The afternoon training session couldn't come fast enough, and yet Naruto dreaded every second that brought him closer to it. When the final bell rang, he watched Sasuke pack up his things with deliberate precision, then head for the door without so much as a glance in Naruto's direction.
*Training ground seven,* Naruto reminded himself. *Just stick to the plan. Keep it simple. Don't use the time thing unless absolutely necessary.*
The problem was, Naruto had never learned to do impressive kunai throws the normal way. His accuracy was genuinely terrible—had always been terrible—and his form was a mess of flailing limbs and wild enthusiasm. Without his time-stopping ability, he really was just the dead-last everyone thought he was.
Training ground seven was tucked away in a quiet corner of the village, surrounded by dense trees that muffled sound and blocked curious eyes. When Naruto arrived, slightly out of breath from running, he found Sasuke already there, sitting on a fallen log with his arms crossed.
"You're late," Sasuke observed.
"By like two minutes!" Naruto protested. "That's basically on time for me!"
"Hmm." Sasuke stood, and Naruto noticed he'd brought a small bag with him. From it, he produced a dozen kunai and three wooden targets he must have borrowed from the academy. "Set these up while I prepare the throwing line."
It was phrased like a request, but it sounded like an order. Naruto bristled slightly, then decided it wasn't worth fighting about. He positioned the targets at various distances and angles, trying to make them challenging but not impossible.
When he turned back, Sasuke was drawing a line in the dirt with a stick, his movements precise and measured.
"There," the Uchiha said, straightening. "Regulation distance for academy-level assessments. Now show me that throw from yesterday."
Naruto's mouth went dry. "Which throw? I threw a lot of kunai yesterday."
"The impossible one." Sasuke's dark eyes were fixed on him with uncomfortable intensity. "Four kunai, ricocheting off each other, all hitting center. Show me exactly how you did it."
*Exactly.* There was no getting around it—Sasuke wanted to see the technique that didn't exist, the skill Naruto didn't actually possess. And without his secret ability, he was about to be exposed as a complete fraud.
"Right, okay." Naruto picked up four kunai, weighing them in his hands. They felt heavier than usual, or maybe that was just his imagination. "So, uh, you just throw them and... hope for the best?"
"Hope?" Sasuke's voice was flat. "You want me to believe that yesterday's performance was based on hope?"
"Well, not just hope! There's also, uh..." Naruto scrambled for something that sounded plausible. "Technique! And chakra! And... wind stuff!"
"Wind stuff," Sasuke repeated slowly.
"Yeah! You know, like..." Naruto waved his free hand vaguely. "Wind manipulation! I've been practicing wind techniques, and I used them to change the kunai's direction mid-flight!"
It was a desperate lie, but it was the first thing that popped into his head that might actually explain the impossible trajectory changes. Wind techniques were advanced—way beyond academy level—but at least they were theoretically possible.
Sasuke's eyebrows rose slightly. "Wind manipulation. You."
"That's right!" Naruto puffed out his chest, committing to the lie fully. "I've been secretly training in advanced chakra nature manipulation! Pretty impressive, right?"
"Show me your chakra control first," Sasuke said immediately.
*Crap.* "My what now?"
"Your chakra control. If you can manipulate wind chakra precisely enough to redirect thrown weapons mid-flight, your basic control must be exceptional." Sasuke pulled out a leaf and held it toward Naruto. "Simple leaf concentration exercise. Make it stick to your forehead using only chakra."
Naruto stared at the leaf like it was a venomous snake. He'd seen this exercise before—it was basic chakra control that most academy students could manage after a few weeks of practice. He'd never been able to do it, not even once.
"That's... that's kid stuff," Naruto said weakly. "Why would I need to—"
"Because wind manipulation requires incredibly fine chakra control," Sasuke interrupted. "More than almost any other nature transformation. If you can't stick a leaf to your forehead, you definitely can't alter the flight path of four thrown weapons simultaneously."
The trap was closing around him. Sasuke had laid it out perfectly—a simple test that would expose Naruto's lie immediately. There was no way out except to admit he'd been making everything up, or...
*Or I could cheat,* Naruto realized. *Just a tiny bit. Just enough to make the leaf stick.*
"Fine," he said, snatching the leaf from Sasuke's hand. "But this is boring basic stuff. I'm way beyond this level."
He pressed the leaf to his forehead and tried to focus his chakra. Nothing happened. The leaf fluttered slightly in the breeze, but showed no signs of sticking. Naruto concentrated harder, his face scrunching up with effort.
Still nothing.
*Okay, time for Plan B.* Naruto let time slow to a crawl around him. The leaf was still pressed against his forehead, but in the frozen world, he could move it however he wanted. He adjusted its position slightly, then used a tiny bit of his own spit to create just enough adhesion to keep it in place when time resumed.
"There!" he announced as the world snapped back to normal speed. The leaf stayed stuck to his forehead, though it looked precarious. "See? Told you I could do it!"
Sasuke studied him carefully. "Hmm. Your chakra control seems... adequate. Barely."
Naruto grinned, wiping sweat from his brow. The leaf promptly fell off.
"Adequate for basic exercises," Sasuke continued, "but wind manipulation is exponentially more difficult. Show me a simple wind technique first, before we move on to kunai redirection."
*Oh, come on!* Naruto's internal panic was reaching new heights. "I don't really know any simple wind techniques. I kind of jumped straight to the advanced stuff."
