Naruto was woken at 4:30 am by a pair of bored shadow clones lingering around training ground seven, who decided to have a small spar and dispelled each other simultaneously while providing the cringe of new memories that woke the young blond. After groaning in frustration, he simply got up and put on his new clothes, his brain assimilating the two sets of memories he just got and his mood slowly improving as his anticipation for today started to leak through. Putting on one of his new sets of clothes, he marveled at how much better quality they were than anything he owned previously, clearly being overcharged for goods wasn't the only thing the shopkeepers did to keep him miserable.
The sturdy heavy weight black pants and over shirt would hold up to quite the beating, and the surprisingly soft mesh undershirt fit his torso comfortably and left him looking very different from what he had in the past in the bright orange jumpsuit. He decided to go with the boot-style shinobi sandals in black, and for his only bit of color, he included two dark orange bandolier straps that he criss-crossed over his chest rather tightly that he used to hold several smaller kunai and shuriken pouches on top of the larger ones he had on each thigh. His hope was to someday incorporate a sword and sheath into the bandolier and/or even a large storage scroll like the Forbidden one to hold all of his stuff.
For now though, he spawned a pair of clones to make him a large breakfast and pick up his apartment from yesterday's mess. After learning at least a dozen different easy recipes for every meal, he was happily making a large omelet with a few vegetables mixed in that were almost completely overpowered by the egg, cheese, and sausage he added as well. He figured that if he was going to force himself to eat vegetables, that he should at least try to hide them in other foods he really liked so as to at least get some in his diet. He wasn't too worried about Kakashi's warning either, as he didn't expect the seemingly lazy shinobi to be on time giving him plenty of chance to digest and a lack of food for him would be very detrimental to his chances of success.
Strolling into the training ground at exactly 5 am, he was easily able to spot his two waiting teammates by the small bridge that crossed the stream running through training ground seven's main clearing. Sasuke was leaning against one end of the small wooden footbridge with his hands across his chest in his classic brooding pose, while Sakura was sitting by a nearby tree stump with stars in her eyes as she drooled over her dark haired teammate in a very stalkerish way that creeped Naruto out, probably almost as much as it bothered Sasuke himself. They both glanced up when they heard him approach, and then did double takes as they saw him in his new outfit, looking very different from his Academy days with only the tiniest amount of orange, and a dark orange at that.
"What are you wearing Naruto-baka?" shouted Sakura once she realized that her usually bright orange teammate looked completely different just from wearing black and more normal ninja attire, and not sure why it bothered her, "stop trying to be cool like Sasuke-kun."
"Hn ...nice clothes, Dobe," greeted Sasuke with a dismissive sniff to his other male teammate while completely ignoring the female one who had been pestering him for the better part of a half an hour, before going back to his brooding.
"Thanks teme!" replied Naruto calmly, and almost politely if not for the casual name calling that was pretty standard with the two, as he too decided to simply ignore his female teammate and look around the clearing to get his bearings on where everything he setup was. "I think I am going to go check something out ...be right back."
With that, Naruto quickly jumped out of the clearing and into the surrounding trees so he could be out of view of his teammates before spawning 800 plus clones. These clones had the express purpose of hiding among the numerous traps, keeping them all up and running or replacing ones that need it, and lending numbers in support of the original when the fighting finally came down. Several of the clones used the henge transformation jutsu to become small woodland creatures or pieces of debris to blend in to their surroundings, and a few even turned into logs and pieces of branches for Kawarimi material.
The creatures set up a rather large network throughout the training ground, that left almost every square inch of the place in the viewing range of at least three clones at all times, a necessity if he wanted to have any chance of pulling this off. Grabbing a protein bar in case Kakashi does arrive close to on time, he quickly eats it to restore some of the energy he used for his mass clones and then returns to the clearing with his teammates thinking of anything else that might help. Realizing that Kakashi's words from yesterday were in fact true, and that he didn't in any way plan to incorporate or include his teammates in his plan he thought about how he could change that.
"Look guys," started Naruto, once back in the clearing and facing Sasuke and Sakura to get their attention, "if this is really a survival exercise, Kakashi is most likely going to try to split us up ...knowing we are always more of a threat when together. I say, we team up and hit him hard and fast ...it's going to be really hard ...he is a jounin after all, but together we stand a much better chance."
