#kakashi didn't sign up for this shit
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Kinkmas Day 1: Rimming
Paring: Kakashi Hatake x male reader
This guy
Warnings: Rimming DUH, anal fingering, teasing, slight begging, little bottom twinky fuck me daddy feminine male reader, no actual sex, enemies to lovers? I think that's it
Word Count: 1,307
Fuck him. Fuck his pretty silver hair that I just want to run my hands through while he eats my ass, his muscular form that must have been crafted by the sage of six paths himself, his beautiful attention catching eye, his mysterious mask, his (what I hope is) insanely large dick. Just fuck the whole thing (I wish).
Of course, the only person you could be thinking of is the one and only Kakashi Hatake, copy ninja of the leaf, and the hottest mother fucker to ever exist. Oh god did you have an obsession with him. Having wet dream after wet dream about him, screaming his name while masturbating, and it doesn't help that you catch him staring at you all the time almost as much as he catches you staring at him.
This whole obsession started a month ago when you saw him reading one of his goddamn sex books in the middle of the street. You walked over to him and asked why he was reading erotica in a VERY public place, and he just looked at you "Because it's hot." he stated matter-of-factly. The nerve of some people, from then on you two would see each other walking around, say hi, go your respective ways. It's been that way ever since; stolen glances and fuck me eyes since.
Until now. You were done with man after man not fulfilling you like you think he may be able to, maybe, it's a complete guess but he just gives off the vibe. Anyway, you saw him reading his demented sex shit again when you decided to make your fantasies a reality once and for all. You walk behind the bench he was sitting on and read the words on the page and HOLY SHIT IT'S GAY RIMMING. You mentally scream into the pillow like a 15-year-old girl who just found out her crush is available, which is kind of like what's going on.
"Uhm, can I help you?" Kakashi questions in his horny inducing voice, with a little annoyance sprinkled in through all the underwear wetting.
"Oh sorry, am I disturbing a public jack off sesh." You coldly state with a smirk on your face, hand doing a little masturbation gesture.
"Do you mind." he says rhetorically, the twinge of annoyance from earlier much more noticeable now.
"If you didn't want someone to talk to you then why are you reading 'that' on a public bench in the middle of the street again?" you sassily question.
"Because I wanted to read outside, privately." He answers, you look at him like he's the dumbest man in the whole world.
"Then why, in the absolute fuck, are you reading in the street you attention whore." you rhetorically ask, the previous sass now developed into genuine frustration as you walk around the bench to be right in front of him.
"That's cute coming from you." he chuckles.
"And what's that supposed to mean?" you ask.
"Don't act dumb, you have been trying to get into my pants for weeks now." he exclaims, you start to blush, ensuring that what he said is true.
"Don't act so high and mighty with me. I've seen you look at me too bitch." you state. He stands up, his large frame completely dwarfing you, his eyes almost angry. You do a cartoonish and audible gulp, the fear enhancing the horniness.
It's quiet for a while until he leans down,
"And what of it" he whispers in your ear and grabs you ass tightly, not caring if anyone sees. You let out a soft yelp at the sudden sign of attraction. You're completely stunned, not knowing what to do. He realizes this and before you can think any more, he holds you close and grabs your ass tighter and whispers,
"My place." It wasn't even a question or a request, it was a demand. One that even given the choice you wouldn't say no to.
Before you know it you're already on your way to Kakashi's place. He's giving you a piggyback ride to save time, and because he wants that juicy cake as quickly as possible, his mind is going crazy with your legs wrapping around him.
Finally, you make it to his place and immediately you both rush into his room. Right when you both enter you get off his back and onto the bed. Your legs spread as he takes off both your pants and underwear and tosses them both to the side.
"Now, turn around and bend over." already making demands and he hasn't even bought you dinner yet, not that you care because without a single moment of hesitation you are already on your hands and knees.
Without warning he immediately put his long skilled digit into your readily awaiting hole. He moves slowly as he starts to open you up. All the while you let out quiet moans.
"Your little moans are so cute." he said. Suddenly you feel a second finger enter you. He stays at the same excruciatingly slow pace. While he's pumping his fingers, he starts to feel the rest of your ass, rubbing it sensually and squeezing at the sensitive skin.
He puts in the third finger and his speed starts to pick up. Now your moans start to get louder as his three fingers stay at a steady and quick speed. He pumps them in and out over and over with precise repetition.
his fingers start to curl inside you, twisting and turning inside you perfectly. It's at this point that you are officially a moaning mess. The all too familiar feeling churns into your stomach. His fingers start turning and hitting your sweet spot consistently.
Then the feeling of relief washes over you as his fingers twist and hit your spot for the final time. You let out a loud moan and crash into the bed, cumming without even him putting his dick in you.
But he wasn't satisfied with just feeling inside you as he picked you up and brought you to your hands and knees again.
"Not yet sweetheart." he says as he starts to rub and massage your ass cheeks, caressing them to his desire. He gives you a quick and sharp spank, you cry out in pleasure from the surprise as he watches you ass jiggle in awe.
He puts his mask down and licks your ass, putting small and harmless love bites from time to time. Each lick and bite getting closer and closer to your hole. You start begging him to just devour you already. "Please, god I've fantasized about this please." you cry out, wanting, no, craving for his tongue.
"Well since you asked so nicely." he calmly states, though you can tell the excitement in his voice, aware that he wants this too. He licks lines on your cheek until FINALLY taking small licks on your entrance. Your spine chills in anticipation and pleasure and your breathing becomes shaky.
He licks languid circles on your entrance slowly. His hands are still caressing the rest of your ass. Your legs are shaking due to the stimulation and your cock is as hard as can be. He stops his simple licking and finally puts his tongue in your ass.
It starts off slowly but develops quickly into a fast pace, his tongue going in and out of you. You are now officially a moaning mess as his tongue is assaulting your hole. He continues this and then starts to put his fingers back in your hole while his mouth is still doing its job.
The familiar feeling in your stomach starts to build up again as his talented hands and mouth works on your asshole. Your moans crescendo until finally you climax for the second time of the night.
And you're not done yet.
THE END
#naruto#naruto x reader smut#naruto x reader#naruto x male reader#naruto x male reader smut#x reader#x male reader#anime x reader#x male reader smut#x reader smut#anime x reader smut#anime x male reader smut#kakashi#kakashi smut#kakashi x reader#kakashi x male reader smut#kakashi x male reader#kakashi x reader smut
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do you think tori/kakashi/sasori would work?
oooh i talked about this some in the sasori girls au. and the.... possibly separate ninja rpf au? what was happening back then. anyway, here's a post and now some Thoughts
i don't think it could happen in mutagenicity because kakashi would never go for a romantic relationship with tori. he's known her since she was 12 and it would freak him out.
for the course i currently have plasticity on....... there's no romance, but tori and kakashi have mutual interests and will have an interesting dynamic (hopefully). so in a plasticityverse au..... yes, and it's terrible :)
idk in the slew of posts about rpf there's two basic themes. one is that it apparently takes place in an au where kakashi knows tori and that she's shady, but he DOESN'T know about akatsuki. he thinks she's civilian yakuza or works at a ninja supply store servicing missing-nin or something. he meets up with her periodically to talk Fannish Content. the other theme is that sasori rpf is ultra popular and tori desperately wants acceptance into the fandom, even at the cost of sasori's disapproval (and HE wants her to shut up and do things for him).
so there is a world where kakashi and sasori cross in some sort of bizarro fandom based comedy of errors. consider:
sasori is at a bar to meet one of his contacts. kakashi is on his way back from a mission. they spot each other. kakashi's first thought is "that's tori's blorbo" and NOT "oh shit that's an s-rank missing-nin" and he will have to live with realization that these are his priorities for the rest of his life. sasori acknowledges he's there and is like "oh that's tori's weird friend" and THEN he's like "oh wait didn't she say he's hot under the mask" and he goes over to say hey
kakashi after he's determined sasori's in a good mood: hey this is. this is SUPER awkward. can you sign something for me
sasori: .....why
kakashi: my friend is.... a fan? i guess?
sasori: (feels his soul leave his body)
anyway a week later kakashi presents Tori with a signed napkin from Sasori and he's like "he's surprisingly nice" and she gets to feel her soul leave her body
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How do you expel an entire class? Did Aizawa simply tell you’re all expelled, walks away and wait for another teacher to make damage control?
That movement must make him:
1 Disliked by other fellow teachers (minus his friends i guess).
2 A PR nightmare for Nedzu and UA. Since there’s at least two recommended students.
3. Widely hated or feared for an entire promotion.
4. What about 1-B. Did they just assume the worst of them is better than the best 1-A?
5. How does the rivalry with Vlad King surge? Since there’s no competition at all.
6. What’s the true lesson behind all that? That an entire class needs to improve? That the worst batch goes into 1-A? That Aizawa is the most strict teacher and therefore the best?
Looking at that from all angles and just doesn’t work. How does Aizawa keep his job for more than a year. Did someone immediately re-enrrol the kids, apologize and swears them to silence? And, did all that shit show happens more than once?
I’ll never get how the Dadzawa wave started since before the very retcon!
Yeah the expulsion stuff causes a huge amount of problems when you start thinking about it. There should have been at minimum a huge surge of controversy long ago that resulted in Aizawa getting fired especially with the sheer number of students he's apparently expelled.
The biggest problem comes down to something I've noted before that Hori very clearly decided to make a bunch of Kakashi references with Aizawa, but also as clearly missed major reasons of why Kakashi can pull the shit he did with Team Seven and his earlier teams (namely the 'fail them back to the Academy' thing).
For one thing, things like the bell test? Were something all the genin teachers did; we see Team Gai's version in a flashback at one point. It's referenced as a thing all versions of Team Seven have done, meaning Kakashi isn't even the one who originally came up with it or the point of the lesson it taught. For another, these kids are literally about to start an active career in a field that will easily kill them. If they aren't ready for it, they're going to die, full stop and do need the additional Academy time. The 1-A kids are just about to start training to get to their careers in heroics. The expulsion thing isn't something a single other teacher does. Another big issue with Aizawa?
He's not someone that the vast, vast majority would give two shits about being trained by.
At the end of the day, Aizawa is just some random underground hero. He's not a famous pro that the kids are super excited to be being taught by. He's basically just some guy who happens to have a hero license when it comes down to it. Izuku, noted hero fanboy, didn't recognize Aizawa even, just his Quirk. Like if he was someone that people badly wanted to be taught by or was widely admired as a hero, then you could get away with people being more willing to brush aside the expulsion shit, but he's not. Kakashi over in Naruto is one of the most elite ninja in the village. He's someone people would love to have teach them and pass on that level of skill. Eliteness is something that makes a lot of people much more willing to look away from your bullshit.
(As bad as All Might is at teaching, you're still going to want to be taught by him just to say you were)
Even if you want to make the argument of 'well UA would want to have Aizawa at UA because Erasure is helpful to have if a student's quirk gets out of control while training', that only works if he's one of the practical lesson teachers, not a homeroom teacher. We're given no sign he's even around while 1-A is having practical lessons, aka a very reasonable time for him to be around to prevent an accident from happening.
The expulsion thing I think was definitely one of the things Hori's referencing when he talks about how he wishes he had made different writing choices for some characters at the start of the series.
#aizawa critical#and again I hope for the love of god this does not show up in his tag#because i do feel awful about writing character critical stuff#and it then ending up in their tag
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Character who should have died in Naruto
I'm still pissed that there was a war but hardly anyone died that was important to the viewer.
