Chapter 3: An Inverted Circus
"Well, well, look who decided to join the party!" Naruto called out, his voice echoing strangely as Sasuke and Sakura burst into the clearing. "Took ya long enough! Sensei here was just startin' to have all the fun!" A wicked, sharp-toothed grin, pure Shinji, spread across his face. He made no move to lessen the sweet-smelling mist that continued to pulse gently from Sakanade. This oughta be good.
Kakashi, seeing his other two students charge in, felt a spike of genuine alarm through his Sakanade-induced haze. "Stay back! You don't understand what's happening!" he shouted, his voice sounding oddly distorted to his own ears.
But Sasuke, fueled by a potent cocktail of Uchiha pride and utter disbelief that Naruto was the one cornering a jounin, paid him no mind. He saw an opening, a moment where Kakashi was off-balance, and he exploited it with the practiced efficiency of a prodigy. He slid in low, a classic Uchiha style attack aimed at Kakashi's legs to unbalance him further.
At least, that was the plan.
As Sasuke entered the thicker part of the pink mist, the world abruptly tilted on its axis. The ground seemed to rush up to meet him, then fall away. The scent, which he'd barely noticed from a distance, was now cloyingly sweet and made his head spin. He saw Kakashi's legs right in front of him, but when he thrust his fist forward, his arm seemed to move… backward? He stumbled, his perfectly executed slide turning into a clumsy, uncontrolled tumble. He rolled right past Kakashi's feet, ending up face down in the dirt with a grunt of confused frustration.
Sakura, charging in right behind him, fared even worse. The vertigo hit her like a physical blow. She saw Sasuke-kun lunge, then inexplicably fall. She saw Kakashi-sensei to her left and Naruto to her right. She screamed, "Sasuke-kun!" and charged towards Kakashi, kunai held high. Her brain told her she was running straight, but her legs felt like they were veering wildly off to the side. She tripped over her own feet, letting out a shriek as she pinwheeled her arms and crashed into a training post with a loud thump.
"Ow…" she moaned, seeing double. "What's… what's going on?"
The clearing was now a scene of utter chaos. One jounin, one of Konoha's finest, was staggering slightly, his Sharingan spinning as it tried to process faulty information. One prodigy was pushing himself up from the dirt, looking utterly bewildered. And one kunoichi was seeing stars.
Only Naruto remained perfectly poised, Sakanade twirling lazily. "Ya see, this is why ya don't just jump into a fight without knowin' what's goin' on," he said, directing his taunt at his dazed teammates. "Looks like a mess, don't it? But don't worry, it gets worse."
Kakashi, meanwhile, was forcing his mind to work. He said it. He told me the rules. Up is down. Left is right. Forward is backward. It was a ridiculous notion, something out of a child's riddle, but the evidence was overwhelming. He had to stop relying on instinct. He had to think backward.
He saw Naruto begin a casual-looking step forward. Forward is backward. Kakashi's mind screamed at him to retreat, but he forced himself to take a small step forward.
Naruto's blade, which had been arcing in a wide, sweeping slash, suddenly changed direction, coming in for a quick thrust aimed at Kakashi's chest. Kakashi's Sharingan saw the attack coming from the front. Front is back. His instincts told him to dodge left. Left is right. He forced his body to move right.
Scraaaape!
The tip of Sakanade scraped along Kakashi's flak jacket, missing his flesh by a centimeter. He'd done it. He'd successfully countered a single move by consciously inverting his every instinct. The mental strain was immense, like trying to write with his non-dominant hand while looking in a mirror.
Naruto's eyebrows shot up in genuine surprise. "Ho? Not bad, sensei. Figured it out, have ya? Or are ya just gettin' lucky?"
"Your trick is clever, Naruto," Kakashi said, his voice strained. He felt a bead of sweat trickle down from his covered forehead. This was more mentally taxing than fighting an S-rank opponent. "But a trick with rules can be learned."
"Learned, maybe," Naruto conceded with a shrug. "But can ya keep it up? Your body's been fightin' one way for years. How long before ya slip up? One little mistake is all it takes."
He was right. Kakashi knew it. He could force himself to think backward for a moment, but in the heat of a high-speed exchange? His reflexes, honed over a decade of life-or-death battles, would take over. And here, in Sakanade's world, his reflexes were his worst enemy.
Sasuke, having regained his footing, was now staring at Kakashi with a new, burning intensity. He'd seen it when Kakashi revealed the eye. The three tomoe, spinning in that crimson iris. There was no mistaking it.
"That eye…" Sasuke growled, his voice low and dangerous, ignoring his own disorientation. "That's the Sharingan. An Uchiha's eye. Where did you get it? You're not an Uchiha."
Kakashi glanced at Sasuke, his single Sharingan eye meeting the boy's furious onyx ones. Dealing with a sensory-inverting genin was bad enough, now he had to deal with Uchiha baggage on top of it. "It's a long story, Sasuke. A story for another time."
"There is no other time!" Sasuke snarled, charging again, more recklessly this time. "That power belongs to—" He tried to launch a flying kick at Kakashi's head. His brain aimed up, his body went down, and he ended up doing an awkward belly-flop onto the grass a few feet in front of Kakashi.
Naruto burst out laughing. It wasn't a loud, boisterous laugh, but a wheezing, incredulous cackle. "Oh, man! That was… that was somethin' else, Sasuke! Ten outta ten for enthusiasm, zero for… well, everything else!"
Sasuke flushed a dark crimson, a mixture of rage and humiliation. He was the prodigy. He was the elite. And he was being made to look like a fool by the dobe, and he couldn't even stand up straight.
Naruto used the distraction. He vanished. Not a flicker, just a seamless Shunpo that left Kakashi's Sharingan struggling to track the movement. He reappeared directly behind the still-furious Sasuke.
"Hey, duck-butt," Naruto whispered right next to Sasuke's ear.
Sasuke whirled around, intending to throw an elbow, but his inverted senses sent the attack in the completely wrong direction, almost making him spin in a circle.
Naruto was already gone, reappearing beside the groaning Sakura. He gently tapped her on the shoulder. "Ya alright there, Sakura-chan? Lookin' a little green." She flinched away from the touch, which she perceived as coming from the opposite side.
Kakashi gritted his teeth. This was absurd. Naruto wasn't even attacking him directly anymore. He was playing with them, dancing around the battlefield, using his teammates' confusion as his shield and his playground. The boy was effortlessly controlling the entire flow of the battle, turning his own squad against themselves without laying a finger on them. It was a level of tactical dominance and psychological warfare Kakashi wouldn't have expected from a seasoned jounin, let alone a genin.
"Alright, that's enough!" Kakashi decided. He couldn't win this fight by playing Naruto's game. He had to change the rules. He flashed through a rapid series of hand seals, far faster than before. "Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu!"
He inhaled, intending to blast the ground in front of Naruto to disrupt his footing and disperse that damned mist. His Sharingan saw Naruto in front of him. His inverted brain aimed behind him. A massive ball of fire erupted from his mouth and shot straight up into the sky.
There was a moment of stunned silence from Sasuke and Sakura. Naruto just stared up at the dissipating fireball, then looked back at Kakashi, a completely deadpan expression on his face.
"Pretty good, huh?" Naruto said, his voice flat. "Doin' things in reverse is my specialty. But I gotta say, sensei… you're a natural."
Kakashi let out a sigh that was pure, unfiltered exhaustion. This was, without a doubt, the most ridiculous and humiliating fight of his entire career.