"I don't need help from losers," responded Sasuke harshly, and with a glare directed at first Naruto, and then Sakura causing the earlier to scowl and the later to break down and cry hysterically.
"Real nice teme," clapped back Naruto as he saw their third teammate shrink into herself and sob like a baby, knowing that she would be even more useless now than she would have been if Sasuke had simply included her. "At least I offered this time," continued Naruto more to himself, before moving closer to Sakura and the tree stump she was sitting on and awkwardly standing nearby. "Don't worry about the teme, Sakura ...he just doesn't know how to play with others. You are a great ninja."
"Um ...thanks ...Naruto," sniffled Sakura slowly as she tried to get herself back under control, completely missing the shocked face of Naruto who was surprised not to be yelled at by the object of his Academy crush, having very few memories of her or anyone else really saying nice things to him and not really knowing how to respond.
"Y-your welcome," he eventually stuttered out, before deciding to simply sit down and wait for their lazy sensei ...wondering how long it would be.
It only took about ten minutes of silence before Naruto was again up on his feet and antsy about moving around doing something productive, but knowing he couldn't leave the training ground left him with few alternatives. Deciding that he had nothing else he could think of to do while sitting around that didn't require too much chakra as he was trying to get his reserves back up after the massive shadow clone spawning, he remembered a scroll on meditating as both a chakra control exercise and a calming re-centering. Figuring he had nothing but time to lose, and he was losing that already by waiting on his sensei, Naruto closed his eyes and thought back to the instructions one of his clones read about internalizing your breathing and focus…
"Yo!" came the lazy greeting from Kakashi after he appeared in a swirl of leaves near the tree stump that Sakura was sitting upon, causing the three genin to react each in different ways.
"You're late!" shouted Sakura predictably, although to be fair, he was over three hours late.
"Hn," responded Sasuke, though nobody understood what that meant and continued ignoring him or drooling over 'how cool' he is.
"I'm awake!" came Naruto's exclamation after being abruptly wrenched out of a deep meditative state that he managed to maintain for a very respectable two hours, before being interrupted.
"Sorry, I got lost on the road of life," answered Kakashi easily, and almost disinterestedly, before looking around the clearing and getting a slight feeling of something he couldn't quite put his finger on, causing his glances around to increase and the feeling of anticipation almost to build.
"What kind of lame excuse is that!" shouted Sakura in near hysterics, at the same time as Naruto also responded.
"Was it a fun road at least?" he asked, seemingly serious, and neither Kakashi or his two teammates could guess if he was joking for a long moment before he continued, "and are you on that road every day?"
"Um ...yes," responded the one-eyed jounin slowly, wondering if Naruto was his new favorite for indulging his excuses or if Naruto was just discovering if he was always going to be late.
"Cool," came the flat reply that left everybody somewhat confused and answered nothing for Kakashi, and for some reason didn't lessen the somewhat lingering feeling of anticipation that seemed to be growing.
"So …," started Kakashi after several awkward moments of silence, as he looked back and forth at his three genin," today's test is pretty simple. You have until noon to get one of the bells I have tied to my waist."
"But there are only two bells?" screeched Sakura loudly.
"Yes," replied Kakashi with an eye smile, while cringing on the inside at the girl's volume level and seeming to need to have everything spelled out for her. "Only two of you will pass, the other will be sent back to the Academy for another term ...and be tied to a tree over here while the rest of us eat lunch," he finished as he pulled out three bento boxes and placed them on the tree stump next to a small clock, that had both Sakura and Sasuke's stomachs growling in hunger.
Kakashi looked over all three potential genin, and was pleased to see the desire and hear the stomach pains of Sakura and Sasuke as they looked at the food with longing, while somewhat disappointed that Naruto wasn't displaying those same needs. In fact, Naruto didn't look upset, tired, hungry, or stressed at all, he seemingly was just waiting for him to start with a quiet confidence that Kakashi found cute for a genin that was going up against a jounin that outclassed him in every way. Oh well, the kid would learn the hard way once the bell test began, chuckled Kakashi to himself quietly as he gave one more look around the clearing as the feeling of many others watching was still very strong, but he easily dismissed it ...what did he need to worry about with a trio of fresh out of the Academy genin.
"So," began Kakashi slowly with a one-eyed glare directed at Naruto, who met his look with an intense and ready look of his own, "you ignored the rules again and ate breakfast ...didn't you?"