The war arc was complete shit anyway and shouldn't have happened in such a form -
So here is my super important opinion:
Hinata dies instead of Neji to protect Neji. In my opinion it was just tasteless anyway. There was a great battle between Naruto v. Neji; Free Will v. Fate; in that Naruto proved to him that it wasn't Neji's fate to die for the Main Branch, only to end up dying for the Main Branch. That the heiress of the Hyuuga clan dies to protect a Branch Family member would be a breaking of the circle.
Tsunade dying in the Pain Arc while protecting Konoha. The arc would have been the great end of the Sannin. Instead of Hinata, Tsunade protects Naruto. Tsunade's goal was to protect Naruto's dream and by protecting Naruto, she also protects the dream of Dan, Naruto and her brother. Both Jiraya and Tsunade die knowing that they did everything for their goal and left a legacy in Sakura and Naruto. Of course, it goes against the whole thing that Tsunade didn't want to die as sHokage, but honestly? It's a particularly good death when not all your dreams have come true.
After the Pain Arc, at least 1/3 of Konoha's population should have remained dead. No Rinne Rebirth, no 'it's all good, nothing happened'. I just wouldn't let Kakshi die instead.
Ibiki dies in the war. Remember that gross guy with the scars from the Chunin Exam? Yep, that guy. So first off, I'd give him more screen time simply because he's doing important work that should also be important to the story, but also because he's a pillar of Konoha that was just too constant and secure to not bring down. After all, we are at war, no one is safe.
Someone from the Suna siblings dies in the war. Be it Gaara, Kankuro or Temari. Three siblings, all on the front lines. All survive? I do not think so.
Orochimaru stays dead. I'm so pissed that the characters in Naruto can't just stay dead. It takes away the importance, the finality. Why should anyone take any death seriously when you just walk around reviving everyone?
Gai dies after opening all 8 gates. Even though the death hurts me the most, because fuck he is one of my favorite characters, but it would just make sense. Actually it means that you can't survive after opening the 8 gates. It should stay that way. He did great as it was his goal and in the end he also got his eternal rival by being the only one who could do something against Madara. Gai should have killed Madara too, but that's not possible because the MC always has to do the final blow
Choji dies in the Sasuke Revival Arc. I'm not 100% sure about that one. But it would have simply once again set a sign that the feel good anime Naruto is over and after the time skip the seriousness begins. It would also have clarified again in which world they live. The death of a 12 year old is relatively normal in this world. Choji's death would have been tragic, but it feels necessary.
Finally, someone from Team 7 should have died. I can't decide who it should have been. Kakashi wouldn't fit in my opinion. His curse has always been to survive everything and I'm not willing to give him his peace and follow Gai into the afterlife. Sakura would feel like a slap in the face, because damn, the bitch finally deserved to get something done. Naruto is a no-go, so it would probably come down to Sasuke. With him, the Uchiha clan will end, breaking the cycle of hate by dying for his team, his family. He would be the last death in the war, bringing peace as one of the few Uchiha.
These are just ideas. At the end of the day, I think Kashimoto showed complete ignorance to the horror of war by making the ending all lovey-dovey and with hardly any casualties. War leaves scars and wounds that never fade and never close. War changes everything, even if you survive and arrive home, it will not feel the same
#anime#manga#naruto#tsunade#Tsunade senju#sannin#team 7#naruto uzumaki#jiraya#orochimaru#might gai#guy#kakashi#kakashi hatake#neji hyuga#hinata hyuga#ibiki morino#konoha#suna#gaara#temari#kankuro#sabaku no gaara#choji akimichi#sakura#sakura haruno#sasuke uchiha#uchiha madara#uchiha clan#Pain
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Naruto Headcanons
warnings: none, this is nothing but fluff, fluff, fluff. modern AU, contains various characters.
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- Naruto was the highlighter kid.
- Kiba has been a biter ever since he was little, and still remains one to this day.
- Shikamaru often wears his t-shirts backwards, because he just can't bother to check if they're on the right way. It drives Ino mad.
- Shino texts pictures of random bugs he stumbles upon to Hinata and Kiba, along with screenshots of their respectful Wikipedia descriptions. Both have a separate photo album saved in their phone gallery for that exact reason.
- Ino taught Sakura how to properly apply her make-up, but always made it evidently clear that she didn't need it.
- Team 8 has sleepovers. The boys are super polite towards Hinata, and always let her take the bed.
- Sasuke tried wearing eyeliner once, but his eyes kept stinging at the product. Everyone thought he was high when he went red-eyed to school the next morning. He pretended to be zooted the entire day, instead of admitting that he put on eyeliner.
- Hinata is the mom friend. Ino, Sakura and TenTen always get shitfaced, so she has to make sure they get home safely.
- Naruto visibly cringes at the sight of vegetables.
- Surprisingly, Chōji was the first one who got his driver's license out of the group. Visiting fast food drive-ins and hanging out in the parking lot with his friends late at night was his main motivation for it.
- Kiba and Naruto both try to hog the aux, despite having the same music taste. They scream the lyrics like crackheads, too.
- Lee listens to classical music on train rides. TenTen found out by yanking one headphone from his ear once, and now gives him shit for it. Calls him Mozart, too, even though he was listening to Beethoven at the time.
- Kiba always saves a seat for Hinata on the bus, and fights with anyone who tries to take it before the driver can reach the stop she gets on.
- Naruto insists on keeping Sakura on the inner-side of the sidewalk whenever they go somewhere on foot together.
- Kakashi watches toy unboxing videos on Youtube if he wakes up from a nightmare in the middle of the night.
- Iruka has a secret talent of calming down any child's tantrum just by the way how soft-spoken he is.
- Guy loves Spider-man. He forced Kakashi to take dozens of photos of him in his costume on Halloween. The mask was cheap as fuck and low-key disturbing. Kakashi documented everything on his Instagram story - especially the part where Guy attempted to climb a street lamp and completely, utterly failed.
- No matter where or when, if Naruto runs at full-speed into Kiba, the brunet will drop anything he's holding in his hands just to catch him, despite not wanting to. He's cracked about four mugs and two plates by now.
- Naruto never paid for said mugs and plates.
- Sasuke makes Spotify playlists for his friends and fills them with songs he considers would fit their personalities, but never tells them that he does.
- Itachi loves the smell of rain.
- Suigetsu is actually very fond of Karin. He only quarrels with her because he cares.
- Obito thinks that drawing dicks on people's faces when they're asleep is the funniest shit ever.
- Everyone hates Asuma's smoker's cough. He goes at it even harder just to spite them.
- Konohamaru takes Naruto's phone under the pretense of playing games, but secretly just takes 200+ pictures of his face.
- When it comes to Ino, a peace sign is a must on selfies.
- Sai knows everyone's birthdays because he kept checking their social media profiles until he memorized them all.
- Shikamaru loves summer because he can spend the entire night lying in the tall grass and never gets cold.
- Sakura snorts when she laughs really hard. Naruto thinks it's the cutest thing ever, even though she hates it.
- Gaara always counts his money at least three times whilst waiting in line to pay at the grocery store.
- Kankuro has double-jointed fingers. Stretching his thumb backwards until it looks gross is his favourite party trick.
- Obito is the friend that makes fun of people if they drink past their limit and turn sloppy, but still remains by their side the entire night to watch over them.
- Kiba always ruins his sneakers really quickly because he keeps jamming his feet inside them by force. He's simply too lazy to put them on properly with the help of his hands.
- Shikamaru hates vaping, but secretly thinks he looks really cool whilst doing it.
- Naruto is the most perverted of the group, but Kiba has the highest sex drive.
- Temari fought with anyone who bullied Gaara when they were kids.
- Sai practices his smiles in the mirror.
- Kiba's knee shakes under the desk during every exam.
- Neji and Hinata exchange reviews on hair products.
- Ino loves wearing socks with quirky designs on them.
- Sai painted Ino's white Air Force 1 shoes with her favourite flowers.
- Kurenai and Asuma can communicate just by one look alone.
- Kiba's voice always gets really soft and high-pitched whenever he coos at Akamaru. Naruto and Lee love making fun of him for it and mock him constantly.
- Naruto, Lee and Kiba share custody of a single brain cell.
- Shino has blackmail-worthy material on everyone, just because nobody notices he's around for most of the gossip.
- TenTen hates having her nails done. The only exception was prom, and even then she nearly lost her mind trying to properly function with them.
- Sai sleeps on his back, and looks dead while doing it.
- Naruto always bites off the head of a gummy bear first, before eating the rest.
- Neither Kiba nor Naruto knew how to shave properly because neither had dads around to show them. Shikamaru was the one that taught them how.
- Obito always shares the cookies his grandmother makes with Kakashi and Rin.
- Whenever Ino feels sad, both Shikamaru and Chōji let her braid their hair.
- Sasuke doesn't use an app if it doesn't have an option for dark mode.
- If Naruto lets out a scream, Kiba can be heard mirroring it across the room.
- Neji writes poetry, but the only person he allows to see it is TenTen.
- Lee does happy little dances when he's super excited.
- Sai's hands are always cold.
- Sakura is really good at math, but bad at teaching it to idiots like Naruto.
- Hinata loves to crochet.
- Ino runs a really big Instagram account for Andrew Garfield. Guy follows it, and likes all the posts.
- Kakashi often times doesn't know what to do with his hands when talking to people, so he prefers stuffing them into the pockets of his pants.
- Sakura pretends to be Ino's fake girlfriend at parties in order to chase away the men trying to hook up with her.
- Gaara enjoys playing Stardew Valley.
#naruto#naruto shippuden#modern naruto#hatake kakashi#kiba inuzuka#shikamaru nara#sasuke#naruto uzumaki#sasuke uchiha#obito uchiha#ino yamanaka#haruno sakura#headcanon#headcannons#headcanons#naruto headcanons#gaara headcanons
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👺
Pairing: Hatake Kakashi/Umino Iruka
Words: 1395
Thank you to @opengateofthesins for reading it over and making sure I wasn't just making a mess of a fic <3
Also for @animetrashmuffin who just, always needs the good Kakairu content. So i try to provide lol
Unbelievable.
Kakashi had just returned from Lunch with Tenzo and opened up his locker only to be met with a complete mess.
Everything was covered in red paint. His uniform, his gloves, his locker walls. Every inch was plastered in bright red.
The worst of it all, though, was his mask.
The hound mask that he wore over his face during his missions. Which had become like a second face for him, hiding Hatake Kakashi away from the world so that only 'Hound' was seen.
And there it sat at the top of his locker with a bright red Henohenomoheji painted on it.
There was only one person he knew who was both brave enough, and stupid enough to sneak into Anbu locker rooms, search out his locker, and cover all of his possessions in red paint.
Umino Iruka. Local terror and Kakashi's personal headache.
How he, one of Anbu's best Captain's, ended up with the teenage terror doing everything in his power to make his life difficult, he wasn't quite sure.
Perhaps it was because he was always the one catching Umino in the act of defacing the Hokage monument or causing Havok in the streets.
Maybe Umino just hated him. that wouldn't be new. Almost everyone in Konoha hated him.
Regardless, it needed to end.
He was going to hunt Umino down and make him clean every speck of paint off of his stuff, and he knew the perfect way to instill some much-needed terror into him.
Biting down on his thumb, he weaved his hands together in some quick signs and pressed his palms against the ground. In a brilliant puff of smoke, Bull and Pakkun appeared in front of him.
"What do you need boss?" Pakkun asked from his spot atop Bull's head.
"A hunt," he explained, plucking his mask off of the top shelf and holding it out to bull. "No hurting the target, but Bull I want you to lay it on thick with the growls."
"We're in it to scare someone today? This should be fun." leaning forward, Bull and Pakkun sniffed the mask. It only took a moment for them to find the scent that didn't belong to Kakashi and they were off.
Kakashi followed closely behind, leaving just enough distance so Umino wouldn't see him coming in behind the hounds.
