The Copy Ninja.
The Man with a Thousand Jutsu.
The Son of the White Fang.
Kakashi Hatake accumulated titles like walls accumulating cracks, until the structure beneath them was harder to see than the damage on the surface. Genin at five. Chunin at six. Jonin at twelve. ANBU Captain at thirteen. The man who cut through lightning. The last living student of the Fourth Hokage.
That was the legend everyone else saw.
But when he looked at his own reflection. All Kakashi saw was a man defined by his failures. He had looked away, many times over the years. The reflectio never changed.
Cursed Kakashi.
He called himself that sometimes as an inside joke with no punchline.
Except it felt like he was truly cursed.
Everyone he had cared about had died. His father. Obito. Rin. Minato-sensei. A procession of ghosts that had settled into the permanent geography of his life. This was why he had stopped letting people stay close.
Then there was Guy.
Loud, relentless and constitutionally incapable of accepting a closed door. That man had spent years refusing to let Kakashi's walls work. He was exhausting, absurd and somehow the most consistent presence in Kakashi's adult life. Which said something about his state of life that the jomin preferred not to examine too closely. Guy's persistence worn him down enough to consider the jonin instructor position. Not that he would be good at it. Kakashi expected to fail at it. But in a moment of something that might generously be called weak optimism, he had agreed to try.
He had not passed a single genin team ever since.
This year he had been assigned Team Seven.
Team... Seven.
That was the same number as his old squad. With a civilian girl, a traumatized prodigy, and a loudmouth deadlast. The resemblance to his past felt like the universe was either warning him or mocking him.
Kakashi wasn't a religious man but this felt like a sign.
Flip!
The young adult let the doubt settle somewhere and turned his attention back to the page.
The new Icha-Icha novel was a masterpiece. Whatever else could be said about Jiraiya, the man had not lost his touch.
"Enjoying the new release, I see."
"The love triangle in the third act was a little dry," Kakashi said. "Please tell Master Jiraiya, he needs to find new ways to complicate the saga. The tension isn't landing the way it used to."
Hiruzen smiled despite the exhaustion sitting behind his eyes. "Do you think this year you'll finally pass a team?"
"Only time will tell."
"Sometimes, I wonder if you even want one."
"To be honest, I don't know," Kakashi said, from his peripheral vision he registered the disapproving look from the Hokage's secretary.
He couldn't blame her.
No reasonable woman approved of a man openly reading Jiraiya's cultural masterpieces. Well, Anko might but she was Anko.
Kakashi genuinely enjoyed these books. They were a distraction, something to fill the spaces that would otherwise fill themselves with less manageable things. A better addiction than alcohol, which was where most shinobi eventually arrived at. He had chosen art on a page instead.
"Kakashi, have you ever considered the balance between what is right and what is necessary?"
"Of course. It gets harder to see the line the more you walk it."
"Today I intend to find it." Hiruzen gestured toward the office. "Come inside."
The door closed.
The hokage sat down behind his desk and said it plainly. "Kakashi, I want you to pass Team Seven."
Kakashi considered why the hokage would be issuing this as a direct order rather than leaving it to the usual process.
"Lord Third, this is too much bias towards Sasuke Uchiha."
It was the logical conclusion. Kakashi was the only shinobi equipped to teach the boy how to use the Sharingan properly. While the copy ninja was ever grateful to Fugaku for allowing him to keep Obito's eye despite the clan's objections. And he was willing to give Sasuke a fair chance on those terms.
But passing a team for one kid wasn't his style.
"This isn't about Sasuke Uchiha. This is about Naruto Uzumaki."
Kakashi's heart skipped a beat.
Naruto Uzumaki.
He had a thorough file on the boy. The Ex-Anbu Captain had files on most people worth keeping track of.
Academic performance, behavioral incidents, pranks and physical development. The unofficial record of every time a civilian had pushed too far and someone quiet had pushed back on Naruto's behalf without leaving a name.
That last category had mostly been Kakashi.
He had never made his presence known. The closest he had come was a rooftop in Naruto's seventh year, watching the boy eat alone at a festival. While the people moved around him like he was a cursed object rather than a person. He had told himself that being unseen was a form of protection.
Naruto would remain safe away from cursed Kakashi. That was the excuse he returned to whenever the thought of sensei's son came.
And yet here he was with that excuse running out of room.
Kakashi found that part of him was not entirely opposed to this. Even if the boy had inherited nothing of Minato's talent as his academy record suggested. The hatake could give him the thing Minato had given to him.
But first...
"Lord Hokage, what exactly happened?"
Hiruzen held up one hand and formed a single seal with the other, extending one finger toward Kakashi's temple.
Ninja Art: Memory Transfer Jutsu!
This was a technique the professor had developed from the foundational principles of the Yamanaka clan's mind transfer work. The jutsu transferred preselected memories letting Kakashi witness the events.
The silver haired jonin sat with the information for a few minutes.
"Hokage-sama." Kakashi kept his voice calm with some effort. "I have been informally monitoring Naruto for years. My time in ANBU made constant surveillance impossible but I maintained what I could. How does a child acquire so many unknowns without a single flag being raised before now."
"I know," Hiruzen said, with the tone of a man who had been sitting with that same question for several sleepless nights. "But the jutsu are real. The equipment is real. The emotional state is real. Whatever happened to that boy happened somewhere... somehow we cannot currently explain. And it changed him in ways that are going to require careful handling."