"You just said not to eat if we didn't want to throw it up," answered Naruto evenly, and maybe with a bit of sarcasm near the end, "I have no intention of throwing up the breakfast I ate over three hours ago sensei."
Kakashi's glare intensified at the young blond's remarks, because he both saw through his 'suggestion' he tried to word it as an order, and called him out on the order not having any effect when he was three hours late, and was well fed to boot. There was just something about the quiet confidence of Naruto that was unsettling to the veteran jounin, his expectations of the village jinchuriki had been ridiculously shattered after just a day with the outdated and biased information he had been operating under. Now he was faced with what appeared to be a ready shinobi, with none of the arrogant bravado most new genin displayed and that smile hinted at something he wasn't entirely sure he wanted to discover.
"Just remember," started Kakashi getting the three gein's attention, and deciding to ignore the uneasy feeling he got every time he looked at Naruto, "you better come at me with intent to kill if you want any chance at getting a bell."
"What!" screeched Sakura again, "what if we hurt you?"
"Haha," laughed the silver haired jounin sensei patronizingly, "you are genin ...you're 100 years too late to be able to even touch me," he continued in a goading fashion, "let alone hurt me."
At the completely dismissive comment, Naruto's eyes narrowed dangerously, hating to be underestimated and not seen as a threat, and with now something serious to prove all bets were off. He instead decided to start gathering and building his chakra for another overcharged mass shadow clone once they were given the go ahead. Kakashi for his part, seemed to notice his blond student bearing down on is temper, and mistakenly thought the loud mouth was preparing for an ineffectual verbal blow up, and likewise wasn't prepared when said blond lifted his eyes and he saw the normally sky blue eyes bleeding almost reddish purple as a slight smell of ozone seemed to be growing.
"Wanna bet, Kakashi-sensei," growled a Naruto whose whole body was practically buzzing with anticipation and the excess build up of chakra as he brought his hands together in his now favorite cross hand seal and held it there waiting on the silver haired jounin to start the test as his chakra just continued to build.
"Uh," stuttered Kakashi for a moment as he looked at his youngest and supposed to be the worst student in the recent graduating class gathering kage-level amounts of chakra, and wondered if maybe his students could in fact hurt him very much. "Begin"
The moment the word left his lips, the entire training ground exploded in a chakra fueled cloud of smoke, that could be felt throughout Konoha by even the most basic sensor and to those sensitive to such things, it was like a blinding supernova. Kakashi himself cringing violently, remembering that day twelve years ago when the Kyuubi descended upon his beloved village, and the wave of killing intent laced with chakra was even more overwhelming than this expression of just pure chakra buildup was. Thankfully, the chakra was pure Naruto's and none of the Kyuubi's chakra had bled through which was good in that the nine-tailed demon wasn't influencing or in control of Naruto, but also shocking that Naruto could produce this much chakra on his own.
When the smoke finally cleared, Kakashi's eyes felt like they were playing tricks on him as well over 1000 shadow clones of Naruto filled every bare space in and around the clearing of training ground seven, further than his eye could see, and everyone had a look of determined anticipation. Before he could really even register them all, he was being lept upon by dozens of the nearest Naruto clones, who instead of just charging blindly, tried working in smaller groups to cover each others weaknesses and overwhelm the much more experienced jounin who was given no time to mount any kind of defensive plan. Naruto knew his clones had to keep the pressure on Kakashi and not let him get space to maneuver, and turn this battle back to his favor.
Likewise, he had several of the newest clones incorporating his many prank items in order to tangle up and bog the older ninja down with paint, honey, and ninja wire traps in a relentless stream that probably frustrated Kakashi more than hurt him. But the constant pressure was doing several things, the most important being that the real Naruto was learning quickly as his sensei quickly began tearing through his clones with minimalist moves that slowly Naruto was learning and incorporating into his haphazard taijutsu. It also provided the decoy for Naruto to again try and get his teammates to join him in attacking Kakashi together, though after Sasuke took a jealous look at all the Naruto's currently fighting their sensei, he scoffed and left the clearing saying he would do it on his own with Sakura following after him like a lost puppy.