He'd show up just in time to assure the man that he wasn't about to be eaten alive, but not before Bull was able to instill a healthy dose of fear into him.
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"Hey, come on!" Umino's screams echoed through the air. "Whatever it is, I can fix it. just get off of me!"
A growl followed. Low and angry.
A warning to anyone willing to listen.
Dropping down from his hiding place, Kakashi landed directly beside Bull and Pakkun.
"Hatake! Get this thing off of me!" Umino looked up at him with terror in his eyes. As if he was truly afraid for his life. Something Kakashi couldn't really blame him for.
Only those who knew Bull were aware he was a giant teddy bear. Sure, he was capable of tearing a person apart with ease, and if he latched onto a person with his teeth they were done for.
But with Kakashi there, Umino was safe.
He might be upset at the mess in his locker, but he wasn't angry enough to commit murder inside of the village. Besides, Umino wasn't that bad.
A pain in his ass, but at least he had a tolerable personality.
"I have a deal for you," he knelt down beside Bull, a smile hidden under his mask as he watched Umino trying to squirm out from under the Bulldog's paws. "You clean up the mess you made, and Bull here doesn't get an early lunch."
"Bull...this is your dog!?" Terror quickly shifted to anger. "What the shit Hatake!?"
"You painted my locker red."
"So you sent a bloodhound after me!?"
"He's not going to hurt you without permission."
"Do you know how to take a joke!?"
"No." not when it came to his uniform, at least. "So, are you going to clean my locker?"
"I'm going to break your nose is what I'm going to do!" Tapping Bull's side, Kakashi watched as he released Umino from his hold and allowed the Genin to surge towards Kakashi.
He barely made it within five inches before Kakashi pulled out a Kunai and placed it between them, forcing Umino to stop in his tracks.
"You're a jerk."
"You're the one who painted my locker red."
"Because you're a jerk!"
"Mhmmm," tilting his head to the side, he stared at Umino. "Are you sure it's not because you want my attention?"
"I- no!" The blush on Umino's face gave him away immediately. Just as Gai had said when he'd complained to him about the prankster's antics. Umino had a crush, and Kakashi was the one who had to deal with his outrageous way of showing affection.
"Alright well," placing his hands on his knees, he pushed himself back to his feet and began walking away. "Bull, grab him."
"Hey, I- wait!" Unwilling to listen to the kid, Bull trotted around him and grabbed the back of his shirt in his teeth, dragging him behind him as he followed Kakashi. "Hatake!"
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Naruto toppled off of his chair, howling with laughter as Iruka and Kakashi sat there refusing to look at him. Both of them were embarrassed about the story Iruka had just finished telling, but for very different reasons.
"It's not that funny," Iruka muttered under his breath. "I shouldn't have told you."
"It's hilarious!" Naruto howled. "A crush, on Kakashi-sensei! You have the worst taste Iruka-sensei!"
"H-hey!" Kakashi protested. "I'm not that bad!"
"You're the worst," Iruka shot back, a smile stretching across his lips when Kakashi glared at him. "But you're my worst."
"Somehow that's not as romantic as you think it is."
"Well, I could have gotten over my crush."
surging forward, Kakashi wrapped his arms around Iruka's shoulders. "Don't you dare."
"It did take you years to return my feelings. A smarter person would have moved on."
"I had things to deal with," he argued. "You should be happy you got me when I was in a better mental place."
"Mmm," leaning back into Kakashi's arms, he watched as Naruto slowly collected himself from the floor. "At least Bull gives me cuddles to make up for that day."
"He was never going to eat you," Kakashi chuckled. "Pakkun would be more likely to rip someone's throat out without warning."
Tilting his head back, Iruka stared up at him with blank eyes. "Remind me never to cuddle Pakkun again."
"But Pakkun likes it when you cuddle him."
"I'd rather keep my neck in one piece, thank you."
Chuckling, Kakashi pressed a kiss against Iruka's cheek. "I wouldn't worry too much," he assured him. "You're Pakkun's Second favourite person."
"Only his second favourite?"
"You can steal all of the hounds from me except Pakkun," Kakashi argued. "Have some mercy and let me keep Pakkun."
"Mmm, I guess," he sighed dramatically. "I still don't understand why you were so angry that day."
"You painted my stuff..."
"Red looks good on you."
"You painted a Henohenomoheji on my mask."
"Oh, as if you don't have all eight of your ninja hounds wearing a little vest with the Henohenomoheji on it," Iruka rolled his eyes. "If anything I was just following your style."
"You ruined my Anbu uniform. I'm pretty sure there are rules against that."
"Yet you didn't even turn me into Hokage-sama for proper punishment."
"Well," He gave Iruka another quick kiss. "I think I made my point with Bull."
"You're right," turning in his arms, Iruka reached up and slipped a finger under the top of his mask, pulling it down for a quick second so he could lean in and give him a proper kiss. Once he was done he pulled away and quickly replaced the mask before Naruto could catch a glimpse of Kakashi's face. "I learned that day that I had a crush on a jerk."
"And now you're married to a jerk," Kakashi held up his hand to show off his wedding band as if Iruka had somehow forgotten about their wedding. "How does that make you feel?"
"Happy," Iruka answered with ease. "Absolutely, completely, happy."
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Uhhhhh 43 30 and like 22 for the naruto ask meme
22. favorite ninja weapon
Sakumo's chakra tanto, hands down, because Sakumo and white chakra cool.
30. what dumb thing would iruka sensei yell at you for in class?
Drawing and not paying attention most likely. I mean, that's what happened at regular school.
43. what are the three things that bother you the most about the series? BUT! for each complaint, you must also list something you would praise the series for
BAD SO BAD
-THE ENDING. Oh my god. What the fuck was that. Such a disappointment after keeping up with the manga for years and to not only have the ending be a giant slog but just... not good. Narratively speaking -- plot, characterisation, choices (aliens? ALIENS???) etc. I'm not exaggerating when I say I literally only read the ending at the time for Kakashi and Obito.
-I was deeply unsatisfied that the manga/anime lost sight of its themes after Part 1. Hard work? Changing a prejudiced , violent, and cruel system? Nah bro. Shippuden was a slow fall off a cliff and just became about flashy power upgrades rather than the much more grounded feeling of Part 1. I mean, by the end, Naruto and Sasuke practically became demi gods throwing around raw power. Where's the finesse? Where's the smart tactics and actual ninja-ing? It became a manga/show about wizards in Shippuden. I would argue that Kakashi is the only main character that brings an actual NINJA vibe. He's one of the only characters that actually remained and felt grounded, even at the end. Even with having a Mangekyou and Kamui, in large part thanks to his chakra reserves. When he was hurt, he was hurt, when he was tired he was tired. Lol, Kakashi might have actually been one of the most believably human characters out of the main cast.
-The fucking Sharingan. In Part 1, it was a rare and good Dojutsu equivalent to the Byakugan, it was good and a bit OP but relatively grounded. In Shippuden? Super Duper Powerful Godly Super Cool Eye that has a bazillion different powers and can summon a fucking CHAKRA MECHA? I didn't (and don't) mind the Mangekyou, provided, it has reasonable limitations. But then suddenly everyone and their grandma had this rare evolution of the Sharingan that before only Madara/Izuna had activated after centuries. And the limitations regarding overuse and blindness just... practicality disappeared and had no narrative impact.
-The writing of the female characters. I don't think I need to elaborate.
GOOD SHIT
-I love the aesthetic and just general vibe of the series? It's just cool. It made pre-teen me really excited and hyped and just giddy. It still does. Thinking about Nart gives me the warm fuzzies.
-Hatake Kakashi is the greatest 2D anime man ever created and I won't hear otherwise. His character - looks, personality, narrative growth is fantastic and I love him.
-I think the jutsu are really cool and I do like the magic system. I absolutely memorised the jutsu hand signs as a kid. Don't ask me to do them now.
-Bit of a cop out of an answer but I really enjoy the potential for different interpretation and fanfiction. There's a reason why there's like over 100,000 naruto fanfics across different sites. It's a really fun sandbox to play in and read about.
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Kushina lives by Samusolderbrother
Continued..chapter 5
He knows Jiraiya-sama of the sannin, personally. You've heard how he gets away with addressing the Hokage. And he knew Kakashi, personally, before our team formed. I told you that I'm pretty sure his mother is S-ranked. None of the adults will talk about it at all. Do you really think I'm messing with you?" he looked her square in the eyes.
"Holy shit. This team is seriously unbalanced. No wonder Kakashi was surprised," she trailed.
"Since you started training with Naruto, you're getting much stronger than I would have ever thought," Sasuke admitted. "If you keep pushing yourself, you'll be much better than most of the rest of our class. It's probably unfair to them, but the Hokage isn't going to break up a bunch of teams just to rearrange us. It's actually beneficial for you that this happened, because you're getting stronger much faster than if we'd been a balanced team," Sasuke mused.
Kakashi chose that moment to poof next to them. He waved, "Hello, Team 7," and smiled behind his mask.
Naruto dispelled all of his clones and joined the rest of the team. "Hey, Kakashi-sensei! What're we doing today?"
"Didn't I tell you? We're taking a few days off. We have a joint escort mission going into the desert and it's going to be a long trip," Kakashi explained.
"Great!" Naruto cheered. "So we're going to do some training, right?"
"I'll show you some exercises, but no heavy training. I don't want the team worn out," he stared at Naruto, "before we even leave. Rest up and meet at the gates first thing in the morning in three days."
Naruto frowned and grumbled, "Fine."
When Naruto and Sasuke got home, they were surprised to find Kushina examining a topless woman whose black hair was tied up.
"Um… mom?" Naruto started. "Should we come back later?" His mind was filled with mental images conjured from Jiraiya's books and he suddenly felt a little sick.
"No. It's fine. I'm just examining this seal Anko-chan has on her neck. There are actually two of them: one is the actual thing and the other is a suppressing seal," Kushina said absently.
"You're gonna learn about the naughty bits sooner or later," Anko smiled. "Might as well do it under parental supervision, eh?"
Kushina stopped examining the seal and looked at Anko. "Please, put on a shirt, Anko-chan," she said soberly. She changed her tone as she faced Naruto and Sasuke. "What are you doing home so soon? Aren't you supposed to be on missions or training?"
"Nah," Naruto answered. "Kakashi said we have a long mission in a couple of days and he didn't want me tiring out the wimps," he motioned to Sasuke.
"Shut up, stamina-freak. Only you could keep up that pace," Sasuke retorted.
"Well, since you're here, I might as well tell you in person. I went on active duty today and my first mission involves Anko-chan. I'm going to be gone for a few weeks while we work together, so you'll be on your own until you leave with Kakashi-chan," Kushina explained. "Sasuke-chan, I believe that you need to practice with your sharingan. Mikoto mentioned a tablet once, so go find that on the Uchiha grounds and see if it helps. Naruto-chan, there are some scrolls for you to study in your room and Jiraiya-sensei should come by with a summoning contract for you to sign before you go."
Kushina rushed over to the genin and wrapped them in a big hug, saying, "You boys be careful and make sure to come back, okay? I love you both."
Naruto replied, "Of course, mom. We're way too awesome to bite it on some lame C-rank mission."
Sasuke replied, "We're not going to die. Please let go of me." While he secretly thought, 'This is embarrassingly nice.'
Kushina picked up a bag and left with Anko across the rooftops. Naruto waved while Sasuke plopped down on the couch. He interrupted Naruto's farewell saying, "It's your turn to make lunch, stamina-freak."
Naruto turned and shouted with a giant smile, "Ramen, it is then!"
—Three days later, on the road to Sand—
"Kakashi-sensei, are you sure that there isn't something I could be practicing along the way? How about Body-Flicker? Pleeeeeeeeeease?" Naruto whined.