"When you say careful handling..."
"I am not asking you to do anything we would both regret, Kakashi."
The tension across the young shinobi's shoulders came down by a visible degree.
"Then what're you asking?"
"I want you to pass Team Seven," Hiruzen said. "And I want you to be their sensei."
The statement was technically redundant. Passing a team and becoming their jonin instructor were the same action. Which meant the emphasis was not on the passing. It was on the last word.
Sensei.
"If I pass Team Seven... I would be their instructor," Kakashi said. "So, I assume the distinction you are drawing has more specificity to it than the standard arrangement. What does the role entail given the circumstances?"
"A teacher is someone a child can go to when everything else is done… yet something still weighs on them. Someone whose presence alone tells them they matter. Iruka has been that for Naruto. But he cannot remain so forever. The boy is stepping into a different life now."
Kakashi absorbed that.
"According to Inoichi, the greatest risk Naruto poses is not the power he has acquired. It is the conclusion he may reach about whether Konoha is worthy of his loyalty."
The room held its breath for a moment.
"Can a honest relationship be built on an operational mandate?"
"We all wear masks, Kakashi." Hiruzen's voice was not unkind. "You understand that more than most. The mask does not make what is behind it false. What makes a relationship genuine is the consistency of what you offer across the easy and difficult moment. Whether you show up the same way when it costs you something as when it does not." He tilted his head slightly. "You watched over that boy for years with no mandate or recognition. I think the relationship already exists. The assignment simply requires you to stop conducting it from a rooftop."
"I will need more information before I can approach this with any real competence."
"You weren't planning on being competent sensei?!"
"I wasn't planning on passing a genin team at all," Kakashi said. "And my instinct is to treat them the way I treated capable ANBU subordinates. Clear expectations, direct feedback and, high standards applied consistently over teamwork drills."
Hiruzen gave his jonin a long look. "Kakashi, they are not operatives. They are twelve years old learning what it means to be a shinobi. What you do in the next year... will have more influence on how it closes than almost anything else."
"Yes, Sir."
"Sasuke needs someone who can see him clearly without being consumed by what happened to his family. Sakura needs someone who respects her enough to be honest rather than careful with her. And Naruto..."
The oldman set his hat down.
"Naruto needs someone who stays. Whatever else you do with that team, do not leave him."
"My primary task is to create an environment where the kids can grow and learn to trust each other."
Which was, more or less, the standard expectation for a jonin instructor.
"And my secondary objective is to keep note of anything suspicious related to Naruto's… mysteries."
Hiruzen nodded.
Six hours late.
Even Kakashi had to admit that was pushing it.
The academy was almost empty by the time the jonin arrived. Every other instructor had already finished their bell tests and left hours ago. When the classroom door finally slid open, Sakura was fast asleep with her head on the desk.
Sasuke looked bored out of his mind.
The silver haired jonin stood in the doorway like nothing was wrong.
"Team 7," he called lazily.
Sakura jolted awake turning toward the doorway ready to raise hell. Sasuke glanced at Kakashi, then looked away again as if the jonin had already failed some test.
"At least you guys didn't run away like last year's genin team."
Sasuke categorized Kakashi somewhere between an idiot and a clown.
"Now, where's Naruto?"
"He went to the bathroom…," Sakura said, uncertainty lacing her voice.
"Six hours ago," Sasuke added.
Sakura tilted her head, "Did Naruto run away because sensei was a no show?"
"Hn."
"Look what the cat dragged in," Kakashi said with an eyesmile.
The window slid open.
Naruto climbed back into the classroom in full armor before he dropped onto the floor. He brushed dust off his shoulder like nothing had happened.
Even though Kakashi had seen the memories. He could not help but admire the craftsmanship of the armor. More importantly, Naruto moved with a level of comfort that had not been present in the memories.
Did Naruto trick the Hokage? Kakashi wondered. Obviously the boy couldn't have gotten stronger in just a few hours.
"Where were you Naruto?"
Beneath Sakura's anger, Kakashi caught fear and caution. He cross referenced it with what he already knew about the three of them.
"Oh, I got scammed by some asshole into joining his cult," Naruto said before letting out a burp. The smell of ramen hit the others. As they silently concluded Naruto was lying.
So this is what it feels like to be on the receiving end of my own bullshit excuses, Kakashi thought, clearing his throat.
"How shall I put this?"
The three genin stared at him expectantly.
Kakashi rubbed his chin in mock thought. "Based on my first impression," he said slowly, "I'd have to say…"
The pause stretched.
"I hate you."
Naruto did not miss a beat.
"Well, fuck you too then."
The sun was setting over Konoha.
The sky bleeding orange and deep blue in the last hour before dark. Team Seven sat in the rooftop garden of the academy. Trees lined the stone walkways in neat symmetry, their branches meeting overhead, the last of the daylight coming through the gaps in the canopy in long flat strips.
Their jonin instructor stood a short distance away with his back against the railing.
What was he supposed to call this guy? Naruto thought. Sensei felt wrong.
Sensei was a title that meant something. Iruka had earned it by actually caring. Oscar had earned it by actually teaching. This masked man was currently giving the impression that the three of them were a mild inconvenience in an otherwise acceptable evening.
