through the upper paths with considerable agility. The training ground's territory wasn't especially large, but even its area was sufficient to hide from the jonin for a while, while he was busy dealing with one of Naruto's clones.
"I think that's enough," the blond said mid-leap, then pushed off from a tree trunk. Executing an elegant sideways somersault, he landed softly on the grass. Sasuke landed beside him a moment later.
Now it was time to prepare. Based on information received from Anko, Kakashi wanted teamwork from all the genin assigned to him. Yet not one of Hatake's prospective students had ever passed the test. So what was the catch? Naruto had managed to ask Mitarashi about their new instructor and about the test that Team 7 would be facing. She had needed no persuading. The girl had willingly shared what she knew about the Copy Ninja and offered several tips on how to stand up to a powerful opponent — what one could count on and what was out of the question. She had also hinted at the importance of teamwork and the use of various tactics involving clones, including as distractions.
Running through the memories of the previous day, Naruto's mind latched onto two key elements: clones and explosive tags.
Clones and explosive tags. Clones… and explosive tags…
"Boss!" a clone's voice pulled the boy from his thoughts. "All done!"
"Right," Uzumaki gave an absent nod and dispelled the copies. The flood of returning information had virtually no effect on the genin's thought process. He only registered at the edge of his awareness where the explosive tags had been placed. Twenty of them. Five in reserve, just in case.
Clones and explosive tags…
The thought refused to fully form in his head. Naruto felt as though he was missing something very important. Some crucial tactic involving clones.
Suddenly an idea shot through Uzumaki's head.
"Of course! It's so simple! The idea's right there on the surface."
The blond actually jumped on the spot with excitement.
"What is it?" the Uchiha muttered darkly.
"Ha-ha-ha…" Uzumaki struck a cool pose. "The bells are going to be ours, Sasuke. Though I can't guarantee the sensei's safety…"
The corner of the brunette's mouth lifted, and he gave an understanding nod.
Then information arrived from a dispelled clone. Uzumaki's smile froze. As the realization sank in, the smile slowly shifted into a feral grimace. It was the clone he had sent for Sakura. The last memory — the girl stood frozen in shock, then began trembling, and tears streamed from her eyes. Sakura's piercing scream still rang in his ears.
Noticing such a sharp shift in the blond's mood, Sasuke swallowed almost imperceptibly, but still decided to ask:
"What happened?"
Naruto dropped his head and clenched his fists.
"Sakura is with Kakashi…"
The blond told the Uchiha curtly what he had seen in the clone's memories.
"I won't forgive the one-eye for this…"
"Don't get heated," Sasuke said dryly. "He's our instructor — nothing's going to happen to Haruno. She got scared by an illusion. She'll be out for half an hour. Nothing serious."
"At least she won't be annoying anyone," Sasuke added under his breath.
"True enough," Naruto smiled stiffly. He hadn't caught that last part. "I get it. It was just Genjutsu. But… Sasuke, you didn't see her tears. She was shaking like she'd seen the Shinigami himself, and then that scream…"
"Forget about Sakura," the Uchiha cut him off. "What about the test? Do you think he'll walk into the trap?"
Naruto's only answer to that was a grin.
"Doesn't matter. If Plan A doesn't work, we go to Plan B. We go to him. I've still got explosive tags left, and I've got something to surprise our sensei with."
The corner of the brunette's mouth lifted, and he gave a knowing nod. A couple of moments later, Sasuke and Naruto were racing through the upper paths toward the spot where the clone had dispersed.
In the Hokage Tower, everything was as before, unchanged. The Third sat with his papers, smoking his pipe. Tazuna stood near the wall, shifting from foot to foot with nervous energy, fiddling with his onion-shaped hat. A polite offer to sit had been declined.
"How much longer?" the architect asked impatiently.
Sarutobi gave a quiet chuckle, preparing to reassure the client — but the entrance door flew open abruptly, and a green whirlwind burst into the room. When the whirlwind came to a stop in the middle of the office, it blinded those present with a dazzling white smile.
"Team Three, reporting to the Hokage as called! In the name of the Power of Youth, we are ready to accept a new mission!" the man raised a big thumbs up and winked at Tazuna.
The architect swallowed nervously, but decided to inspect the visitor.
The stranger was dressed in a green combat suit, a jonin's protective vest, and orange leg warmers. The defining feature that drew the eye immediately was a set of enormously thick eyebrows and a bowl-cut hairstyle.
Before the architect could recover from the shock, another green whirlwind — slightly smaller — flew into the office. A boy looked up at the thick-browed man with devoted eyes, then struck an identical pose.
Looking more closely, Tazuna realized the boy was practically an exact miniature copy of the man.
"Hic…" escaped from Tazuna.
The architect was about to reach for the bottle resting in his bag, but caught himself in time. He was in the Hokage's presence, after all. He shifted his gaze back and forth between one set of thick brows and the other, hoping he was simply experiencing a mild bout of confusion from the morning's sake. But the hallucinations, apparently, had no intention of going away.
Then a boy and a girl walked calmly into the room. The first had strange pale eyes without pupils, long dark chestnut hair, and bandages on his right arm and leg. He wore an ochre-colored shirt and brown shorts. The girl was dressed in a pink vest and blue pants, her hair gathered in two buns on either side — resembling panda ears. Both genin wore Leaf headbands on their foreheads.
The Third decided to break the prolonged silence:
"Team Three, allow me to introduce our client: Tazuna-san, an architect from the Land of Waves. Your new mission, Gai — escort and protection of this client…"
"Don't worry, client-san, we will bring you there safe and sound," Gai declared, cutting off the Hokage.
"In the name of the Power of Youth!.." the thick-browed boy exclaimed, still holding his good-guy pose. "And if we can't bring you there, we'll carry you!" the genin concluded cheerfully.
"Well done, Lee! We'll complete the mission no matter what!" Gai took up his student's idea.
"Hic…" came from the architect again. His glasses slid to the tip of his nose, threatening to topple onto the floor. He looked at Sarutobi with a pleading gaze. His expression read plainly: Maybe we don't have to?
But the Hokage was immovable, and merely smirked from the corner of his mouth.
"Don't worry, Tazuna-san," Hiruzen puffed his pipe. "Gai's team has some twenty completed C-rank missions behind them already. They have carried out escort assignments on multiple occasions. Successful ones, I should note. And besides — you yourself said time waits for no one and the bridge won't build itself. Correct?"
Tazuna gave a sluggish nod, adjusting his glasses. He hadn't expected a normal escort team. But if the Hokage said the team was experienced, then so it was. A respectable man wouldn't lie, would he?
"When do we leave?" the architect said with resignation.
"Right now!" Gai exclaimed brightly.
"In the name of the Power of Youth, we will finish this mission in one week!" Lee set the condition. "And if we cannot, we will run ten — no, twenty — laps around Konoha on our hands!"
"Lee!" the jonin was moved to tears by the boy's declaration.
"Gai-sensei!" tears began to well in Lee's eyes as well.
"Lee!.."
"Gai-sensei!.."
Teacher and student then embraced warmly. The architect, meanwhile, concluded that he needed to stock up on more sake — because what he currently had on him was not enough. Not nearly enough.