The final advantage of so many attackers, was that Kakashi wasn't in control of the flow of the fight, as he was constantly tearing through the ranks of Naruto's clones, he was unaware that he was also being slightly directed and led to the edge of the clearing where the majority of Naruto's traps and reserve forces were stationed and waiting in ambush. Then Kakashi seemed to have understood what was happening just before he reached the treeline traps, and tried to make a stand in the clearing, and prevent the fight from moving into the trees where he could sense several traps and other things waiting for him. His next few moments were spent spewing out fireballs that did significant damage to Naruto's nearest clone forces, and made the original realize he would need more help to keep up the assault on his sensei.
With almost half of the most recent spawning of clones already taken out of the fight in the first five minutes, Naruto was down to about 500 clones still engaging Kakashi at the other end of the clearing from where the original was trying to plan out the continued strategy. He ended up making another two pairs of clones, this time henging one into Sakura and the other into Sasuke where he sent them with another clone of himself to try again and convince them to help. Hoping that seeing the other teammate already helping it would sway the other, and then not telling them that he tricked them once they were working together.
With that part done, he quickly ate down a pair of nutrient bars to regain some strength, which along with the returning chakra of his continually being destroyed clones, left him with enough energy for another large round of clones, this time only numbering around 600 to reinforce the others. It was at that point however, that Kakashi changed up his strategy, and instead of standing still and mowing down all comers as he had been doing, he instead started using the shunshin to escape the attacking waves and trying to get behind them or lose them completely. This didn't work as well as he would have liked however, because the moment he arrived anywhere he was attacked by the nearest clone (disguised as animals, branches, and debris) and once they were dispelled the rest of the hoard now had a bead on their location to converge and start the process all over again.
This game of cat and mouse was better for Naruto's clones as it slowed down their destruction considerably as the attacks were now smaller at first, and over before too many got involved as Kakashi moved on to other locations. It seemed he was both avoiding Naruto's clones, and scouting for the real Naruto and the other two, to test them individually. Him trying to avoid clones to not alert them to where he was, had the added benefit of giving Naruto and his clones more time to learn about their sensei's skills and convince Sasuke to join them.
Sakura joined the moment she saw Sasuke was with Naruto, even if she didn't know it was another clone of Naruto henged to look like her crush, she was in the moment "he" asked her. Sasuke was harder to convince, as he didn't see Sakura working with Naruto to be any great asset, and it wasn't until Sasuke witnessed an ambush on a nearby Kakashi, that he felt that he could at least use his teammates as distractions while he showed off his Uchiha superiority and got both bells for himself. With the three of them now working together, Naruto sneakily hid the two henged clones once they were within visual range of the real ones to not give up his ruse.
The two henged 'Sakura' and 'Sasuke' Naruto clones, where quickly met up with another Naruto clone, and began acting as a decoy team that Naruto had go around to the other side of the training ground making a good bit of noise, to prepare for the next confrontation with Kakashi. It didn't take the clone 'team' long to find Kakashi still attacking Naruto's clones in mass, and allow themselves to be seen before ducking back into the trees towards the main ambush site. Kakashi was just about at his wits end dealing with all of these shadow clones, and getting increasingly frustrated that he couldn't simply overpower a finishing move and clear out the whole lot of the clones without the risk of killing the real genins among them. He was also very reluctant to have to use his hidden sharigan eye on a new genin, and instead kept it covered with his slanted hitae-ite as he took out that frustration on the next several batches of clones.
A nice chidori rain storm would take care of this entire mass of clones in seconds, but would most likely also completely fry and kill the three real genin among them. Instead, he decided to throw out a shuriken rather lower than normal before performing the shuriken kage bunshin and taking out over two dozen of the Naruto clones in one throw. By throwing low, he also avoided a possible lethal hit to one of his real genin if they were among the clones in the attack range and allowed him to replicate the move another ten times quickly eliminating Naruto clones by the dozens.
The disadvantage to this technique though was shown a minute later, when several Naruto clones had seen and studied the move enough to replicate it on their own, and soon the amount of weapons flying back at the jounin were significantly greater than before. He had to abandon his makeshift perch under the growing onslaught, and returned to using the body flicker technique and many kawarimi exchanges to escape the seemingly never ending pursuit of his supposedly worst student. Even the woodland creatures, and branches on the grounds and in the trees ended up being Naruto clones, after Kakashi witnessed several of each come to life in order to attack him during his many escapes.