The White Cyclops. The White Pervert. The Whiteman.
"Alright," Kakashi said breaking naruto out of his thoughts. "Introductions. Tell me your name, your likes and dislikes, your dreams, your hobbies. The standard format."
A crow cawed from somewhere in the distance.
"You first."
"Fair enough. I am Hatake Kakashi. My likes and dislikes are not your business. My dreams for the future are also not your business. I have hobbies."
Naruto stared at him. "That's it."
"That is it."
"You didn't tell us anything."
"I told you my name."
Naruto opened his mouth, closed it, and decided to go next on principle. He reached back and pulled his shield off his shoulder, planting it upright in front of him with a solid thud. The lion crest caught the last of the sunlight.
"Naruto Uzumaki. Squire of Oscar of Astora. I like ramen, swords, and people who are honest. I dislike alot of things. My dream is to become the Chosen Undead and ring the Bells of Awakening."
"Squire?" Sasuke questioned.
"Squire," Naruto nodded.
"What is the Chosen Undead?" Sakura asked.
"Someone who has a specific mission that matters."
"Which is?"
"Ring two bells. One is above, one is below. When both ring, something happens. Dattebayo!"
Sasuke and Sakura exchanged a sideways look wondering if Naruto was pranking them.
Meanwhile Kakashi resisted the urge to stare.
Chosen Undead.
The words sat wrong as the white haired jonin forced himself not to overanalyze them without proper context.
But he knew one thing.
Naruto Uzumaki wanted to become Hokage. That had been the one constant in a file full of troublesome reports.
So why had Naruto not shouted it just now?
A joke? Unlikely. A lie? Possible.
Naruto's body language showed no signs of deception that Kakashi could detect. Which left the possibility that this was the boy's new dream. Honestly, that was not the most surprising outcome. A twelve year olds' goals and dreams changed as they grew. Even so, what had happened for Naruto to choose something like "Chosen Undead" over becoming Hokage?
"Next."
"Uchiha Sasuke. There are things I dislike and few things I like. Dreams are a distraction. I have a goal to restore my clan. Kill a specific person. Everything I do moves toward that."
Naruto sensed a connection with Sasuke. He understood that burning need for revenge. The same fire that drove him against the Asylum Demon. Even if he did not know anything about what happened, he hoped Sasuke would get his revenge.
Kakashi pointed toward Sakura.
"Haruno Sakura." The kunoichi glanced at Sasuke with her cheeks going predictably pink. "My favorite thing is... It is not a thing exactly. It is more of a..."
Naruto made a quiet sound of suffering. Sasuke was ignoring this portion of the introduction.
"I dislike Ino-pig," Sakura said with significantly more conviction than the rest of it. "And I like to read."
"Now that we've established ourselves to each other. Tomorrow is going to be your genin test."
"But we are genin?"
"Graduating means you are eligible to become a genin. Passing this test means you are actually on the team. Out of this year's graduating class, roughly a third will end up in the genin corps."
"..."
"Training Ground Seven," Kakashi continued. "Early tomorrow morning for the survival exercise. And do not eat breakfast."
"Why not?"
"You will understand tomorrow."
"That is not an answer."
"No, It is not." Kakashi agreed pleasantly before disappearing without a sound.
Training Ground Seven was beautiful.
Mountains framed the horizon. The river ran deep and fast along the dense forest. In the center of the glade were three training stumps stood in a line. And below them was the memorial stone.
Naruto sat on one of the stumps turning a small urn over in his hand.
[ Item: Firebomb ][ Description: Bisque urn filled with black powder. Explodes, inflicting fire damage. A very precious item at low levels. Many warriors use these to augment their strategic repertoire. ]
Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.
Naruto had not put it there himself. One of his clones had transferred it to his inventory. This was a huge discovery.
Next time, I'm sending a hundred clones straight to that stupid graveyard. Every skeleton there was getting looted. That is my revenge, dattebayo! Naruto thought checking his watch. It was bright orange, a small dragon curling around the twelve. He had bought it yesterday so he could keep track of time while in Lordran.
"Where is this cyclops?"
"Be patient," Sasuke said trying to hide his irritation.
"If he's not here in the next ten minutes I'm eating my ramen."
[ Item: Ichiraku Ramen Bowl x10 ]
"He's probably reading that smut book somewhere," Sakura said. "It's completely unprofessional. Who shows up late to their own team test?"
Naruto considered sitting with his irritation but decided he would rather do something useful. He reached into his inventory and the Zweihander materialized in both hands.
Sasuke and Sakura both looked at it.
"What's that?"
"The Zweihander." Naruto swung the massive blade in a slow, controlled arc, feeling its weight settle into his grip. "Picked it up from a corpse in a graveyard."
Sakura stared at him. "You robbed a grave?"
"No."
Naruto thought about it because technically...
"...No."
That second answer did not sound very convincing.
"Anyway, it does not matter. I was being chased by a bunch of skeletons. This beast basically saved my life."
"I'm sure the skeletons rose from their graves to kill you."
"Yeah, how did you know that happened?"
Sakura rolled her eyes. "Sasuke, between Naruto and Kakashi, who do you think is the worse liar?"
"Hn."
Naruto clenched his jaw.
It was the truth.
All of it.