'If I don't find something for him to work on, he's going to be like this for the whole trip. And if I do give him something, then he won't be paying attention to the clients. *sigh* Was I like this at his age?' Kakashi thought to himself while trying his best to ignore Naruto.
"Sasuke," Kakashi called quietly over the radio.
"Yes," the serious genin replied.
"Do you see anything?"
"Negative contact," came Sasuke's voice over the radio.
Kakashi turned to Naruto and asked, "How is your chakra control coming?"
"I can keep a leaf stuck to my forehead while transitioning from water-walking to wall-walking or tree-climbing. I stopped practicing after running with it for fifteen minutes. Sasuke timed me," Naruto replied much calmer.
"We're on a mission, so limit yourself to four shadow clones and don't wear yourself out. If I tell you to stop, don't ask questions. Got it?"
"Hey! What are you doing? We didn't hire you to take a bunch of kids on a road trip, dammit!" screamed the convoy's lead driver.
"Having extra eyes will be very useful, sir, so just let us do our job and everything will be fine," Kakashi smiled. "Okay, Naruto. Body-Flicker should be easy to learn," Kakashi started with the mic open for Sasuke and Sakura to hear. "All you have to do is mold chakra into your whole body. It temporarily energizes you and allows you to move at much higher speeds. The boost is only temporary though and the whole technique depends on how much chakra you put into it."
Kakashi showed Naruto by moving from the ground to a nearby tree in less than the blink of an eye. "Like that. The better you are at it, the faster you'll move. Now practice, but leave at least one set of eyes to watch for danger," he said as he jumped back down.
Naruto created four shadow clones and set them to practice while he diligently kept an eye out.
—Two days later, near the border of Sand—
"Kakashi-sensei, possible contact left," Sasuke radioed from ahead of the convoy. His sharingan was already active in preparation for battle. Wind gusted past to him as Naruto body-flickered next to him.
Naruto discovered that body-flicker was a good technique for closing distance, but he could only move in a straight line. In order to take a corner, he would have to move at his fastest speeds or body-flicker, pause, then body-flicker again. Molding the chakra for the technique took him a split-second as well, so he didn't like the idea of using it against a serious opponent. But to move a few hundred yards in the blink of an eye, it was perfect.
"That's a handy trick, stamina-freak," Sasuke whispered.
"You should talk, red-eyes. What've we got?" Naruto whispered in response.
"I can't tell without getting closer. Send a shadow clone over there," he pointed, "to check it out."
Naruto nodded and created a shadow clone which promptly body-flickered in the direction Sasuke pointed. After a minute, Naruto frowned. He clicked his radio on and asked, "Kakashi-sensei, are we in Wind country yet?"
"Not yet. Did you spot Sand-nin?" Kakashi replied.
"I don't think so. It's a nin from the Mist village. She looked a little malnourished, but killed my clone with a lava ball," Naruto answered.
Kakashi winced. "Halt the convoy," he said to the convoy leader. "Sakura, guard them. Radio if you get into any trouble. Sasuke, Naruto, join Sakura. And make a clone to come with me."
Naruto body-flickered next to Kakashi and created a clone. Sasuke, not to be outdone, body-flickered next to Naruto. "I don't know what's going on, but this could get dangerous. If she kills me, take a longer route around to complete the mission then return to the village immediately," Kakashi told the genin trio.
Kakashi, Sasuke, and Naruto went to where Naruto's last clone had died, but found only a cooling ball of lava. "Come to finish the job?" wheezed a slender woman covered in dirt from behind them. "You'll find I'm not so easy to kill! Lava Style: Lava Glob!" A ball of lava shot out, but Kakashi grabbed Naruto and dodged as it passed close enough to feel the heat while Sasuke evaded using body-flicker to a nearby tree.
"We're not here to kill anyone!" Naruto shouted. But Kakashi pulled his headband up to expose the three-tomoe sharingan in his left eye.
"Naruto! She's not interested in talking!" Kakashi shouted, readying himself for battle.
"Kakashi the Copy ninja, huh? Well, try copying this!" she shouted, stumbling on her feet. "Boil Style: Corrosive Mist!" A tiny jet of mist came out of her mouth, but she started coughing before much more than a few squirts came out. She stumbled forward into the aborted jutsu and Naruto body-flickered behind the woman, wrapping his arms around her neck and his legs around her waist.
"I've got her!" he shouted, holding on for dear life.
She spun around and smashed backward into a tree, dispelling the shadow clone. "What the—" was all that she managed to say as Kakashi struck her from behind, knocking tired woman out.
"Sakura, tell the convoy to prepare a tent," Kakashi radioed.
—Inside the large tent—
"But we're not hunter-nin. She's from another village and she looks like she's lost. We should just give her directions home and be on our way," Naruto argued.
Kakashi frowned behind his mask. "She might have comrades nearby, Naruto. We don't know why she's here. We can't just let her go. On the other hand, we aren't at war with the Village Hidden in the Mist, so we could just let her go and file a report on the incident. Still, I'd like to hear her explanation before I decide. And it looks like she might be out for a while."
The woman rolled over and started pushing herself up. Naruto ran over with Sakura and said with a smile, "Hello! You're awake already! I'm Naruto Uzumaki. Who are you?"
"Didn't I kill you, Naruto Uzumaki? Am I dead?" the woman grumbled.
"Not dead. Just in a very precarious state. I can tell that you are an extremely dangerous kunoichi, but as exhausted as you are right now, I don't think you should strain yourself," Kakashi said, smiling.
"What are you Leaf ninja doing here?" she asked.
"This is Fire country. Why wouldn't we be here?" Naruto commented.
"Where do you think you are?" Kakashi asked.
"Are you the interrogation team then?" she asked with icy resolve.
"We do things differently than the Bloody Mist. We just happened to be in the area. I haven't decided if we should take you in yet," Kakashi explained.
"You can't hold me, Copy Kakashi," she said with a deadly tone.
Kakashi smiled, "Probably not."
Naruto added with a smile of his own, "But we can't help you if you don't tell us anything."
The woman looked like she was thinking about it for a while. "I was returning from a mission when I got caught in a sand storm. I don't know how long ago," she finally explained with a scowl.
Naruto pulled a map out of one of his pouches and the woman flinched before she saw that it was only a map. He unfolded it in front of her and pointed to where they were on it. "This is where we are." He pulled out some rations and water. "Here's some food and water. Rest for a little while and then make your way home." He smiled again and waved as the four Leaf ninja left her alone in the tent.
'I don't really have much choice, do I?' she thought as she passed out.
The convoy continued on to the desert where Kakashi passed the convoy off to a team from the Village Hidden in the Sand. They checked the tent on the way back, but it was empty.
Chapter 6
"Ibiki says that we can't use the Forest of Death this year for the exams," Anko whined. She lounged on Kushina's couch with a large alcoholic beverage in one hand. Kushina was in the kitchen, pulling out her makeshift grill.
"Well? What's the problem?" Kushina asked as she started setting the grill up.
"He told me that I had to devise another challenge that would eliminate at least half of the teams taking the exams. Like it's my fault we can't use the forest." Anko took another sip.
Kushina assembled the last part of the grate before responding, "Orochimaru could have been spying on you through that Cursed Heaven thing for the last ten years. We found the security hole and plugged it, but now we have to change things up. Every project you've worked on in the last ten years has to change because we have to assume that Orochimaru knows all about it. That happened to all of the ongoing projects and missions as soon as I got that thing analyzed, but the chunin exams only come around to Konohagakure every fifth exam. That's every two and a half years. You've proctored the Forest of Death twice already, so they're changing it."
"It's not like the Forest of Death hasn't been around since the founding of the village! I don't know why he decided to fuck me over—"
"Language!" Kushina yelled. "My kids are going to be home soon and if you want to stay for dinner, you'll have to set a better example."
"—one little missing-nin who already knew about it," Anko griped quietly. 'Can't argue with free barbecue.'
"And that 'one little missing-nin' is the snake-sannin. I wonder why they're paranoid," Kushina frowned.
—Training ground 11, sunset—
"Naruto! Stop! Please!" Sakura panted, struggling to catch her breath. "I'm dying here!"
Sasuke and Naruto were still fighting a dozen yards from where the pink-haired girl was huffing and puffing at a shadow clone.
"You always say that, Sakura," Naruto admonished. "Would you rather spar against Sasuke?"
Sakura winced. She remembered the bruises she'd had for days after the last time she'd sparred with Sasuke. "No, but all of this training is killing me," she huffed. "I can't keep up this pace." Sakura's hair was tied up in a bun and sweat dripped off her chin. Naruto's orange jumpsuit was barely dirty and the clone looked like it had barely broken a sweat.
"Tomorrow we'll work on ninjutsu then. I wish Kakashi would train us more though. It'd be nice if he showed us one of those thousands of jutsus he knows," Naruto complained.
"It's not like we don't have time to learn those advanced things, Naruto. Kakashi is teaching us the basics," Sakura defended.
"If you say so. How's your chakra level coming?" Naruto deflected.
"It's better, I think. I don't know. You and Sasuke are the only comparisons I have. I'm nowhere near you, but my control is still better than you," she explained. "I think I've got about a quarter of Sasuke's chakra level, but I can't tell for sure."
"Take a couple of minutes and then we'll do some body-flicker practice," Naruto instructed.
He and Sasuke were already pretty ragged with their sparring practice, but Sakura didn't need to know that. Sasuke used his sharingan to react faster than Naruto, but constant practice was increasing Naruto's speed to the point where Sasuke was almost having trouble staying ahead. Naruto was getting fast, but he still didn't know much more than basic ninjutsu. He didn't know any elemental attacks. He didn't know any genjutsu except how to break them. He knew a lot of taijutsu. He practiced until his taijutsu was nearly flawless, but he still didn't know anything advanced. The only other jutsu that Naruto knew was the summoning jutsu and Jiraiya still hadn't gotten around to letting him sign the contract that allowed him to summon frogs.
Naruto held up a hand and said, "I've been running Sakura ragged. I think we need to practice ninjutsu more anyway, but I don't know many jutsus. We'd just be practicing the basics."
Sasuke stopped and said, "Yeah, we should start bugging Kakashi to teach us more."
The two broke up their spar and walked over to Sakura, who was still catching her breath. Naruto's insistence on training her had started to pay off, but it was hard work, which was something she was unaccustomed to doing. She'd always been smart enough that she hadn't had to work very hard at the academy, but Sasuke and Naruto were so far ahead of her that not training would have been nearly suicidal.
Kakashi showed up while the three were drinking water. "Taking a break from training? This generation is so lazy," Kakashi smiled behind his mask.
"Are you INSANE?" Sakura screamed. "I haven't been able to feel my arms or legs! Naruto and Sasuke are brutal slave drivers! If we trained any more, I would keel over and DIE!"
Kakashi only smiled harder. 'Their work ethic is just like Gai,' he thought. 'This should be entertaining.'
"Perhaps one day you'll see the merit in hard work, Sakura-chan. But, for now, I wanted to ask you all a serious question. Our village, Konohagakure, will host the next chunin exams and I wondered what each of you thought about entering."
'We've only been genin for a few months. Are we ready?' Sakura thought.
'It would be a great chance to test my skill and learn from other shinobi. Yes!' Sasuke thought.
"Hell yeah! We just need to learn a couple of things and I think we'll kick ass and take names!" Naruto shouted excitedly.
Sasuke and Sakura looked at Naruto. They were accustomed to his outbursts, but this one seemed even more energetic than normal.
"That is certainly definitive, Naruto. How about you two?" Kakashi asked the tired genin.
"I don't see why we shouldn't enter the exams. It's not like it's a one-time only test, right?" Sasuke asked. Kakashi shook his head.