The next time he paused for a moment coming out of another shunshin, he changed up his strategy again and spawned his own trio of shadow clones before descending underground and letting his clones continue to eliminate the Naruto clones while he went hunting for some genin. It took almost no time to find them hiding half assed outside the main clearing so they could see, almost not even trying, and making him somewhat disappointed that they didn't have something better planned after the pretty impressive start. Popping up out of the earth behind them was child's play as the three fresh genin gave no indication they had any idea he was among them, until he went to pull all three and bury in the ground only for them to explode as shadow clones.
"Shit," he cursed as a veritable wave of shuriken came flying at him, after pausing at the explosion of his supposed genin and being caught flat footed again.
"Damn," shouted the nearest Naruto clone who thought they were finally going to get the more skilled jounin, before sending out the memory of Kakashi travelling through the ground to avoid detection.
Soon, with the liberal use of the newly learned echolocation jutsu, every Naruto clone was able to follow Kakashi around the training ground with amazing precision. Though that also included the silver haired man's clones as well, so they were currently tracking four separate chakra signatures ...oh, make that three. Naruto didn't have any of the same restrictions as his sensei, and was aiming to kill every time, and the clones only needed a single hit to dispel, so within minutes of using the echolocation jutsu he had tracked and eliminated all three Kakashi shadow clones, until he was just dogging the original.
Throughout this now rather long running battle, Naruto had been trying continually to get his hands on the bells at Kakashi's waist without much luck, though he had come surprisingly close on several occasions. He decided that he needed to step up the pressure on Kakashi, and grabbed a nearby squirrel and then henged several clones into his teammates and sent them off to be ready for their sensei to appear in a shunshin, grabbing more small animals along the way. When Kakashi appeared at the next ambush site following a henged clone of Sasuke, Naruto had his Sakura clone get on the ground among the group of other clones with the squirrel bleeding out from the fresh wound.
Kakashi's shuriken shadow clone jutsu, predictably tore through the huddled clones dispersing them in clouds of smoke that obscured the view for a moment and covered the high pitched scream of pain his 'Sakura' clone made upon the other clones' destructions. That scream had Kakashi instantly stop and pale completely, fearing that he may have accidentally just killed one of the genin he was testing and terrified the moment the smoke cleared and a heavily bleeding Sakura was lying collapsed on the ground. The older silver haired ninja froze completely at the scene in front of him, shocked that his overconfidence against his new genin had allowed the current tragedy to take place and wondering if there was any way to save the young girl.
"Don't move," called a frantic Kakashi as he rushed to his downed genin in order to provide aid and see if there was anything he could do to help, and was then shocked when he reached the bloody scene and things didn't completely add up.
He didn't have any time to consider what was wrong, as the moment he bent over the downed genin, said genin and several others that were hiding nearby accosted him and clung to any part of his body they could. Two clones even managed to get their hands on the bells before the veteran ninja realized what was happening and lashed out harshly to the unfortunate clones who suffered quick deaths along with all the other nearby clones. With the dispersal of several clones almost simultaneously, the large cloud of obscuring smoke actually helped hide the next wave of clones that arrived to fight for the bells.
That fight was quick and brutal though, as Kakashi was no longer underestimating his genin and dealing truly brutal attacks that had the original Naruto wincing in memory of the many very painful deaths he was experiencing one on top of the other. He was not making any real headway against his sensei, but kept getting close to the bells and forcing Kakashi to continually try and defend against his many theft attempts. It was at this point though that the real genin arrived, with Sasuke throwing out a Great Fireball that destroyed the dozens of clones that had been engaging Kakashi and keeping him busy.
"No teme," shouted Naruto as he saw the fireball heading into a largely concentrated area of Naruto clones and traps that he knew couldn't react quick enough to avoid, unlike their now freed sensei.
With his own teammate clearing all of his numbers near and around Kakashi, the three original genin were left too exposed in the now empty clearing to do anything other than succumb to the small hits by their sensei that knocked them all out in seconds and bringing the bell test to an abrupt end. Kakashi though wasn't able to get to Naruto though, as his hidden clones all throughout the training ground instantly came to life the moment he was knocked out and engaged the older ninja in mass, while other clones pulled him to safety and woke him up. That wake up didn't last long though, as Kakashi created another pair of his own clones he had literally tear through Naruto's remaining ones until there were none remaining and he knocked out the young blond genin again…
"Well, your teamwork is absolute shit!" came the clear voice of Kakashi, cutting through the groggy head fog as Naruto slowly seemed to be coming to, and finding himself tied uncomfortably to a tree while his sensei and teammates sat around nearby. "Though ...I will say, you really surprised me."