But if he tried to explain, they would just ask more questions. Questions he did not have answers to. Hell, he barely understood how half the things in Lordran even worked.
So, he shut up.
Instead, he tightened his grip on the Zweihander and went back to his drills.
One swing.
Then another.
After a while, he set the blade aside and moved on to his physical training.
One hundred pushups. One hundred sit-ups. One hundred squats with the Zweihander across his shoulders for the added resistance. Then the run, back and forth across the length of the training ground in measured intervals until the distance accumulated into something worth counting.
"He's going to exhaust himself before the test even starts," Sakura said surprised by the effort.
Naruto finished, straightened up, and pulled the Estus flask from his belt. He uncorked it and drank. The yellow light moved across him in a quiet shimmer spreading from his chest outward. The accumulated fatigue of the workout dissolved, leaving his muscles fresh and his joints loose.
He re-corked the flask and looked up to find both of them staring at him.
"What?"
Before either of them could answer, leaves swirled as Kakashi materialized with a raised hand.
"Good morning."
"You're late!" Naruto and Sakura said simultaneously, pointing.
"Sorry about that. I got lost on the road of life."
"You know, that was the lamest excuse I've ever heard in my life."
"Is that so?" Kakashi raised his visible eyebrow. "Then, I promise next time you won't hear it anymore."
"You're not gonna be late again?" Sakura asked hopefully.
"No, I'll make a different excuse," the cyclops eyesmiled.
The three genin groaned.
Kakashi reached into his vest and produced a small alarm clock, setting it on the nearest stump with a soft click.
"You have until noon to take these bells from me. Anyone who fails doesn't get lunch. Instead you'll be tied to that stump while I eat in front of you."
Three stomachs registered growls of hunger.
So, this is why he didn't have us eat...
"There are two bells and three of you. Do the math. One of you is already on the way to the stump, and back to the academy." His tone stayed light, which somehow made it worse. "You may attack as though you mean to kill. In fact I'd recommend it. You won't stand a chance otherwise."
"Isn't that a bit dangerous?"
Sakura was cut off by a volley of shuriken crossing the training ground.
Naruto's projectiles fanning out across the space between them with a speed that registered immediately as wrong for someone with his academy record. Kakashi dodged and returned fire with his own shuriken in the same breath.
Sasuke and Sakura jumped into the trees.
The squire blocked the incoming shuriken on his shield. But Kakashi was behind him. One hand closed around the boy's wrist while the other resting on his helm with some pressure.
"You're fast," Naruto said, without particular alarm.
"Your shadow clone application is impressive," Kakashi said glancing at the clone behind him with a Zweihander pointed at his back. "However. I didn't say go."
The older shinobi gave the boy space as the clone popped.
"You did commit to the kill though, so. Points for that. Now. Ready. Steady. Go."
Naruto created distance, and settled into a stance.
"You know the most fundamental skill for a shinobi is concealment."
"I'm using heavy stealth," Naruto said.
"Which is."
"Nobody can see you if there are no witnesses.
Naruto charged forward.
Greatswords were not shinobi weapons with rare exceptions like the mist's Kubikiribōchō.
Kakashi expected the straight sword that killed Mizuki. Yet glancing at the hilt on boy's belt hinted that something happened. That was strange given the anbu's report that nothing happened.
The silver cyclops felt a headache come through trying to figure out the living contradiction that was Naruto.
The first cut came down from high left. The jonin stepped right.
The second came horizontal from the right. He leaned back and let it pass.
The third was a thrust, and Kakashi moved his head four inches to the left and reached into his pouch. Naruto jumped back expecting a weapon. He produced his orange book and opened it to the middle.
"ARE YOU SERIOUS RIGHT NOW?!"
"I've been trying to get to the climax for three days," Kakashi said, "And given who I'm dealing with, it shouldn't affect the outcome either way."
Naruto's popped a vein in his anger.
Kakashi sidestepped a downward cut that left a divot in the earth. He leaned around a rising cut that would have cleared a small tree. Then he moved behind Naruto in a single step that produced no sound whatsoever.
The jonin tightly clasped their hands together. Extending the middle and index fingers, resembling the Tiger hand seal.
In the trees, Sasuke recognized the handsign for a fire style jutsu. Sakura abandoned her cover and shouted, "Naruto, get out of there! You'll be killed!"
The squire knew what was coming. Knight's Sight had locked onto the jonin. Naruto decided that if the White Cyclops wanted to attempt a war crime, he was going to experience the consequences of that decision firsthand.
He held the talisman in his left hand and recited the prayer inside his heart.
Oratio Vis.Via mihi detur.Frange quod obstat.Non ut occidam,Sed ut transeam.
The shockwave left the talisman in a clean white dome that parried Leaf Village Secret Finger Jutsu: One Thousand Years of Death.
Kakashi was sent flying into a backflip.
There was no notable hand seals. No elemental affinity he could identify. The force had been significant enough to send him flying. But there was no damage anywhere.
How did that even make sense?!
The report to the Hokage was getting bigger and they hadn't even finished the bell test.
Naruto picked up Icha Icha novel had fallen during the launch.
"Hey, now let's not do anything we'll both regret."
Naruto's pyromancy lit his hands. The book went up in flames.
"Ah," Kakashi said quietly, not angry exactly... just sad. "I was three pages from the climax."
