Namikaze Naruto- The Unpredictable Shinobi

Chapter 12: Team 7... Pass!

The next morning, she was working on a seal that changes voice without using chakra since she was growing up and male teens are expected to have a hoarse voice. She decided to have breakfast and leave for the ground at 8 a.m., the usual timing for her. She also has a seal that prevents any damage from Sakura's beatings, which are the only strong attacks of Sakura and she packs her punches with power only in Naruto's case. Naruto can't risk losing her temper and mask due to the ignorance of a book-smart, yet foolish girl. She reached the ground to see a sleepy Sakura flirting with a slightly drowsy Sasuke. However, she was wide awake with anger when she saw Naruto, stomped over and hit her on her head. "You're late, Baka!" She yelled. "Ah! Sorry Sakura!" Naruto whined. Naruto left a Kage Bunshin with the other two and left to sit on her father's statue head. She had been training in sensory and honing all of her senses- honing one by handicapping another. She tried to sense Kakashi and found him approaching the training ground. She replaced her clone with herself and received the clone's memories. She comprehended them when Kakashi appeared before them.

"Yo, guys!" He greeted with a smile and the lone eye closed- his eye smile. "You're late!" Sakura yelled furious. "Well, a black cat crossed my path and I had to take the longer route." He replied. "Lies!" was her only response. "Okay, now here's the clock, and I have bells with me. Come and get them within an hour. Those without a bell will be failed." He instructed. "But there are only two bells." Sakura doubted. "Exactly. One of you will fail, and if possible, all of you will fail." The students looked in silence as a breeze passed through. "Start!" He announced.

Naruto created a clone with instructions to play dumb, while she silently slipped into the forest, chakra masked and contemplated on how to defeat their Sensei without revealing herself. She thought, 'No breakfast; He was late; It was decided beforehand and was a trick. This must be one too. A genin can't defeat a jounin. Together, three of us might have a chance, but a very tiny window, though we are talking about Kakashi of the Sharingan here. Three of us... three of us... two bells... No squad exists with one jounin and two genin. The purpose of dividing students in Academy into teams of three is defeated. It has always been 1 Jounin leading 3 Genin... He is pitting us against each other. Come to think of it, Yondaime Hokage also had done the same with his genin. Why didn't I remember of it before?' She frowned. 'Onii-sama--' She called out to her Biju with a smile and voice too sweet for his own good. Better now than never, Kurama gulped. 'Yes, well, you knowing the test beforehand would've given you an unfair advantage and would've defeated the purpose of the test, so I blocked out the memory till you realized it by yourself.' Naruto understood and smiled. Her clone was caught in the nth trick and was close to chakra exhaustion. She let it dispel on its own.

She let her chakra known for a while and asked Sakura to try and team up, but she refused outright with a hit and few insults, before running away to search for 'Sasuke-kun', only to run into Kakashi, who decided to take down Sakura after Naruto's clone had unexpectedly been dispelled and followed the chakra of the original to find Sakura. While Kakashi was busy stalking and putting Sakura in a genjutsu, Naruto fled to Sasuke and tried to get him to work together, but he was adamantly arrogant and ran away to face Kakashi all by himself. Kakashi had played with Sasuke, making it seem as if he was close to getting the bell. However, Sasuke found himself buried underground with only his head poking out. This was Doton/Earth style- Double Decapitation technique, where the user hides underground and pulls the enemy down while he himself comes out. 'A useful technique for a prank' Naruto thought as she approached Sasuke to help him, when the clock alarm rang, indicating that their time was up.

Naruto was tied up to a tree stump as punishment for the clone trying to eat lunch without completing the test. She wasn't fazed, though. She had prepared for different scenarios, planning to get her team passed- either one of them getting tied to the post. Sakura and Sasuke were sitting tired on the ground as Kakashi stood before them, visibly upset. "The three of you don't know what to do. Naruto, you attacked head-first without a second thought and fell for the simplest of traps. Sakura, you are a kunoichi. Pay more attention to your surroundings. Sasuke, you are too arrogant to think you can work alone. No one man can work alone before stronger opponents. You have underestimated your opponent." "Hn." Sasuke scoffed.

"You guys didn't understand what this was all for, did you?" Kakashi asked rhetorically. "Teamwork." Naruto whispered. "What was that?" Kakashi asked harshly though he heard it with his sensitive ears. "Teamwork was the goal, right Sensei?" Naruto asked. "Yes, but realising it now won't help you. You guys aren't going back to the Academy." Kakashi said as Sasuke and Sakura looked hopeful, while Naruto braced herself for the worst. "You will be removed from the Shinobi system." Hope turned to shock. Naruto piped up, "Sensei, I realised it before, ask these two if I've asked them to work together or not." Sasuke looked away, slightly shameful. Sakura had the audacity to lie, "What are you-" Kakashi cut her off, "Is it true, Sasuke, Sakura?" He asked them with a dangerous edge in his voice. "Yes," they nodded. He narrowed his eyes at them. "The two of you should've been at the pole instead." He said softly, but Naruto's sharp ears caught his words. She didn't know whether to be happy or sad at that.

She looked up at Kakashi who said, "I shall give you one more chance after lunch. Naruto is to stay tied up without lunch as punishment. Expect yourselves to get failed if you feed him." He vanished in a poof of smoke and hid behind a tree nearby, and of course, Naruto sensed him. After a few minutes, her stomach rumbled and she chuckled embarrassed. It was close to her lunch time, and she couldn't help it. 'I have to take care of this problem when I go home.' She thought when she saw a bento before her. She looks up to see... Sasuke was offering her his lunch! Sasuke! She opened her mouth to speak but Sakura beat her to it, "Sasuke-kun, what are you doing?" "What does it look like I'm doing?" He retorted. "But Kakashi Sensei told us not to give him food." She protested. "Hn. He will be needing his strength if he should not drag us down. Besides, Kakashi isn't around here." Sakura immediately agreed to the 'drag us down' part, where as Naruto laughed in her mind at the last statement about Kakashi. Sakura joined Sasuke in offering Naruto her lunch, and finished putting the first bite in Naruto's mouth when the clouds above them darkened and small bolts of lightning struck near them, revealing an enraged Hatake. "You guys..." He began in a threatening tone "... Pass!" He ended with an eye-smile, shocking the three kids now officially Genin.

Kakashi proceeded to explain the importance of teamwork and recalled some of words which, Minato had written down, were Obito's words to Kakashi before his last battle. "In the Ninja world, those who break the rules are scum. However, those who abandon their comrades are worse than scum. My friend who taught me this had died because I did not follow it." Naruto looked at Sasuke and Sakura to find neither of them felt an ounce of guilt and sighed mentally. "Well, let's meet here tomorrow at 7 in morning for our first mission." Kakashi announced and vanished in a poof of smoke. Sasuke simply walked away and Sakura followed him asking him out on a date again. And the best part- Naruto was still tied up, and no one had bothered to set her free. But then she sensed Kakashi's masked chakra nearby, realising that this was another test of teamwork and they had failed it. Both the blonde and the silver-haired jounin sighed. She wanted to call him out, but remembered that he was masking his chakra in the hope of being undiscovered and it would raise doubts if the idiot sensed the masked chakra of a high level Jounin. She struggled to take out a kunai from her weapon holster tied to her thigh and cut the ropes and skipped away, not before keeping up the act of shouting after her teammates, "You guys didn't untie me, wait for me!"