"Is it going to mean more training, Naruto?" Sakura asked, pleading with her eyes that the answer would be "no."
Naruto thought for a moment, reviewing what he knew of human anatomy. He finally responded, "We should definitely rest up in the days before the exam, but we can't slack off on training just because we might get promoted."
'A few days of rest is all I ask. I constantly feel like I got buried under a building,' Sakura thought, but said, "Okay then. Let's do it."
Kakashi smiled again. "Great! I'll get the forms. No more missions for the next two weeks."
Sakura was just getting excited about finally having free time, but Naruto interrupted her fantasy, "YES! More time to practice and train!"
Sakura shot up and screamed, "NOOOOOOOOOO!" as she ran home.
—Naruto's house, two days before the exams—
"Sakura-chan, I'm so glad that you could come over! I hope the boys haven't been pushing you too hard with their training," Kushina gushed. "They can be pretty intense."
'Understatement of the decade, lady,' Sakura thought. "They just want to make sure that the whole team is strong, Kushina-san," she responded demurely.
Kakashi was wearing his standard blue clothes with his green jacket over it. His mask came up to cover his mouth and nose, as usual, and his headband drooped to cover his left eye. He was sitting on the couch next to a woman Sakura hadn't met. The woman had black hair with blue highlights and wore a jacket over her tight mesh armor.
Kushina had her hair tied up and into a high bun with chopsticks pinning it into place and wore an apron over civilian clothes. Naruto wore the orange jumpsuit that he had worn since before it fit right, still proudly displaying his forehead protector. Sasuke wore his standard outfit. White shorts with a blue shirt emblazoned with the Uchiha crest on the back.
Sakura wasn't sure if she should have worn her standard gear or the civilian clothes she'd decided to wear instead. Naruto noticed her and ran over, excitedly. Sakura was a little surprised that he didn't body-flicker, but she figured he didn't want to use jutsu at home. She never used jutsu at home.
Then it struck her. There were pictures that had genjutsu on them. There weren't many pictures in the two-bedroom apartment, but all of the ones on display had genjutsu on them. Before Sakura could think any further, however, Naruto grabbed her arm and pulled her over to the couch.
"Kakashi-sensei! Anko-san! Sakura-chan is here!" he exclaimed excitedly.
"Hey there, Pinkie," Anko blurted with a drunken smile. "Nice ta meetcha."
"Glad you could make it, Sakura-chan," Kakashi smiled. He had a drink that was only half-full, but his mask was still on.
'Come to think of it, I've never actually seen Kakashi's face,' Sakura couldn't help thinking.
"Anko-san was just telling us about when she took the chunin exams," Naruto said with a serious tone. "She said that we were lucky that this year wouldn't be like back then."
"Oh. That's nice," Sakura responded.
Anko laughed evilly. "This year, we completely redesigned the middle stage. You guys'll never pass!"
Naruto laughed a good-natured laugh. "You think some test is going to stop me? I'll be Hokage one day. Even better than Yondaime!"
'I knew he wanted to be Hokage, but better than the Yellow Flash? He must be on drugs,' Sakura thought.
"Oh, ho! The Legendary Pink Troublemaker has arrived!" boomed an older man's voice. Sakura turned to see a drunken Jiraiya looking down at her. "That is certainly exotic, Naruto. I can see why you'd be into her."
"Don't be such a pedophile, Ero-sensei!" Naruto shouted.
"I'm not! I'm just saying if I was twelve, I'd be into her too! I'm saying you have good taste, boy!" Jiraiya argued with Naruto.
Sakura was suddenly and intensely uncomfortable. She snuck back away from the two boisterous arguers, seeking safe-haven. Her choices were Kushina and the Hokage or Sasuke. She chose Sasuke.
"Hi, Sasuke," she smiled. "This is quite the get together, isn't it?"
He grunted. "Yeah. A real gathering of legends. And none of them want to teach anything," he frowned.
Sakura sat silently, unsure of how to respond. She was very uncomfortable with just about everyone in the room. She quietly looked around, hoping to find someone who would be better company than Sasuke, who was in one of his moods, apparently. She remembered the genjutsu as she looked around and decided, finally, to break it.
She looked at one of the pictures. Then over at Naruto, who was still arguing with Jiraiya-sama. Then back at the pictures. Then to Jiraiya and Naruto. Then back to the pictures.
"No way," she whispered, her face draining of all color. "No," she whispered as she slowly stood. "This is completely unfair," she shook.
"WHY DIDN'T ANYONE TELL ME—" Sakura started to scream, but Sasuke clamped his hand over her mouth before she could finish.
—Training ground 17, the night before the exams—
Naruto had fifty shadow clones practicing the basic jutsu and control exercises that he knew in various combinations. Some practiced body-flicker while keeping a leaf on their foreheads. Some practiced tree-climbing then water-walking and back. Some practiced replacement while under a henge transformation. Some threw kunai at targets while others tried to block and interfere. He wasn't happy with just practicing basic techniques, but he was sure that he could convince someone he knew to teach him more eventually. And Jiraiya had drilled him with the idea that "learning the basics creates a foundation for learning more complex ideas" during his initial academy days.
After practicing all day, Naruto was getting tired. His clones started dispelling and he could feel that he was running low on chakra. 'Just a little more,' he thought as he tried to draw more chakra.
'JUST WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO DO?' a strange, deep voice boomed from everywhere.
"Who's there?" Naruto asked as the world started to fade. But instead of the normal black that accompanied unconsciousness, he found himself underground, in front of a massive gate with a shallow, endless puddle of water underfoot.
'YOU DON'T HAVE ANY CHAKRA LEFT AND I DIDN'T SAY THAT YOU COULD HAVE ANY OF MINE, BOY,' the same voice rumbled from the darkness beyond the gate.
'Who are you?' Naruto asked, approaching the gate cautiously.
A wave of hate washed out from behind the bars of the gate, but Naruto just stood there, letting it wash past him. He could feel the chakra in it and that it had filled him with as much chakra as he had first thing in the morning.
'We're inside of me, aren't we? Who are you? What is this?' Naruto asked again.
'BREAK THE SEAL AND LET ME OUT!' the voice rumbled. Naruto looked up and saw a paper seal over the lock that kept the gate closed. The seal looked oddly familiar, but he couldn't place it. He hesitated for a few long seconds before a giant, angry, red fox head snapped at the gate. 'LET ME OUT!'
Naruto jumped in surprise. 'Not if you're going to snap at me! And you won't even tell me your name! I'm outta here.'
The world came back into focus, but it was tinged in red. Naruto started practicing again and found that he was much faster and stronger than normal. It was almost like when he used body-flicker except he wasn't just faster and it wasn't just in the instant like body-flicker.
'I have to remember to look into this after the exams,' he thought as he practiced.
—The chunin exams, second floor—
"Get out of here, scum," a voice said coldly. "You'll never pass anyway, so just go home."
The sign above the door read "302" and two boys were blocking the door. Sakura had seen through a much better genjutsu just a few days before, so she easily saw through it. Sasuke just watched as a boy in green spandex got up said, "I am sorry, but I must go into the test room. I am aware that we are not permitted to fight outside of the exam, but if you do not allow me inside, I will have to force my way through."
Naruto looked at his teammates and said, "Should we help him? I thought that this was a team thing. Where's his team?"
A boy with long, dark hair and strange lavender eyes tapped the green spandex boy on the shoulder. "Lee, come on. There are other ways in. Let's go."
Lee looked like he was about to explode, but said, "Of course, Neji. Let us go through another entrance."
"Come on, guys," Naruto said calmly as the three went up to the third floor, where the exam would take place. The room was filled with many genin teams. There were headbands from the five major villages and several minor villages.
Shikamaru, Choji, and Ino were there already. They were talking to another team that had graduated with their class. The first was a scruffy looking boy with a puppy on his head. The second was the very shy Hinata, whose eyes were the same as that boy from downstairs, now that Naruto had a chance to take a good look at her. The third was another quiet one that Naruto didn't immediately recognize.
"You're here too? How troublesome," Shikamaru commented as Team 7 approached.
"Is this our entire genin class?" Naruto asked with a smile. "Man, we're all doing great if we're all up for chunin so soon, right?"
"How did you make it, dead-last?" the boy with the dog sneered. "You barely passed the genin exams. Sasuke must be carrying you."
Ino had already snuggled right up to Sasuke. Sakura just felt ashamed for her friend. She was sizing up the other genin. Most were at least a year older than their class.
Naruto laughed. "Yeah, Sasuke is carrying us."
Shikamaru just repeated, "How troublesome."
An older boy with greyish hair and purple clothes came over to the genin group. "Hello there! I see that you're new. Would you like some help? I have these neat data cards that I've compiled over the years to help me strategize. My name is Kabuto, by the way."
"Sure!" said the boy with the dog.
"Who've you got info on?" Naruto asked, skeptically. "Let's see our cards first."
The purple boy pulled out nine cards and charged them with a miniscule amount of chakra, which caused the underlying images to become visible.
"That's a neat trick," Naruto commented, taking his card. It read:
**Uzumaki, Naruto**
**Chakra control: 1.5/10**
**Chakra level: 9/10**
**Academics: 1/10**
**D-rank missions: 87/87**
**C-rank missions: 14/14**
**Known ninjutsu: Shadow Clones, Replacement, Clones, Transformation, Sexy Technique**
**Known genjutsu: none**
**Known taijutsu: basic, self-taught**
**Other known jutsu: none**
**Elemental Affinity: Unknown**
**Kekkei genkai: Unknown; probably none**
Naruto chuckled. "I wouldn't put too much stock in his information, guys. He's pretty far off the mark."
Naruto tried to channel just a tiny amount of chakra into the card, trying to do what Kabuto had done, but instead of going blank, the card flared up like a flashbulb and burnt out.
"Dammit. I should have known you'd fry it!" Kabuto lamented. "It even hinted at it on the card!"
"Since you've got it memorized anyway, I guess it wasn't that big of a deal," Naruto said, secretly guilty that he'd burned out the card. He handed back the blackened square anyway. "Sorry that I burnt it though."
"TAKE YOUR SEATS!" boomed a tall, scarred man wearing a black leather coat at the head of the room. Everyone scurried into seats. They took the nearest available seats, since nobody knew if there were any assigned seats. The man didn't seem to care. "Welcome to the first part of the chunin exam. This is the written exam. You will have fifty minutes to complete the first nine questions. I will then give you the tenth question and you will have ten minutes remaining. Anyone caught cheating will be dismissed, along with the rest of their team." He set a clock with a timer in front of the class and hit the start button saying, "Begin!"
Naruto didn't have a problem with the first nine questions. He knocked it out in about twenty minutes, deciding to take a nap until the tenth question.
"… choice," the same voice woke Naruto. "You can take the tenth question, but if you fail, you will never be able to take the exam again. This is it. If you decide to back out, you can take the exam again later, but your whole team will leave with you. Will you continue? Make your decisions."
Naruto looked around the room and noticed a few teams backing out, mostly from other nations. The clock continued ticking, but it didn't look like anyone else was backing out. Naruto was surprised that the shy girl stuck it out. She didn't seem that self-confident, but he mentally cheered, 'That's right! Don't let anyone intimidate you!'
He slammed his hand down with a loud thud and yelled, "Hurry up, already. No one else is leaving, so give us the question. Get on with it!"
"You didn't notice?" the large man asked coldly. "I already asked the tenth question."
Sudden realization dawned on Naruto. The man had asked, "Will you continue?" And that was the only question that mattered in the written exam.
The timer still ticked down, but nobody else left. There were still sixteen teams in the massive room and, as if on cue, when the timer went off, Anko appeared in the window. "Are you losing your touch, Ibiki? There's so many!" she commented.