He looked at the fireball forming in Naruto's other hand and set his expression into something more professional.
Sasuke was caught off guard for a moment. Another genin using Fire Style?! But nowhere near the level of the Uchiha's Great Fireball.
Kakashi threw a kunai into the center of the fireball. The resulting explosion melted the blade into a puddle before it hit the ground.
At minimum, C rank, Kakashi noted. But there had been no hand signs, no breath anf no clear method of execution. The jutsu was difficult to categorize.
The jonin channeled chakra into his kunai and met the Zweihander's next downward cut. He pushed Naruto back.
Earth Style: Stone Blade Jutsu!
Kakashi finished the sequence of hand seals in under a hundrenth of a second and drove a kunai into the ground. When he pulled it free, a sabre made of grey-white stone came with it.
"It has been a while since I have used a sabre in a real fight. Won't you go easy on an old man?"
"No," Naruto said.
The first exchange established that advantage of Naruto's reach.
So, Kakashi kept his distance... staying at the edge of the Zweihander's effective range. The sabre probabed in short controlled thrusts that forced the boy to commit to defensive adjustments rather than offensive ones.
Naruto shortened his arc into tighter descending strikes.
Kakashi gave ground and let him feel like it was working. Letting the Zweihander pass close enough to move the air beside him. And returned a shallow cut across Naruto's pauldron that rang off the plate without penetrating. The boy used the failed cut's momentum to spin into a rising diagonal. It was more fluid than the jonin had expected. Kakashi got his sabre up in time but the force drove his guard back two steps. His shoulder registered the impact.
Naruto pressed forward immediately.
A straight overhead cut followed by a horizontal sweep at mid-height. The combination designed to cover both the step-back and the sidestep simultaneously.
Leaf Style: Dance of the Crescent Moon!
Three Kakashi's came with three simultaneous angles of attack. Two afterimages and one real. The Zweihander caught one afterimage. The shield caught the edge of the second. The third connected clean.
The impact sent Naruto off his feet entirely, armor and all. Before the boy hit the surface of the river in a white explosion of displaced water.
With Naruto down, Sasuke moved.
A spread of shuriken crossed the training ground in a tight fan pattern, hitting the jonin's side of his face.
Poof.
A log hit the ground covered in embedded steel. Kakashi leaned against a tree twenty meters back, producing a well-worn copy of an older Icha Icha edition.
"Guess I'll have to reread the old edition while I wait to get my hands on the latest volume. Doesn't that sound like a reasonable plan."
"I am not like them," Sasuke said dramatically.
"Save the bragging for when you have a bell."
Sasuke threw the shuriken in a direct frontal line, which looked like a straightforward attack. But one projectile curved mid-flight cutting a rope strung between two trees launching a volley of kunai.
This was a trap the uchiha had made.
Kakashi cleared them with a vertical jump but Sasuke was relentless.
A roundhouse that the jonin took on his forearm. A straight punch redirected off his palm. An axe kick that he caught on a raised guard with both hands occupied.
Sasuke's fingers went for the bells.
Impressive, Kakashi noted, tossing the boy forward. "I suppose that puts you at second place on Team 7."
Sasuke's expression darkened. "I will show you a real Fireball jutsu. Not that imitation.".
Kakashi filed that away as a clear superiority complex.
Fire style: Great fireball Jutsu!
A dense rolling sphere of orange flames, the size of a small room.
Water Style: Water Wall Jutsu!
The river behind Kakashi surged. A wall of water rose between them and the fireball hit it in a collision of steam that rolled outward across the training ground in a hot white cloud.
Naruto's shadow clones jumped out of the water until the training ground was full of armored genin.
Four hundred shadow clones.
The boy was a jinchuriki and an Uzumaki. Both accounted for tremendous reserves on a technical level. But this was the kind of chakra output that made veteran jonin take a step back and reassess.
Sasuke froze seeing this. That was not normal. Naruto was not supposed to be capable of something like this.
A quiet frustration settled in.
Why is he suddenly so strong?
"I suppose I should take this a little more seriously," Kakashi said, pushing the headband above his left eye.
The Sharingan opened.
Sasuke's composure completely broke at this point.
"How do you have the sharingan?" The words came out before he could stop them. "Are you an Uchiha? I thought I was the last one. I thought Itachi—"
The name caught in his throat like something physical.
"I will explain it to you later," Kakashi said, without unkindness. "Right now I need you out of the way."
His single Sharingan eye met Sasuke's eyes.
Demonic Illusion: Hell Viewing Genjutsu!
Sasuke eyes dulled as a shadow clone moved him to the side.
"Thoughtful," Kakashi said, producing a kunai.
Wind Style: Wasp Dagger!
The wind chakra settled over the kunai without sound or visible sign. The blade looked exactly as it had before. But upon contact, it would release a compressed wind burst that ruptured the target from the inside
The horde came.
Kakashi understood that the armor made every clone harder to kill. He drove the blade into the gap between the gorget and the pauldron on the horizontal follow through. A compressed wind chakra burst detonated inside the joint and the clone popped.
Backhand upward lift to break a clone's guard. He thrust into the armpit gap where the plate didn't cover the transition. Kakashi forearm blocked on the slash coming from his left, stab driving through the visor slit into the jaw. Pivot. The kunai finding the back of the knee joint on the clone behind him.