"Really?" asked a hopeful Sakura from her spot near the tree stump she was at when this test began.
"Not you Pinky," continued Kakashi with an eye smile directed at Sakura, before sweeping his gaze across Sasuke to rest on Naruto. "You and Emo-King here were as pathetic as I expected you to be …" he trailed off while searching Naruto's face intently. "Naruto on the other hand ...well, he just showed me something pretty impressive."
"What! Naruto-baka!" shouted Sakura in disbelief.
"The Dobe!" growled a glaring Sasuke, trying to kill both his sensei and teammate with just his stare, as he curled and flexed his hands into fists repeatedly, seemingly unable to accept that anybody else might deserve praise or have some skill.
"Yes," answered Kakashi plainly and definitively, "he had several very good and unique plans and strategies that he wasn't afraid to try and adapt around, trapped and scouted the hell out of this training ground, came prepared ...and held his own against a severely greater opponent. I'd say he was hands down the best of you all."
With those words, Sasuke practically growled into a scream of rage and disbelief that HE would ever look up at the dobe as a greater ninja, and couldn't fathom how the Dead Last had already surpassed him in seemingly no time at all. Sakura too was in disbelief, but where her dark haired teammate struggled with his own comparison to Naruto, she knew her strengths lie elsewhere and didn't really think anything Naruto did was any better than everything that Sasuke did. Naruto though was a different story, never had another ninja complimented him in such a positive way about his own growing ninja skills and he was almost bursting with pride and determination to keep improving ...take that teme!
"So, did we pass?" asked Naruto after a moment of reveling in his excitement for the received praise, and realizing he hadn't heard about that yet.
"No, team seven did not pass," answered Kakashi slowly, seeing if anybody would pick up on it.
"Only Team 7?" asked Naruto with a tilted head as he thought over the words of his silver haired sensei, and found that phrasing unusual.
"See …," continued Kakashi seemingly talking to Sasuke and Sakura, before turning and smiling at Naruto, "he noticed it immediately."
"Naruto passed?" screamed an outraged Sakura, finally registering what was being said and inferred by Kakashi's words.
"He demonstrated enough to show me what he is capable of, and I was very pleased with everything I saw from him. He thought and acted as a true shinobi and teammate, and if it's what he wants, I will sign off on him entering the Reserve Genin Pool until a spot somewhere else opens up," answered Kakashi plainly to the three young ninja who all reacted very differently.
"What!" screamed Sakura in outrage, complaining about fairness and repeating how much better Sasuke was over Naruto at everything, while said dark haired boy just seethed quietly on the verge of a blowup at any moment.
"If it's what I want?" asked a curious Naruto, cutting off Sakura's incessant chatter and the Emo's brooding, and getting a large and somewhat creepy looking eye-smile from Kakashi.
"Yes, that is an option for you," Kakashi continued, seemingly happily that the young blond figured out to look underneath the underneath, and not just accept straight away. "Or ...you could try the bell test again as Team 7 with Pinky and Emo-King over here after lunch, but if you fail to get a bell ...the deals off and you are back to the Academy too."
It didn't take Naruto too long to think his options through, having known and heard about the Reserve Genin he knew it probably wasn't a great fit for him. He wasn't well liked and chances of being selected by other genin or chunin and jounin instructors for anything would constantly be a battle even if his skills were adequate. That was the real problem though, Reserve Genin didn't have instructors, everything they learned had to be done by themselves, and likewise few if any ever make it passed the genin program and into the higher ranks of ninja, hence the somewhat mocking term of Career Genin.
"I think Team 7 needs another chance at the Bell Test sensei," responded Naruto after several long moment of contemplation, and causing both Sasuke and Sakura to sputter in shock that Naruto would chose the team option and likewise give them both another chance to become Ninja of the Leaf.
"Good answer," replied Kakashi with that weird eye-smile thing he seemingly does often directed at the young blond. "Okay, Sasuke and Sakura ...here are your lunches, eat up you are going to need your strength ...I will be back in 15 minutes to start the Bell test."
"Um ...Kakashi-sensei? Aren't you going to let me down to eat lunch too?" asked Naruto just before his sensei left, and getting the other two to look up at the interaction, finding the whole thing rather odd and still wondering what exactly was going on as they opened the tasty bento boxes both beyond hungry.