"Just a solid group this year, Anko. Now take them to the next part of the exam," the scarred man said.
"Well, we'll cut this group in half, at least, before the finals," Anko replied casually. "Follow me!"
She led the remaining teams into the heart of the village, where there was a table set up with two bins of scrolls and a group of proctors. There were more proctors than teams.
"Listen up, kids! Normally, we'd do something dangerous and deadly that would eliminate a bunch of you, but you all got lucky this year because we're doing a wholly new elimination contest. Each team is going to sign up over here," she pointed to some proctors, "and then a proctor will remove one scroll from one of these two bins. The proctor will then go into the merchant district, where many of you have been staying, and hide the scroll somewhere. There are two different scrolls. One is a white 'heaven' scroll while the other is a brown 'earth' scroll. In order to pass, your entire team must bring one of each type, two scrolls, back here by sunrise tomorrow. The catch is that there will be proctors roaming the merchant district and if they catch you, you must give up one scroll. You may not kill. You may not injure civilians. You may not cause property damage or steal anything but the scrolls. Anyone who breaks those rules will be sanctioned. Don't break a treaty just to make chunin, kiddies."
'Suck it, Ibiki. This is even better than the Forest of Death. Now the best infiltrators will fight each other and not the best survivalists,' Anko thought.
"There will be a ten minute delay once a proctor takes the last scroll before you may begin. Anyone not familiar with the merchant district, we have maps with the border streets marked here. Now sign up and get moving. Time's wasting!"
Having home-field advantage was huge for the genin of Team 7. Naruto knew all of the best hiding places throughout the village as well, so they never got nabbed by proctors. Shikamaru's team and a team from Mist managed to beat them to the return station, but third of eight wasn't bad. A team from sand came in a few minutes behind Team 7, but Team 7 was already half asleep when that team came in.
Chapter 7
"Normally, we would have simply given you all a month to prepare for the finals. But this year seems to have an abnormal number of passing teams, so we're going to have to have some preliminary matches," the Hokage announced.
Eight teams remained after the infiltration test. All of them gathered in a closed arena with their jonin-senseis to hear about the next phase of the exam. Naruto noted the other teams and the jonin on catwalks.
Ino, Shikamaru, Choji, Hinata, Shino, Kiba with his dog, Lee, Neji, and a dark-haired girl who Naruto didn't know were all of the Leaf ninja who had made it. He saw Kakashi on the catwalk with a jonin wearing green spandex who looked just like Lee, but older. Among the Leaf jonin, there was a woman with long, dark hair and red eyes next to a tall man with short, spikey black hair and a beard.
There was a team from Sand, Clouds, Rocks, and Mist each. The Mist jonin was a tall woman with long, auburn hair and green eyes. Naruto recognized her from his first C-rank mission. He hadn't had much contact with any of the genin, but he knew that ninja would be tricky no matter what and wasn't overconfident.
"…at random, so make your way to the catwalks with your jonin-sensei," the Hokage finished.
'Crap. I wasn't paying attention to what the old man was saying. Here's hoping I'm not first up,' Naruto thought.
The entire group of genin proceeded up the catwalks while a proctor waited in the middle of the arena. Everyone was looking up at a giant board expectantly. Two names came up: Choji Akimichi and not Naruto. Choji hopped into the arena along with one of the ninja with a Rock symbol on his forehead protector.
The proctor called, "Fight!" and Choji took up a defensive stance. The Rock-nin pulled out a kunai and threw it, but Choji dodged. When Choji dodged, the other ninja made hand signs and a wall of earth came up in front and behind Choji. The other ninja made more signs and the walls smashed into each other, but Choji broke the walls by expanding his body.
Choji turned into an oversized bowling ball and rolled around, chasing the ninja from Rock, until the Rock ninja made more hand signs and trapped Choji in a giant earthen box. After a few minutes of slamming noises from the inside of the box, the proctor called the match for the Rock ninja.
The giant board changed and two more names came up. Naruto didn't recognize either, but a ninja from Mist with a sword and a ninja from Cloud with a sword hopped down into the arena. That battle was short, because the Cloud-nin charged his sword with lightning and cut the Mist-nin's sword in half and then stabbed the Mist-nin through the arm, pinning the Mist-nin to the wall while his other hand held a kunai at the Mist-nin's throat. The proctor called the match for the Cloud-nin.
The giant board changed again, reading "Naruto Uzumaki" and "Kankuro of the Desert." Naruto hopped down as did the Sand ninja dressed in black with strange face paint. Kankuro had a bundle on his back that Naruto wondered about, but he got into a fighting stance.
The proctor called, "Fight!" and Naruto body-flickered at the same time creating four shadow clones. He hit Kankuro, knocking the Sand genin back, but Kankuro's head opened up, revealing a nozzle that hissed at Naruto. Naruto replaced himself with a shadow clone that dispersed as it inhaled poison gas and three others body-flickered around the puppet. One hit the puppet with a low sweep kick, the second simultaneously hit it with a roundhouse kick to the torso, and a split second later the third dropped an axe kick, breaking the strange puppet into pieces with an explosion and a crack in the ground beneath it. The cloud of puppet pieces dispelled the three clones.
As the shadow-clones were dismantling the puppet, Naruto body-flickered to the Sand ninja who was controlling the puppet and kicked him with a roundhouse kick hard enough to make a wet crunch sound and send the Sand ninja flying hard to the ground. Some of the jonin were making conversation, but the conversations ended when Naruto destroyed the puppet and crunched the puppeteer at the same time.
The proctor called the match when it was obvious that Kankuro had a broken arm and several broken ribs. "Sorry I kicked you so hard," Naruto said to the injured Kankuro who had a terrified look plastered on his face. "I thought you were another puppet," Naruto tried to explain, but the medics carted the Sand-nin off out of the arena.
Naruto returned to the catwalk where the jonin in green spandex approached him. "The flames of your youth burn bright, Naruto!" the man exclaimed.
"Uhh… Yeah. Right. Who are you again?" Naruto asked, confused.
"I am Might Gai! Kakashi's eternal rival!" Gai exclaimed. "Your taijutsu is nearly as good as my beautiful student, Lee!"
'Yeah, except he flawlessly mixed basic ninjutsu into his taijutsu,' thought the bearded jonin. 'His taijutsu is close to jonin level and the skill of the ninjutsu that he employed is nearly the same. But the council will have a hard time approving the kid for promotion. I'm glad none of my students had to fight him.'
"Just watch, sensei! I will prove that someone can be a ninja even without ninjutsu and genjutsu!" exclaimed the miniature version of the green-spandex jonin.
The board flickered, quickly diverting Naruto's attention from the weird pair, showing Hinata Hyuuga and Temari of the Desert. The shyest girl from their class jumped down along with the blonde girl with a giant fan from the Sand.
"Do your best, Hinata!" Naruto cheered. The girl had obvious self-confidence problems and Naruto didn't see anyone else jumping into her corner, but no sooner had he cheered, Kiba yelled out,
"Come on Hinata! You can beat her!"
The proctor yelled, "Fight!" and Hinata took up a strange taijutsu stance. Naruto looked at the rest of the genin from his class. Only Naruto and Kiba were cheering.
"Come on, guys. Show your support for your comrade! GO HINATA! YOU CAN DO IT!" he shouted.
Shikamaru, Ino, Lee, and Shino joined Kiba and Naruto in cheering for Hinata. Temari was staying away from Hinata and Hinata had activated her byakugan. Temari used her massive fan to unleash a wind ninjutsu, but Hinata rapidly spun around, creating a dome of chakra that diverted the jutsu.
'They're all cheering for me! I can't let them down!' Hinata thought as she ran forward, attempting to strike the elusive Sand-nin, but Temari was faster, keeping Hinata at bay. Hinata pulled several kunai out and threw them at Temari, hoping that it would force the Sand-nin into a close-combat battle, but the kunai merely missed. Hinata could see the wind that Temari had used to divert the kunai and knew that the battle would come down to which one of them had more stamina.
After many long minutes of battle, Hinata ran out of chakra diverting one of Temari's wind jutsu and the match ended when she collapsed from exhaustion and the wind jutsu tossed her across the arena, but it was longer than many on the catwalks thought it would be, especially Neji and Gaara.
Kakashi turned to the woman with red eyes and said, "You look surprised, Kurenai."
"She's never fought so hard is all," Kurenai mumbled. "I wonder what it was that finally motivated her."
"I wonder," Kakashi smiled behind his mask while reading his romance novel.
Naruto turned to the arena where Sakura and a girl with two buns in her brown hair were about to start. Naruto noted that the other name on the board was Tenten.
"Come on, Sakura! You can do it!" he cheered.
Both kunoichi took taijutsu stances. Tenten started by throwing several kunai and throwing stars at Sakura, but Sakura dodged with a body-flicker and engaged Tenten up close. Tenten pulled out a kunai, slashing at Sakura, but Sakura back-flipped away, drawing a kunai of her own. Sakura quickly pressed back in, kunai in hand, but the two were near even at taijutsu.
'This only worked on Naruto the first time, but maybe I'll get lucky and Tenten hasn't trained against genjutsu like we have,' Sakura thought.
Sakura took the initiative and quickly made the hand signs for the one genjutsu she had learned from Kakashi, putting Tenten into the Hell-Viewing Jutsu. Using her opponent's momentary paralysis, Sakura rapidly struck Tenten from behind, knocking Tenten out.
"Well, my eternal rival," Gai started, "it seems that your student has surpassed mine. I will ensure that my student trains even harder from now on!"
The board flickered, reading Neji Hyuuga and one of the Cloud kunoichi. Both jumped into the arena, ready for battle.
"Fate has decreed that I will win. There is no shame in surrender," Neji droned at the Cloud kunoichi before the proctor even started the match.
"Shut up and fight, you fatalistic freak," the Cloud kunoichi spat back.
"Fight!" shouted the proctor.
Neji activated his byakugan and the kunoichi started with hand signs. Neji paused for a moment before blinking once and moving toward the kunoichi. She simply started a new set of hand signs, which ultimately did nothing to stop Neji's advance.
'Using genjutsu against the byakugan. Bad idea, sweetie,' Kurenai thought. 'That's almost as useless as using genjutsu against the sharingan.'
Neji closed and began striking softly. The kunoichi from Clouds thought she was blocking his strikes, but Neji began ticking off numbers.
"Two," he started. "Four," he said a moment later. "Eight," he rapidly progressed. "Sixteen," he mumbled as his strikes gained even more speed. "Thirty-two," he said as the kunoichi noticed that she wasn't able to block anymore. "Sixty-four," he said as the kunoichi felt exhausted. "Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms," Neji breathed. He could see that the girl's entire chakra network was shut down. "You cannot continue. Fate has spoken," Neji intoned as he walked back to the catwalk.
The girl managed to stand up and trip herself, falling unconscious to the ground. The proctor called the match. The board flickered, showing Kiba Inuzuka and one of the Mist ninja. Naruto was stunned at Neji's cold demeanor, while Lee said with as much determination as Naruto had ever heard, "That is my main competition. I will defeat him."
The proctor yelled, "Fight!" and the Mist-nin unleashed a white fog that covered the entire battlefield. Kiba yelled in animalistic fury and a twister erupted from the mist to strike down again. The Mist-nin had a sword out which had blocked Kiba's attack, but his sword was now cracked.
"How did you find me?" the Mist-nin asked.
"Pfft. There's more than one sense," Kiba scoffed.
"I see," the Mist-nin muttered, already making hand signs. "Water Style: Water Dragon Jutsu!" A giant water dragon erupted from the dissipating mist, but Kiba responded with his own attack. "Garoga!" Kiba and Akamaru were identical, but they spun together, creating the vortex to strike directly at the water jutsu. The Mist-nin ended the water jutsu, but threw a storm of kunai and shuriken forcing Kiba and Akamaru to dodge backward while he made several hand signs.