Waterfall takedown on the next few clones.
The Sharingan catalogued every plate, seam and transition between coverage areas. Building the map in real time and routing each engagement through the nearest exploitable gap.
Overhead smash with both hands gripping the head. Two-handed pivot block with a neck lock into a throw. A single overhead strike to the forehead of the next one. Uppercut, side kick, back step and downward strike through clonez.
Suddenly Naruto managed to grapple him from the back.
Front kick to the head to break the grip. Back elbow to the chest, eye strike then knee to the midsection of a clone. Forward roll to evade the follow through, came up with a wrist grab into a throat stab.
Kakashi took a deep breath. The horde was thinning but not fast enough.
Channeling more wind chakra through the kunai. He drove the kunai into the next clone's sternum.
Boom.
The kamikaze clone's explosion consumed Kakashi. Before the dust cleared the jonin's body reverted to its lightning state in the half second before the next clone reached him.
A ring of clones dropped simultaneously, popping in quick succession as the current moved through them.
Lightning Style: Shadow Clone Jutsu!
The original Naruto's knight sight locked onto the original who was hiding in the trees.
"Kamikaze clones inside the horde. That is an unpleasant yet genius tactic."
"You haven't seen anything yet, dattebayo!" Naruto said, and snapped his fingers.
Six fireballs crossed the training ground converging midair towards the jonin.
BOOM!
Demonic Illusion: Hell Viewing Technique!
This genjutsu subjects its target to visions of their greatest fear.
So, what was Sasuke's greatest fear?
One moment he was standing in the training ground, and the next he was in a familiar hallway. A hallway that the young uchiha had walked through it his entire life.
The hallway in his house in the Uchiha compound.
The smell of blood reached him before the sound did. At the end of the hallway, the door to his parents' room opened.
"Is that all you have managed to become?" Itachi Uchiha stepped out, their parents blood still clinging to the blade.
"This is just genjutsu," Sasuke said trying not to rush Itachi in a blind rage.
"And yet here you are… Even in an illusion... You cannot reach me."
The light caught Itachi's face. And Sasuke saw what he always saw when he let himself look.
Not the monster.
The older brother he had looked up to for years before the night that rewrote everything.
"You felt something when he revealed the Sharingan," Itachi said. "That pathetic flicker of hope that you were not alone. That there was still something left."
The hallway shifted as the smell of blood thickened.
"There isn't."
The compound spread out around him in every direction. Sasuke stood at the center of it, just as he had that night.
Alone and Afraid
"Baby brother… you're pathetic. If you want to kill me, then settle for hating me."
Sasuke sucked a deep breath remembering these exact words from the real itachi.
"Hate me and live… like the coward you are. Clinging to life without honor."
Sasuke's felt his blood boil.
"And someday… when you have the same eyes as I…" Itachi's eyes shifted into the Mangekyō Sharingan. "...you will find me again."
Sasuke's chakra surged at those words, memories and emotions. It rushed upward toward his eyes. An instinctive response burned into the Uchiha bloodline.
"I'LL KILL YOU!"
The words tore out of him were everything.
Every year spent training alone in an empty compound. Every night replaying that memory, searching for what he had missed. Every morning waking up to the same emptiness that had been there when he went to sleep.
All of it.
The Sharingan activated at full force.
And the genjutsu shattered under the power of those cursed eyes.
The training ground came back all at once.
The Sharingan was open in Sasuke's eyes: Two tomoe in one and one tomoe in the other.
Across the glade, Kakashi was moving through Naruto's fireball barrage with minimum effort. Sasuke's hands formed seals before he had fully decided to move.
Fire Style: Great Fireball Jutsu!
The Sharingan allowed Sasuke to time the release accordingly to Kakashi's movement. Unfortunately fireball took out a cluster of clones before Kakashi. A kamikaze clone detonated from the inside the fireball.
"Goddamn it, you emo bastard! You ruined a perfectly good plan."
Naruto paused at Sasuke's eyes.
"Does everyone in Konoha have weird eyes?"
The blonde wondered when his special eyes would come in. He watched Sasuke rush Kakashi.
Earth Release: Earth Flow River!
The ground beneath the uchiha's feet dissolved into a rushing torrent of mud that carried him into the forest. In the same moment, Naruto flickered. The Zweihander came out in a clean decapitating arc.
Ninja Art: Substitution Jutsu!
The log exploded into two pieces.
"Did you use Body Flicker to accelerate the swing?" .
Naruto flickered again.
Kakashi stepped onto the flat of the descending blade as the sword buried itself in the earth.
"You must've a sensory ability," Kakashi said, observational rather than questioning. "Something that compensates for the Body Flicker's tunnel vision. Otherwise you couldn't string the movements together with that kind of directional accuracy."
To say the strategy worked was an understatement.
Naruto's ability to convert the momentum of his flickers directly into his swings was impressive. Even if the boy was a rookie with only basic swordsmanship. The Body Flicker's speed made each cut far more dangerous than it should have been.
But there were many reasons why most shinobi don't use Body Flicker in combat.
The cognitive load alone was immense.
Body Flicker required the user to map points to move between. In combat, those points multiplied constantly. With each new position branching into several more. The mental processing required grew exponentially with every exchange.
At high enough speeds, tunnel vision became inevitable. And yet, Naruto had somehow found a way to overcome both obstacles.