"You jumped from not being able to make a proper Clone Jutsu to advanced nature manipulation?"
"I'm a fast learner when I want to be!"
Sasuke's expression suggested he found this about as believable as a talking fish. "All right. Then show me the kunai technique again, but explain the wind manipulation as you do it."
Naruto hefted the four kunai again, his mind racing. He was trapped between impossible expectations and an even more impossible truth. There was no wind technique, no secret training, no legitimate explanation for what he could do.
But maybe... maybe he could fake it well enough to satisfy Sasuke's curiosity without revealing everything.
"Okay," he said, settling into a throwing stance. "So first, you throw the kunai with really specific trajectories, and then you use wind chakra to create small air currents that..." He trailed off, realizing he had no idea what he was talking about.
"That what?" Sasuke prompted.
"That... push them into each other?" Naruto finished lamely.
"Show me."
There was no choice now. Naruto threw the four kunai in another wild, uncontrolled spread. As time slowed around him, he dashed forward to redirect them, but this time he tried to make it look more like wind manipulation. Instead of physically touching the weapons, he moved his hands near them, creating the illusion that invisible air currents were altering their paths.
When time resumed, the kunai clacked together mid-flight and embedded themselves in the center target just like before.
"Incredible," Sasuke breathed, and for the first time since Naruto had known him, the Uchiha actually looked impressed. "I could barely see the chakra, but... the precision required must be extraordinary."
Naruto wiped more sweat from his forehead, exhausted from the mental strain of maintaining his lie. "Yeah, well, like I said—I've been practicing."
"Teach me."
The words hit Naruto like a physical blow. "What?"
"Teach me the technique." Sasuke's eyes burned with intensity. "Wind manipulation isn't my natural affinity, but I should be able to learn the basics. Show me how to redirect a single kunai first."
Naruto's mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water. How could he possibly teach someone else to do something he couldn't actually do himself?
"I... uh... it's really advanced," he stammered. "Maybe you should work on your chakra control first? Get really, really good at the basic stuff before trying to—"
"My chakra control is excellent," Sasuke interrupted. "And my analytical abilities are above average. I can handle advanced techniques."
*Of course you can,* Naruto thought miserably. *You can handle everything except the truth.*
"Look, Sasuke," Naruto said, scrambling for any excuse to buy himself time. "Wind manipulation is... really personal, you know? It's not something you can just teach someone in one day. It took me months to figure out!"
Sasuke's eyes narrowed. "Months? You said you just started doing advanced training recently."
*Crap.* "I meant months of... foundational work! Yeah! You gotta build up to the good stuff!" Naruto was sweating bullets now, and it wasn't from the afternoon sun.
"Then show me the foundational work."
"Right, well, the foundational work is..." Naruto's mind went completely blank. What did he know about wind techniques? Absolutely nothing. What did he know about chakra control? Even less than nothing. "Tree climbing!"
Sasuke blinked. "Tree climbing?"
"Yeah! You know, the advanced chakra control exercise where you walk up trees using only your feet!" Naruto seized on the first thing that popped into his head that sounded vaguely legitimate. "If you can't do that, there's no way you can handle wind manipulation!"
It was a desperate gambit, but tree climbing was something Naruto had heard about from older students. Advanced chakra control, they said. Really difficult stuff that separated the decent ninja from the exceptional ones.
Sasuke tilted his head, considering. "Tree climbing with chakra. I've heard of that technique."
"Exactly! So let's see if you can even do the basics before we worry about the advanced stuff." Naruto pointed to a large oak tree at the edge of the training ground. "Go on, walk up that tree using only your feet but putting chakra into the soles of your feet. This will show me if you have good chakra control."
For a moment, Sasuke looked almost offended at being challenged to prove himself. But his competitive nature won out, as Naruto had hoped it would.
"Fine," Sasuke said curtly. "But when I complete this 'foundational' exercise, you're going to teach me the wind technique."
*One crisis at a time,* Naruto thought desperately.
Sasuke approached the tree with his usual confident stride. He pressed his hands together in a focusing gesture, then placed his right foot against the trunk. Naruto could actually see the chakra gathering in his foot—a faint blue shimmer that most people probably wouldn't notice.
*Oh no. He might actually be able to do this.*
Sasuke lifted his left foot and placed it higher on the trunk, maintaining his balance with perfect poise. For a moment, it looked like he was going to succeed on his first try, which would have been absolutely typical for the Uchiha prodigy.
Then something went wrong.
The chakra flow flickered—too much, then too little—and Sasuke's feet lost their purchase on the bark. He fell backward, arms windmilling, and hit the ground hard on his back with a thud that knocked the wind out of him.
Naruto winced in sympathy, then felt immediately guilty for the small surge of relief that followed. "You okay there, Sasuke?"
Sasuke sat up slowly, leaves in his hair and dirt on his clothes. His face was flushed, though whether from embarrassment or exertion, Naruto couldn't tell.
"The chakra ratio is more complex than I anticipated," Sasuke said stiffly, brushing himself off. "Too much chakra and you repel the surface. Too little and you can't maintain adhesion."
"Yeah, it's tricky," Naruto agreed, though he had no idea if that was actually how it worked. "Takes a lot of practice to get the balance right."
Sasuke's jaw tightened. "Again."