"Nope ...you ignored my instructions yesterday and ate this morning, these two haven't eaten anything and need their strength if they are going to help get bells," answered Kakashi flippantly, before turning to Sasuke and Sakura and continuing in a serious tone, "don't share your lunch with Naruto."
With that, Kakashi gave a sarcastic little wave to the fuming and sputtering Naruto, before he vanished in a swirl of leaves to who knows where and leaving the three young genin alone in the clearing. Naruto was beyond pissed and pretty damn hungry after everything he put himself through this morning, and couldn't believe that after all that, he was still right back in the same position as he was this morning without a team or sensei. He was seriously having second thoughts now on his choice, and thinking he may have just been better off as a Reserve Genin, since he was pretty exhausted still from chakra drain and didn't think he would be able to convince Sasuke and Sakura to work with him again.
"Here Naruto ...you can have some of my lunch," came the small voice of Sakura as she shuffled forward a bit and moved to start feeding an absolutely stunned Naruto, "you are going to need your strength too ...and you can probably help a lot more than I can," she finished somewhat dejectedly.
"You can have some of mine too," came the unexpected reply from Sasuke as he too started forward to feed the final member of their team. "You too Sakura, we are allgoing to need to be at our best ...this guy is no joke!"
"WHAT IS THIS!" came the loud shout of Kakashi as he appeared in another swirl of leaves just as all three students started eating from the two bento boxes, and causing them all to stiffen in fear at getting caught breaking the rules.
"U-u-um …," stuttered Sakura in shock and fear, as the three young ninjas all cringed at the anger they saw on their sensei's face, all three expecting to be exploded at any moment.
"You all pass," announced Kakashi to the now stunned in shock faces of the three newest Genin of Konoha, who all had no idea just what the hell was happening.
"Huh?" questioned Naruto confusedly, trying to follow along with his new sensei's way of thinking.
"Team 7 has passed ...you proved you can work together ...the individual skills will come with practice and hard work, but I am pleased with what I've seen," explained Kakashi calmly as he eye-smiled at his new genin team, and enjoyed their looks of confusion turned to happiness. "We will meet here every morning at 8 am for some training and teamwork drills, and then do a mission or two in the afternoon."
"Awesome!" cheered Naruto excitedly, before remembering his earlier exchange with his tardy sensei and asking somewhat apprehensively so as not to upset his new sensei, "um ...are you going to be spending some time on the 'Road of Life' again tomorrow?"
"Ummmm," came the unknowing reply from Kakashi as he thought about how to answer the question while looking back and forth between his new genin while tearing the ropes around Naruto, and not coming up with anything concrete, "see ya tomorrow!"
With those words, he disappeared in another shunshin leaving the three new genin of Team 7 alone in training ground seven, all with varying levels of smiles, or smirks in Sasuke's case, on their faces. Even Naruto, who was realizing his sensei never answered him, and was probably constantly late while "on the road of life" couldn't keep the happy and proud smile off his face at finally being a real Ninja of the Leaf. Turning to his new teammates, he also realized that they had a lot of training to do, in order to be ready to fight and protect the village or accomplish any of the more difficult missions.
"Well," started Naruto to get both of his excited teammates' attention, "do we want to train together? Or spend time getting to know each other better?"
"I train alone," came Sasuke's quick and predictable reply.
"I am not going out with you Naruto-baka," shouted Sakura after a moment of thinking over what her teammates said, before turning to Sasuke, "do you want to celebrate Sasuke-kun?"
"Hn," grunted the monosyllabic Uchiha, before turning around and taking off down the street as fast as he could, leaving a dejected Sakura behind that Naruto usually would have tried cheering up or asking out himself if she hadn't just screamed out her refusal to the unasked question, but just couldn't find it in him today to do so.
"See ya tomorrow then," replied a somewhat dejected Naruto, who thought now that they were teammates they would also become friends, while a distracted Sakura watched the object of her obsession recede in the distance, and ignored the loud blond completely as she lived in her own world.
