Wildflower Book 1 | Naruto Fanfiction

Chapter15: Chūnin Exams?

Weeks went by, and the team never got any better than it had been in the beginning. Every mission they went on had to bring up problems between the genin.

After their fourth mission, Kakashi felt he was finally tired of babying them and stopped paying too much attention to them. Today was one of those days, Kakashi hid himself in plain sight and left the children with a clone. In the meantime, he read in peace.

So far, nothing had happened yet. Sasuke was painting the fence quietly, not trying to beat Naruto up just for fun. Sakura was planting seeds in the flowerbed, not swooning over Sasuke or telling Naruto off.

Naruto, on the other hand, had had enough of his chore and was kneeling in the garden screaming in agony. He was so done with the D and E-ranked missions! He wanted something real, something exciting. He wanted to do real ninja stuff. There was no way he could get stronger by pulling out weeds in some old lady's garden.

He had to talk to Kakashi sensei about this, it was just crazy. There was no way a ninja became strong because of gardening. He shot to his feet, and rushed to where Kakashi-sensei sat in a tree as he read that stupid book of his. He threw a stone at him to catch his attention, but what happened next shocked him beyond compare. The sensei popped, and where he sat was a cloud of smoke.

"Ah! It was a clone, dattebayō!", the boy screeched, earning himself a slap at the back of his head from an annoyed Sakura. She warned him against being too loud, as it was disturbing the peace. Naruto simply grumbled angrily as he search for the sensei, not caring about how fast the pink haired girl had gotten to his side.

Kakashi, annoyed, came out from his hiding place and slowly walked over to the bickering pair. Sakura was just about to punch the boy because he stuck out his tongue at her. Just as the hit was about to land, Kakashi stepped in front of her, saving the unaware boy from a pain he did not expect.

Looking down lazily at Sakura, he scolded her, "Instead of focusing so much on Naruto, maybe you'd much rather work on what you're supposed to be doing. It's not good to use others to make yourself look better, Sakura. Get back to what you were busy with."

A gasp of surprise escaped the girl's lips and she lowered her head in shame. Quitely, she apologised and went back to the flower bed.

Kakashi turned to face a startled Naruto, who was most probably wondering where he had come from. With narrow eyes, he simply said, "Your laziness and lack of concentration will be your undoing, Naruto. No shinobi gets by by being reckless. If this was a battlefield, you'd be the first to die."

The boy was shocked, not by the harshness of his words, buy by the fact that they resonated with what he had wanted to talk to him about.

"But sensei—", Naruto began to protest, but was cut short by an irritated Kakashi.
"No, Naruto-kun, you don't get to negotiate here. Get. Back. To. Work.", the man said before dissappearing from where he stood, leaving Naruto speechless.

Kakashi continued to watch from afar. He couldn't help but think back to his days with Tama, when all he had to do was be a good sparring partner. Of course they had their up and downs, but it was a wonderful time nonetheless.

The Chūnin exams were set to take place in a month's time, and Kakashi was pondering over whether or not to sign his new team up. Team seven was the first ever of his genin squads to get past his bell test and they were proving to be quite formidable in combat. Only in combat.