Kakashi kept pace with the Body Flicker exchanges without much difficulty, deliberately holding himself on the defensive.
He intended to help Naruto in the next wall.
It came quickly.
The boy was engulfed flames in the next exchange.
Kakashi grabbed Naruto and throwing him into the lake before the flames could fully take hold.
Steam rose immediately.
The blonde surfaced moments later, water dripping from his frame as he unequipped his armor.
"What the hell just happened?"
"Body Flicker compounds motion," Kakashi said. "Each use adds velocity to the next. In combat, that scaling becomes exponential. Once you pass a certain threshold, air resistance produces significant drag. That drag converts into heat through friction. And it was enough to ignite your body."
"..."
"You are not the first to try using Body Flicker in combat," Kakashi continued. "Sensor shinobi, dojutsu users or anyone who can overcome tunnel vision eventually runs into the biggest hurdle. Hence why very few in history have managed to fully incorporate it into their fighting style."
"Then how did Shisui do it?"
"He found his own solution," Kakashi said. "But that is not important right now. What matters is that you couldn't get the bells from me. If only you had other people helping you."
A look of realization crossed Naruto's face before he leapt into the forest.
"I wonder what you three will show me," Kakashi murmured, turning the page.
There were five hours remaining.
Naruto uncorked the Estus flask and drank while moving. The warmth spread through him, healing the burns along his body and repairing the strain caused by the extreme G forces. He stopped while re-equipping back his armour.
Sakura was looking for any injuries on the uchiha. Sasuke was examining his sharingan's reflection in the flat of kunai.
"Guys, I have a plan to get the bells," Naruto said. "But I need both of you."
Sasuke looked up from the kunai. "Who died and made you leader?"
Naruto considered this for a moment. Then he made a single hand seal. Four clones appeared beside him.
"All in favour of me being the leader say dattebayo."
"Dattebayo," the clones said before popping.
"And the people have spoken for my leadership."
"No," Sasuke said, standing up.
"Fine." Naruto pointed at Sakura. "You're the referee. Whoever wins this fight is the leader."
Sakura looked between them unsure. But couldn't say much as both of them made the sign of confrontation.
"Hajime!"
A shuriken left his hand with sasuke forming seals behind it.
Fire style: Great fireball Jutsu!
Naruto's clones moved into shield wall formation against the incoming fireball.
Sasuke's initial shuriken curved hitting the helm. The visor snapped open just as the fireball hit the wall. The formation burst into white smoke and through it Sasuke jumped forward.
Genjutsu worked on interference. Chakra fed directly into the enemies brain, disrupting the signals that defined reality. What you saw, what you felt and what you believed was happening could be manipulated.
That was the danger of genjutsu.
And the Sharingan did it through eye contact.
It was said that against a Sharingan user, you ran. Because once it caught your gaze, your mind was already theirs.
SMACK!
Sasuke was punched into the air.
For most people, their senses were how they perceived reality. Genjutsu worked by manipulating that perception. Naruto was not most people. He had another way to perceive the world, one that did not depend on his brain.
Knight's Sight.
It existed outside the system genjutsu controlled. So; when Sasuke cast his illusion, Naruto did not see a false reality.
He saw both.
And he chose the one that was real.
Naruto watched Sasuke get back to his feet with the focused grimness. The Sharingan tracked the next set of hand seals. And copied them in real time, fingers moving through the sequence simultaneously.
"You know Body Flicker Jutsu, Sasuke?"
"My Sharingan copies any technique I can observe," Sasuke said, completing the sequence.
"That is so unfair."
"When has this world ever been fair? So, stop complaining and fight."
Both flickered.
Sasuke had watched Kakashi exploit the armor's gaps and held the kunai like a dagger to do the same.
Clang.
The kunai broke against the armour. With no wind chakra to give the blade the penetrating force the gap required.
The Zweihander came down.
His Sharingan read the arc and Sasuke went for a parry. Then the sword disappeared into inventory mid-swing.
A feint? The uchiha thought. The squire's momentum carried into a spinning heel kick that sent Sasuke crashing into a tree.
"Guess the Sharingan didn't see that coming," Naruto said while knocking the uchiha out with a clean punch to the jaw.
Sakura was rubbing her eyes with both fists flabbergasted that Naruto beat sasuke.
"Do you want to go or am I the leader?"
"You're the leader," Sakura said, without hesitation.
"Good." He reached into his inventory and produced a small orange book.
"Didn't you burn that?"
"Sleight of hand." Naruto flipped it open to the middle. The boy had throw the icha icha book into the inventory before the pyromancy flame burnt it.
"Now. Here is the plan."
"Fifteen minutes remaining," Kakashi said, not looking up from his book.
"Plenty of time," Naruto said, walking out of the tree line with his hands spread wide. The clones jumped forward until the open ground was bracketed on both sides.
The formation left exactly one comfortable exit into the forest. Kakashi considered resisting the suggestion on principle. But went in as the entire clone army flickered forward simultaneously with thrusting blades.
The canopy swallowed him whole.
The first trap was a tripwire at knee height on the third tree.
"So this is your plan," Kakashi said, leaping into the branch. "Force me into a forest rigged with traps?"