Naruto's dejection though wouldn't last but a moment once he realized that he was now a real ninja, and that he was one big step closer to becoming Hokage and a respected member of Konoha. Deciding to treat himself to an Ichiraku Ramen feast in celebration of his greatest personal accomplishment to date was definitely in order, and led to him running happily through the streets of his beloved village. He ignored the stares and mutters even easier now than before, having been validated by the last few days of accomplishing goals, becoming a real ninja, learning of his burden, and just not caring anymore about the idiots in the village who couldn't tell he wasn't the Kyuubi.
With Kakashi reporting to Hokage:
"Team Seven under Kakashi Hatake passed," came the flat response of the silver haired jounin after appearing inside the Hokage's office to see his fellow jounin instructors still there, and now staring at him in shock with their mouths hanging open and disbelief on their faces.
"What ...you passed a team?" came the shocked voice of Kurenai Yuhi, jounin leader of Team 8, and relatively new jounin and Genjutsu Mistress, who knew and hung out in the same circles as Kakashi, and could hardly believe what she heard.
"What can I say, they worked well as a team ...and Naruto almost got me several times, and probably would have if it had continued much longer," came the very matter of fact response, that had the stunned crowd gapping even more at the revelation that the demon child was that good when his Academy results spoke of an abject failure in every sense.
"B-but he was the Dead Last?" came the disbelieving voice of a random jounin in the back of the room, that just had Kakashi shrug nonchalantly.
"He's not the Dead Last any more," came the swift reply from Kakashi, "you all had to have felt that chakra spike a half an hour ago ...he created over 1000 shadow clones in the blink of an eye ...give him one month, and he will be ready to take on any Chunin in Konoha."
"Oh please," came the sarcastic and disbelieving voice of Ebisu, a tokubetsu jounin specializing in training elite ninjas, a sentiment that seemed shared by the majority of the room minus only Kakashi and the Hokage himself.
"How about a bet?" came the goading response of Kakashi, to his former classmate and fellow ninja. "Naruto fights Kotetsu Hagane or Izumo Kamizuki in one month from today ...if he wins ...I'll have a teaching assistant for the Chunin Exams."
"Oh please," came the sarcastic reply from Ebisu, "he has no chance against a real chunin ...even if you gave him a year."
"Okay, then let's sweeten up the pot then?" responded Kakashi, already enjoying having new students to talk about and bet on. "Say 10,000 yen?"
"You're on Kakashi," came Ebisu's immediate reply, as anime tears began running down his cheeks as he thought about how to spend all that money he was sure to win off Kakashi, and he seemingly checked out into his own little dream world, that had most of the onlookers wondering if something was seriously wrong with the usually very rule oriented ninja who was mumbling about "easy money" all the while.
"Good," replied Kakashi with a meaningful look at the Hokage, before searching out and finding his 'Eternal Rival' who he also gave a small look to indicating that he had something he wanted to talk to Konoha's Green Beast about once the meeting broke up.
Back with Naruto:
Arriving at his favorite ramen stand, and greeting two of his most precious people Ayame and Teuchi Ichiraku, he quickly orders himself some of his new "special" Miso Ramen and recounts his day of becoming a ninja to his captivated audience. After a dozen bowls of the 'Food of the Gods' he had finally exhausted his tale of bravery and awesomeness, that saw him by the end a Genin of the Leaf. Promising the Father-Daughter pair that he would now be able to come by more often once he started earning money from missions, he said his goodbyes before heading back to his apartment to get a few more things he needed before he continued to train.
Having replaced all his kunai and shuriken that were lost or destroyed during his recent bell test, he also grabbed the Fuinjutsu starter set he purchased the other day before making his customary clones to start spamming his training. With each of the now 1000 clones having a chakra version of the starter set brushes, ink, and paper he had them spread out throughout the training ground before getting to the practice of increasing his penmanship until he was capable of creating his own seals. While the clones slowly worked through the many calligraphy type exercises related to Fuinjutsu, the real Naruto upped his training weights back to the third setting and set about running himself into the ground again.
Throughout the next several hours as the afternoon bled into the evening and then the night, Naruto continued with his clone training and his own physical training, only stopping to grab snacks, or to dispel and then spawn more clones. By the time he was ready to drag himself back to his apartment for some well deserved rest, he had worked for over seven hours straight on his Fuinjutsu with over 1000 clones and had some serious memory transfer to deal with. As he finally laid down, he started dispelling them in groups of ten as at least their memories were all very similar and by the time he was finished was completely drained mentally now as well as physically and couldn't keep the smile off his face as he fell asleep stronger than he was the day before.