Chapter 12
Chapter 12
Searching for any sign of their teammates brought him upon a curious sight.
Sakura was laid out cold in the ground, unconscious as far as he could tell. She looked unharmed, her dress pristine and her long hair around her head with a couple of leaves twisted in.
Right in front of her, the head of their dark-haired teammate was clearly visible. Yes, the head.
For a second, Naruto almost panicked thinking that it was Sasuke’s severed head he was seeing. It was even frozen in the same deadpan look he directed at everyone who so much as breathed in his direction. Only the sight of his neck, giving him a peek of his clothes below, reassured him that he was not beheaded.
As he thought it with a clearer head, he realised how stupid it sounded and almost blushed, glad Akira wasn’t there. It was soon clear the Uchiha had somehow got trapped underearth with only his head left above to breathe.
Well, beggars can’t be choosers, right? So he was just going to make the best of the situation before even thinking of freeing the teme.
And so, with Sasuke still trapped and Sakura barely awake, Naruto began to explain what Akira had discovered.
Sasuke and Sakura had no other choice but to listen to him.
HPNHPNHPNHPN
Everything, even the wind, seemed to still as they stood staring at each other.
Then, at the same time, they moved.
Kakashi launched forward whilst Akira jumped to the side.
And so began a dance of pushing and pulling between the genin and the jōnin where Kakashi was finally able to gauge some the level of the red-head’s taijutsu skill.
He meant some, because the youth was intelligent enough to know he wouldn’t win in a full-frontal confrontation with the difference between their strengths. And so he didn’t try to.
Instead, he dodged and weaved around the jōnin, playing all kinds of tricks and deceptions. It didn’t help that the clearing was full of traps.
At one point, Akira took out what Kakashi thought would be a smoke bomb and so he didn’t close his eyes and was blinded by the strong shine of a flash bomb.
But Kakashi knew how to do the clone jutsu even with his eyes closed, and his clone intercepted the red-head before he could slip away from the clearing.
In the end, all it took was one misstep on Akira’s part and the boy ended up unconscious and strung up from a tree.
Kakashi smiled.
He already knew what he was going to do with Akira, after all.
HPNHPNHPNHPN
Kakashi contemplated the three genin in front of him, the blond tied to a tree stump and the other two sitting on the floor around him.
He’d caught Naruto trying to sabotage the clock to give them more time and tied him to the stump before gathering the three children there. Three, for Akira was still tied up by himself in the clearing; Kakashi wanted to see how long it took him to free himself from those knots. And also, this part of the test was solely for those three, since Akira’s path was basically decided.
“Well, as for the test, it’s decided. I’m not going to send any of you back to the Academy.” He said, waiting for the inevitable confusion.
He waited just enough to see their reactions to what they perceived as a pass before delivering the bad news.
“The three of you are permanently excluded from the shinobi training program.”
The explosion from Naruto was as bad as expected.
“You’re not thinking like shinobi, you’re thinking like children.” He chided them, ignoring the blonde’s outburst and the other’s indignation. “And children have no place playing ninja. There’s no sense even on sending you back to the Academy.”
That got a reaction out of the mulish Uchiha and the boy launched himself at the jōnin. But Kakashi was expecting it and carelessly immobilised him.
“You think too highly of yourself.” He said.
Of course, the fact that he was stepping on the little Uchiha’s head got Sakura into a fit.
“You all don’t understand what it means to be a ninja. Do you think it’s a game?” he asked with absolute seriousness. “Have you wondered why I put you as a team?”
“Because as genin we couldn’t have beat you yet?” asked Naruto more than answered.
“And did you realise that before or after Akira told you?” he didn’t give the blonde time to answer, already knowing the truth. “It wasn’t that hard to figure out if you’d used your head. Team’s are made up of three people because teamwork beats most dangers. It’s too late already, but if you’d attacked me together, you would’ve been able to take the bells from me.”
“That’s not fair! We were going to do that, but there wasn’t enough time! And you showed up late!”
“There was plenty of time for you to organise a team attack.” Contradicted them Kakashi. “In any case, it’s over.”
“Wait a minute, there were only two bells! The test was clearly designed to pit us against the others!” complained Sakura.
“Exactly. I wanted to see if you could overcome it and the team first. A genin must know how to work as a team. That was the purpose of the test.” He explained without releasing Sasuke.
He called out the children’s fails and gave them a lecture on the importance of teamwork over individual goals. He then pitted Sakura against Naruto over Sasuke’s death. He was concerned when he saw that Sakura actually hesitated over what to do.
“That’s what happens on a mission.” He said finally releasing the boy from his hold.
Then he told them about the Monument Stone, his eyes straying to the familiar names he visited almost every day and could locate with only a glance. And then Naruto talked about how he wanted to be one of the heroes whose names were on that stone and he felt a pang of pain in his chest.
‘Not if I have a say about it.’ He swore.
“Alright. I’ll give you another chance.” He said as if finally having thought it over and thinking them deserving of it. “You’ll have three hours to get a bell. Have lunch now to gather strength, but Naruto can’t eat. If someone feeds him, they’ll be immediately failed. I’m the one who sets the rules. Understood?”
HPNHPNHPNHPN
Kakashi leaned against the back of a tree as he listened in on his students, currently disobeying his explicit orders to finally act like a team.
He shook his head, his mask hiding his smile. Seemed like he was finally going to have a team to train.
As his clone dispelled alerting him that Akira had got free of his bindings, he pushed away from the tree to go scare, er, talk to his students.
HPNHPNHPNHPN
The jonin could easily pinpoint the exact moment when Naruto understood what was so wrong with the picture after Kakashi explained his reasoning about passing them on the grounds of them showing teamwork.
“Wait! What about Akira?”
“Konoha shinobi operate in teams of three, Naruto-kun. You are already three.”
“But what does that mean? What will happen with Akira?”
“That is not something you need concern yourself with at the moment.”
“Naruto, he means Akira failed.” Broke him the kunoichi.
“But- But Akira was the first one to understand the purpose of the test!” shouted Naruto.
“Yet he did not get to work on it, did he?” said Kakashi.
“But…”
“Would you rather lose your spot on the team?”
That shut the blond up alright. And just then, the bushes on the edge of the forest rustled as the subject of their thoughts walked into the field, a few twigs tangled into his red hair.
Akira paused at the sight of them, face confused as the other genin looked away from him, Naruto looking guilty as hell. Kakashi made a small mental note to teach him to hide his feelings at some point in his training.
He saw Akira take in their reactions to his arrival, his eyes sweeping over the field and pausing a moment on the Memorial Stone that stood nearby.
“What’s wrong?”
None of the genin answered, looking away or down at the floor.
“You can leave.” Said Kakashi to the three genin that were now his team. “Be here tomorrow at seven o’clock. Akira, you wait here.”
Naruto threw a hesitant look at Akira, but the redhead smiled weakly at him and encouraged him to go, promising to meet up with him at Ichiraku’s.
Only once the other children had left, did Kakashi ask Akira to take a seat on the floor in front of him and do the same.
“I failed, didn’t I?” asked Akira, resigned.
Kakashi nodded.