"Water Style: Rotting Mist!" The Mist-nin summoned a fogbank of acrid yellow, but this time Kiba and Akamaru screamed as soon as they smelled it. Kiba yelled out that he resigned the match before the Mist-nin had a chance to attack.
The board flickered again, showing Sasuke Uchiha and Rock Lee. Lee jumped down to the arena, taking up a taijutsu stance. Sasuke activated his sharingan and took up a defensive stance. The proctor yelled, "Fight!" and Lee swiftly moved in to engage Sasuke. Lee wasn't as fast as a body-flicker and Sasuke was accustomed to fighting three or four body-flickering Naruto's simultaneously, so he was able to keep up with Lee, but only just.
Lee struck with a more refined leg sweep than Naruto, spinning up into an axe kick that dropped onto Sasuke's block. Sasuke rolled with the kick and tumbled to the side. "Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu!" A ball of fire blasted out of Sasuke's mouth, forcing Lee to retreat. Sasuke followed it up with half a dozen kunai thrown at several spots around Lee, hoping that at least one would find a home. Lee dodged them all and ran in to engage again.
Sasuke whipped down into the same sweep kick that Lee had previously used against him, but Lee picked up both legs and launched like a missile at Sasuke, striking him in the chest with both feet. Sasuke rolled again, throwing Lee off. Sasuke body-flickered behind Lee, trying to grab the taijutsu expert. Lee felt Sasuke behind him and whispered, "Gate of Opening," as the first of his eight gates opened and he evaded Sasuke's grasp.
"How many gates can Lee open?" Kakashi asked Gai.
"Five," Gai smiled and then he yelled, "Remove your training weights, my precious student!"
Both combatants looked up at the catwalk, but Lee replied, "But Sensei—"
"DON'T ARGUE! JUST DO IT, LEE!" Gai screamed.
"I'll wait," Sasuke said. Lee took off the heavy weights that had been around his ankles, which fell to the ground with a loud clang. "Can we continue?" Sasuke asked. Lee nodded, moving almost as fast as a body-flicker.
Sasuke continued blocking, still accustomed to three or four simultaneous attacks. Compared to Lee's rapid succession of attacks, he could still keep up a good defense, but a single target was much more difficult to hit than three or four targets. Lee partially unraveled the bandages on his hands and forearms, continuing his assault on Sasuke. Sasuke dropped his defense to see what Lee would do and Lee wrapped him in his hanging bandages.
As Lee began his spin, Sasuke used a shadow-clone as a replacement and watched the technique from two angles. His shadow-clone dispersed, leaving Lee triumphant, until Lee realized that it had been a shadow-clone. Sasuke engaged Lee again, this time using Lee's own moves against him. Lee had long practiced with Gai using the same techniques, so he simply whispered, "Gate of Healing," and fought harder.
Sasuke, having seen how to open the first gate from Lee replied, "Gate of Opening," and increased his speed to keep up with Lee.
"How many gates can Sasuke open?" Gai asked Kakashi.
"I have no idea. I never taught him the technique," Kakashi replied.
"Without physical training, it is impossible to learn to open the gates," Gai retorted.
"Sasuke trains with Naruto every day," Kakashi countered.
Gai grumbled as he watched his student's skin turn red and muttered, "Gate of Life."
Sasuke kept up with Lee only due to his intense training with Naruto and the benefit of his sharingan. He had no illusions that he would be able to keep up without either of those advantages. "Fire Style: Phoenix Sage Fire Jutsu!" Sasuke unleashed a swarm of fireballs at Lee as he tossed shuriken at the speeding, green taijutsu freak. Lee batted the fireballs, seeming to ignore them as he flew toward Sasuke.
'Maybe if I open that second gate? Shit! He's starting to move faster than I can,' Sasuke thought as he opened the second gate. The two furiously fought for long seconds before Sasuke had a realization. 'Dammit. This is stupid! He admitted that he can't use genjutsu or ninjutsu. He's only used taijutsu so far, so he probably can't defend against it.' Sasuke locked eyes with the furious Lee before disengaging and watching Lee fight harder and harder against an illusory enemy. Lee opened the fourth gate, but Gai stepped in realizing that Lee was trapped in Sasuke's simple genjutsu. The proctor called the match as soon as Gai intervened.
The board flashed, showing Shino Aburame and the last Mist ninja. The two met in the arena and the proctor yelled, "Fight!" The Mist-nin started making hand signs, but a swarm of insects surrounded the poor girl. Shino remained calm in the middle of the massive insect swarm.
"You'll find that I'm not susceptible to genjutsu," Shino commented as the girl tried two different genjutsu on him.
"No! I CAN'T lose!" she screamed as the insects drained her chakra.
"It's unfortunate that you were paired with me then, because you WILL lose," Shino stated as the girl started to waver. She threw a kunai that Shino easily avoided. The proctor called the match as the girl collapsed from exhaustion moments later.
"How boring," the Mist jonin commented.
The board flickered again, revealing Ino Yamanaka and the last kunoichi from Cloud. She hopped down into the arena and the two stared at each other before the proctor yelled, "Fight!" Ino left strands of her hair as traps all over the arena while the other kunoichi charged her body with lightning chakra.
Ino backed herself against a wall as the Cloud kunoichi tried to run through her hair traps, but it gave Ino enough time to aim her Mind Body Switch Jutsu. Ino's body collapsed as she inhabited the Cloud kunoichi. As the Cloud kunoichi, she said, "I quit."
The proctor said, "Okay. Since Ino Yamanaka is unconscious and you quit, both of you lose the match."
Ino released the jutsu and stood up in her own body screaming about it being unfair. After several minutes of heated dispute, she decided against revealing her clan's signature intelligence gathering technique and took the loss.
The board flickered to reveal Shikamaru Nara and the kunoichi from Rock. He strolled down to the arena floor and started to say, "I quit," but before he got it out, Ino yelled, "If you quit, I'll tell your mother!"
"How troublesome," Shikamaru muttered. "Let's get this over with."
"Fight!" the proctor yelled.
Shikamaru threw out several kunai, some of which had exploding tags to distract the kunoichi. She dodged and started making hand signs, but Shikamaru said, "Shadow Possession Jutsu, complete," and the kunoichi found she was frozen in place. Shikamaru walked backward and she walked backward until she bumped into the arena wall. Shikamaru said, "Sorry about this, but this was the fastest way to get this over with," as he bent forward and so did she. He whipped his head backwards into empty space, but the kunoichi knocked herself out on the wall. The proctor called the match.
The board flickered again and the last two names came up. Gaara of the Desert and the last ninja from Rock entered the arena. "Will you prove my existence?" Gaara said, bloodlust dripping from his voice.
The proctor yelled, "Fight!" and the Rock-nin made hand signs in rapid succession. The Rock-nin fired off a bunch of rocks at Gaara, but sand always intercepted the bullets. Nothing managed to penetrate as the Rock-nin tried attack after attack. Gaara finally got bored and the sand formed a claw, grabbing the Rock-nin and slamming him into the ground with a cough of blood. The sand continued to crush the Rock-nin after the proctor called the match, forcing the Sand Jonin to step in and calm Gaara, who just kept muttering, "Kill! Kill! Kill!"
The jonin and remaining genin gathered in front of the Hokage. "Before you take a month to prepare yourselves, you will all draw numbers to determine your matches in the public arena," the Hokage said with practiced authority. "Step forward and draw your numbers."
The proctors called out numbers as they filled out a chart. Neji would fight Sakura. Sasuke would fight Gaara. Naruto would fight the Mist-nin. The Cloud-nin would fight the Rock-nin. Shino would fight Temari. And Shikamaru would skip the first round.
—Naruto's house, that evening—
"We all made it!" Naruto exclaimed to Kushina and Jiraiya. "The whole team is in the finals!"
Sasuke sat quietly on the couch, reading a book of poetry that he'd come to enjoy after picking it up some years ago.
"Who do you have to fight, Naruto?" Jiraiya asked, genuinely curious. He hadn't been to a chunin exam since his own decades ago, but he planned to see Naruto's chunin exam. 'And that's why you master the basics,' he thought.
"Some guy from Mist," Naruto said. "Sasuke has to fight that crazy sand guy and Sakura is going to fight Neji."
"I'll work on a training program after I talk to Kakashi, Naruto, but I expect that you three will start training separately," Jiraiya explained. "You might have to fight each other in later rounds, so it makes sense to give you all the best chance of success."
"Kakashi already spoke to me, Jiraiya. He expects that you'll train Naruto and since Kurenai has a student in the finals and he doesn't want to call in any other favors, I'm going to train Sakura, while he trains Sasuke," Kushina explained.
They were all surprised by the knock at the door. Everyone except the Hokage that they knew usually used the window. Naruto opened the door to find Hinata, looking petrified.
"H-hello, N-Naruto," she stammered.
Naruto looked outside, down the hall both ways, while Hinata stood stunned at Naruto's abrupt response. "Hi, Hinata! You'd better come in before the hall-monster get you," he teased. Hinata didn't know how to respond.
Kushina pushed Naruto out of the way and said to the terrified girl, "Why don't you come in and have some tea? It'll calm your nerves and we can chat like civilized people," with a warm, welcoming smile.
Hinata entered slowly, sitting in a chair whispering, "Thank you, Uzumaki-san." She looked at Jiraiya, who stared at her and Sasuke, who ignored her.
"Damn, boy! You got girls knocking down the door to get to you!" Jiraiya exclaimed as Naruto and Jiraiya started another boisterous argument over the propriety of commenting on Naruto's non-existent love life. Naruto led the sannin to the couch where they would bother Sasuke instead of Hinata.
'Damn, she's cute. And not already hung up on Sasuke,' Naruto thought while he argued. 'But she's the heir to a major clan, so maybe it isn't the best idea to get tangled up with her.'
Hinata sipped her tea while Jiraiya and Naruto made noise in the background. Kushina gave her a reassuring look and said, "Now then. What can I do for you, Hyuuga-sama?"
"Please, call me Hinata," Hinata started. "I know that I'm not in the finals, but I was wondering if you wouldn't mind training me. You are reputed to have the most stamina of any kunoichi in history and I am weak in that area. Additionally, I thought that I might include Sakura because she is going to fight my cousin and I would dearly like to see him lose."
'This is perfect! It couldn't have worked out better if someone was planning it!' Kushina thought. "I think that we can arrange that, Hinata. But will your family have any problems with it?"
"My father is grooming my sister to take over the clan and my team won't be on any missions, so I doubt he would have noticed, but I asked him before I came here anyway and he told me that it wouldn't bother him," Hinata explained.
"ALL HYUUGA WOMEN HAVE GIANT BREASTS!" Jiraiya screamed, holding his hands in front of his chest. Hinata blushed, but pretended not to hear it.
"SHE'S RIGHT OVER THERE AND WE'RE ONLY THIRTEEN, YOU OBNOXIOUS, PERVERTED, PEDOPHILE!" Naruto screamed back.
"I'M SAYING FOR YOU NOT FOR ME! AND I'M JUST A PERVERT! I'M NOT A PEDOPHILE!" Jiraiya defended, before noticing Kushina, Sasuke, Naruto, and Hinata all staring at him. He stopped screaming and calmly said, "Right. I'll go find a hotel then," fleeing out the window at top speed, fearing for his life.
Chapter 8
"There's an OWNER'S MANUAL for the sharingan!?" Kakashi asked Sasuke as the two entered the Uchiha family temple, displaying an uncharacteristic level of surprise. Sasuke brought Kakashi into the secret room under the temple to get Kakashi to teach him to unlock more aspects of his own sharingan, not realizing that Kakashi had never seen it.