"A shinobi has to be somewhat resourceful," Sakura's voice came from somewhere above. The pink haired girl cut some wire. A log the size of a small tree swung in towards the jonin.
Poof.
The log hit a smaller log.
"Working as a team now," Kakashi said standing behind the young kunoichi.
"NOW," Sakura yelled, unleashing the white shockwave of the Force miracle. The transformation jutsu dropping to reveal that it was actually Naruto.
The real Sakura and Sasuke stood on opposite ends of the forest floor cutting through wires
Kunai launchers mounted behind hollowed bark panels released in overlapping spreads from both flanks.
Earth Style: Earth Dome Jutsu!
The forest floor erupted upward in a curved shell of compressed earth that sealed around him before the first wave of kunai arrived. The blades hit stone. Then the explosive tags attached to the second wave hit stone.
The forest floor disappeared inside a rolling wall of overlapping detonations.
"You children need to learn the definition of overkill," Kakashi said popping out of the ground as Naruto's clone army rushed him.
Ninja Art: Hair Needle Senbon!
The white hair hardened and released in barrage of silver. The hair senbon moving faster than shuriken at close range. And the shadow clone horde popped in a chain of white smoke that cleared the immediate area in seconds.
Just then Sasuke came from the left and Naruto from the right simultaneously.
They were communicating without words. Naruto created the large movements that forced Kakashi's positioning. Meanwhile Sasuke exploited the positions with the Sharingan's. Each of them using body flicker to sustain their assault.
Even with all that, neither seemed to affect Kakashi much.
That was the signal for plan C.
"KAKASHI SENSEI." Sakura's voice came from above. "I HAVE THE LAST PAGE OF THE NEW ICHA ICHA AND I AM GOING TO READ IT OUT LOUD."
"Don't."
"The protagonist finally meets the woman from chapter three," Sakura called out while holding tje latest ivha
"DON'T."
His hands covered his ear. But as Sakura landed infront of him, Kakashi realized the Sharingan could read lips and closed his eyes instead.
Taking advantage of this two flickers took the bells from the copy ninja. The alarm clock rang out across the training ground indicating the end of the bell test.
Kakashi began to clap slowly.
"Congratulations on acquiring the bells." He let sakura give the boys some water. "However, only two of you can pass. And looking at the distribution of effort today, the boys move forward and Sakura goes back to the academy."
A heavy silence settled over what remained of the forest floor.
"I wouldn't blame her. But she didn't do much."
"She built every trap in this forest," Naruto counter3d.
"Is that enough?"
Sakura looked at the ground. Something in her posture suggested she had already accepted the verdict.
Naruto looked at her for a moment. Then he held out his bell.
Sakura stared at it. "Why?"
"I've failed the graduation exam three times already. And honestly, next time I could probably come back as the next Rookie of the Year." Naruto said with a grin.
If anything, it just meant more time to explore Lordran and its secrets.
Guilt twisted in Sakura's stomach. Naruto was giving himself up so she and Sasuke could pass. He was the strongest among them. And yet he was willing to step aside. Every harsh word she had thrown at him during their academy years came rushing back pressing heavier against her chest.
"Sens— Kakashi-sensei," Sakura said, forcing the words out, "I'm willing to give up my spot. Please… give it to Naruto."
Behind her, Sasuke looked at the bell in his own hand. Itachi's voice moved through his head. Hate me and live. Like the coward you are. Clinging to life without honor.
The uchiha held the bell out toward Kakashi.
"If it comes to that then I go back too. A team of one is not a team."
Silence.
Kakashi looked at the two bells sitting in his palm. Then at the three people standing in front of him.
"You kids are so overdramatic," he said. "But all three of you have... passed."
"...Eh?"
"Every year, teams come through this test and sacrifice each other without hesitation. They calculate, they compete, and they protect their own position." Kakashi closed his palm around the bells. "Not one of them has ever passed. Because that was never what the test was measuring. A shinobi must see beneath the underneath. What is written on the surface is not always the whole truth."
The jonin gestured for them to follow.
The memorial stone caught the afternoon light along its polished edge.
"These are the names of heroes of Konoha that died in the line of duty," Kakashi said, standing before it. "The lesson of the bell test is about teamwork. It is about what you do when someone beside you is about to be left behind."
"But what if you had been telling the truth?" Sasuke asked. "What if only two of us could actually pass? Would we have made the wrong choice?"
"No," Kakashi said. "Even then. Especially then." He looked at the stone rather than at them. "I am not interested in training shinobi who act as extensions of their superior's will without judgment or conscience. Orders are given by people, and people are sometimes wrong. The day will come when following an order without thinking will cost you something you cannot get back. I am interested in leading a team that will suffer that cost."
"What kind of team are you interested in leading?" Naruto asked.
Kakashi was quiet for a moment.
"Before my best friend died," he said, "he gave me two things I've carried since. One of them was his Sharingan."
Sasuke's eyes moved to the headband covering the eye.
"The other was a principle. One I failed to understand until it was too late to tell him I had learned it." Kakashi looked at the three of them. "Those who break the rules of the ninja world are called scum. But those who abandon their comrades are worse than scum."
The memorial stone reflected the late afternoon light between them.
"The team that carries this principle is the team I am interested in leading." Kakashi looked at all three of them in turn and gave them a thumbs up. "Hence, I am happy to announce that Team Seven is officially formed."