"All Uchiha know about the stone under the temple," Sasuke explained. "It's amazing that you've managed to mature the sharingan that you have without any instruction, Kakashi-sensei. Even with the instructions, not every member of the Uchiha clan awakened or fully developed their sharingan."
The two read the face of the large tablet before activating their sharingan eyes. The tablet looked different under Kakashi's single, fully developed eye than it did to Sasuke's two, under-developed eyes.
—Training Ground 4—
"After you sign the contract, you'll be able to attempt summoning the toads," Jiraiya lectured.
"Yes. I understand, Pervy-sensei. Pull out the scroll already!" Naruto exclaimed.
Jiraiya pulled out the scroll and Naruto signed it. Before Jiraiya even rolled up the scroll, Naruto ran through the summoning seals and pumped as much chakra as his highly overdeveloped chakra network could produce into the very exact seal for summoning. Gamabunta appeared under the startled blonde.
"I knew all of the practice would pay off!" Jiraiya noted.
The enormous toad looked around before grumbling, "What the hell, Jiraiya? I don't see a battle. And why are you down there?"
Jiraiya chuckled, "I'm not the one who summoned you," as he pointed to the blonde standing atop the giant frog.
"Who are you?" the toad rumbled.
"Naruto Uzumaki," Naruto introduced. "What's your name, big guy?"
"I am Gamabunta and if you want to summon the toad clan, then you have to prove yourself worthy," the toad boomed.
"How does that work?" Naruto asked.
"Hang on," Gamabunta muttered as he started jumping around.
—Uzumaki apartment—
"What do you mean, I have to take off my clothes?" Sakura exclaimed.
"You're fighting a Hyuuga. We just so happen to have one of our own. You are going to learn where each and every one of your tenketsu are located. You are going to learn it because you won't be able to stop Neji from closing them. You are going to learn it because you are NOT going to lose in the first thirty seconds of the match. Now shut up and strip so Hinata can put the henna paint on you," Kushina admonished.
Hinata stood in Kushina's bedroom with her byakugan active and a needle with henna paint in her hand. It wasn't as if Hinata couldn't see through all of Sakura's clothes anyway.
—Uchiha temple, underground—
"We have more training to do," Kakashi said. "We should leave."
"But what if there's more?" Sasuke asked.
"We won't learn it by staring at the stone," Kakashi replied.
"Right," Sasuke stated, not looking away.
Kakashi grabbed the boy by the collar and dragged him out into the night sky. They'd been staring at the stone tablet all day.
—Training Ground 4—
"You've read about chakra natures, so I won't bore you by repeating it. Right now though, you're going to train all five. I don't expect that you'll master all of them, but with shadow-clones to cheat, you'll get the most out of your time," Jiraiya started.
"Why can't you just teach me some jutsus?" Naruto whined.
"Because you want to be able to do any jutsu, not just one jutsu. Your control is great right now, but you need to learn to change your chakra nature," Jiraiya explained.
"So I'll just make a hundred clones and then we'll all work on the exercises," Naruto grumbled.
"No. You'll make 25 clones and then you will do taijutsu training and meditation with me, dispelling and creating one group every ten minutes. A mass of clones will eventually have minor differences and through trial and error, you'll find ways to do better at each exercise, individually. Each clone you'll be using will be trying a slightly different, but related exercise so that anything that one clone in each group learns can apply to any of the other clones in the group. This will make your training much more efficient so that you will learn how to change chakra natures much more quickly than the months or years that it might normally take," Jiraiya lectured.
"I think I get it. Start showing me the exercises," Naruto said as he created 25 shadow clones.
—Private Training Ground 3—
"You've got the speed down and, thanks to Lee and your training with Naruto, you've already figured out how to unlock two of the gates, but you'll have to rest up before you can do that again. Since we wasted yesterday reading the tablet in the Uchiha shrine, we'll have to make up for that today by moving extremely fast. Keep your sharingan active for as long as you can and let me know if I move too fast for you to keep up," Kakashi lectured as he started to fight Sasuke.
—Uzumaki apartment—
"This henna stuff doesn't come off, Kushina-san," Sakura whined.
"That's the point. It'll last for a month and we only had to apply it once. Start where we left off. Try to open your tenketsu after Hinata shuts it," Kushina lectured, reading a magazine advertisement for a hot spring. "Once you can do that, you'll be ready for the next phase of your training. Beating Neji will be meaningless if you can't at least put up a good fight to whoever is after him."
—Training Ground 4—
"I've mastered the wind nature exercises, Pervy-sensei," Naruto crowed.
"Perfect. Now try using wind chakra in the techniques that you already know with it," Jiraiya muttered while looking through binoculars.
"Can't you stop looking at the springs for five minutes to teach me something!" Naruto exclaimed.
"I AM teaching you something! You just aren't learning it! Now do what I say until you've mastered all five elements!" Jiraiya shot back.
—Private Training Ground 3—
"Faster, Sasuke!" Kakashi yelled as a fist shot out. "You have to be faster if you want to activate the third tomoe!" as he activated genjutsu distractions in rapid succession.
"GAH! You're trying to KILL me!" Sasuke screamed.
"Maybe. Maybe not. But Gaara most certainly will! Don't quit!" Kakashi screamed.
—Uzumaki apartment—
"So you can open and close your tenketsu at will, without striking them?" Kushina asked.
Sakura swore, "Not yet. Don't we have other things to study though?"
"Not until you can open and close your tenketsu without your hands," Kushina said flatly.
"Kushina-san?" Hinata asked. "How is this helping my stamina?"
"Are you tired at the end of the day?" Kushina asked.
"Yes," Hinata answered.
"Are your muscles sore at the end of the day?" Kushina replied.
"Yes," Hinata answered again.
"It's only been a week. You can't really expect a significant increase in that short time period. Once Sakura starts learning medical ninjutsu in earnest, we should be able to up the training significantly. But we won't be able to start that until she learns to control her tenketsu," Kushina smiled. "So HURRY UP, SAKURA!" she yelled.
And then Kushina went back to reading another magazine.
—Training Ground 4—
"When I use wind chakra with shadow-clones, I can't make any clones. When I use wind chakra with body-flicker, I just get a gust of wind with me when I move and I can keep going for much longer than normal. What use is that?" Naruto asked.
"Have you tried body-flicker on just one part of your body at a time instead of your whole body at once?" Jiraiya asked.
"Wait. You can do that?" Naruto responded.
"Yes. Now try it with neutral chakra, then with wind chakra," Jiraiya whispered through a hangover. "And let me know when you can do anything with any other nature," he said as he nodded off in a lounge chair.
—Private Training Ground 3—
Kakashi pulled up his headband to reveal his own three-tomoe sharingan. "You have to be faster, Sasuke, or I will definitely kill you," he intoned with deadly intent. "Dodging or opening any gates won't save you. You have to perceive faster."
'How the hell am I supposed to DO that?' Sasuke thought as Kakashi started moving ever faster.
Kakashi fought harder and faster, keeping his demeanor cold and cruel until Sasuke couldn't keep up. He threw kunai closer and closer to Sasuke, waiting for Sasuke's eyes to morph into the three-tomoe sharingan that indicated it had reached full maturity.
'I still have three days to get his sharingan to mature. I don't need to start teaching him the basis of Chidori until then,' Kakashi thought as one of his kunai left a hair-thin streak of blood across Sasuke's arm.
—Leaf Hospital—
"You are going to learn two basic healing techniques. The first is how to repair minor damage. The second is how to reinforce tissues and project your chakra into a blow. Hinata is going to come with me and we'll be back when I have to carry her," Kushina explained.
"Are you dumping me off at the hospital to train Hinata?" Sakura asked.
"No. I'm leaving you with experienced medics to teach you the principals involved in the techniques that you are going to need by the time I get done with Hinata," Kushina explained. "You've already studied basic anatomy. Now, you're going to get a four-day crash course and a few rounds in practical application. We'll see where you're at afterward," Kushina lectured. "Hurry up or you'll be late. I had to call in some very old favors to get this for you."
Sakura started following around the medic-nin, asking questions about the two topics Kushina had mentioned, much to the annoyance of the medic-nin.
—Ichiraku Ramen—
"I'm doing much better with earth chakra, but I'm still lagging with fire, lighting, and water. I don't get it. The harder I try, the worse those elements get," Naruto complained over lunch.
"Those elements aren't about pure effort, Naruto. Only earth is about sheer stubbornness. You know that. Focus on what those elements ARE at their cores and you should make some more progress," Jiraiya said between slurps of ramen.
Naruto stopped and slapped his forehead. "Of course! I got wind quickly and have been using it with taijutsu already and earth is coming along, so I've been using the ideas from molding earth and chakra with the other elements, but the ideas are incompatible with the nature of the chakra! Why didn't you tell me that, Pervy-sensei?"
Jiraiya rolled his eyes. "Yeah. Why didn't I tell you that just now," he said flatly.
"I figured out how to use a partial body-flicker with wind chakra to make my blows have a cutting quality though. That was pretty awesome, right?"
Jiraiya looked at his tattered shirt. "It's a great combat technique, Naruto. But your meditation is still terrible. We're going to start doing a stillness exercise tomorrow that will help you a lot in the future."
"But meditation is boring," Naruto whined.
"You'll thank me someday," Jiraiya muttered as he ignored the whining blonde.
—Private Training Ground 3—
"You almost killed me!" Sasuke screamed.
"Your sharingan is now fully matured. It never would have happened without the life-or-death stress," Kakashi defended. "Now we can work on your chakra nature. It should be a matter of days for you to master lightning chakra enough to perform the one unique jutsu that I've created."
"Wait. What? You're going to teach me your unique jutsu? What is it?" Sasuke said, more interested.
"It's an assassination technique. It is purely offensive in nature and it's not something that you should use lightly, but Gaara might not give you a choice and I'm not going to send you to die at his hands in the arena," Kakashi explained.
"So all of this was just training? You weren't trying to kill me?" Sasuke asked.
"I haven't given you a chance to think about it, but I'm a jonin listed in bingo books and you're a genin. If I wanted to kill you, do you really think that it would have taken this long? Hurry up and finish your lunch so that we can get back to training," Kakashi said, already finished with his food.
—Uzumaki apartment—
"How am I supposed to heal a torn muscle? I barely got the theory from that guy at the hospital!" Sakura complained loudly.
"You had four days, you already knew more than half of it, and you've been bragging about your perfect chakra control since we met. Stop being melodramatic and heal Hinata's arm," Kushina brow-beat the pink-haired girl.
"I'm not even sure how!" Sakura went on.
"Figure it out soon or you're going to have to spar with me next," Kushina threatened with a feral grin. "And I make Sasuke and Naruto look like quitters when it comes to stamina."
Sakura screamed with nervous laughter as Hinata quietly waited for the would-be chunin to figure out a healing technique based on theory and perfect chakra control that Hinata knew didn't actually exist yet. Hinata absently thought, 'Poor Sakura. Kushina is really pushing her. But if she can do this, then Neji won't be able to win.'
—Training Ground 4—
"I can't quite use lightning as well as wind or earth, but I'm close. Water is still a problem and fire is barely any better. We've still got a week left. Shouldn't I keep training with the elements, Pervy-sensei?"
"It's time to start incorporating the nature transformations into the jutsu that you already know. Plus, you're going to practice the practical application of seals. I know Kushina has given you scrolls, so we're going to focus primarily on putting what you know to use for the next six days," Jiraiya explained.
"Why not seven days?" Naruto asked.
"You don't want to be totally bushed on the day of the arena, so you'll take the last day to rest. We're going to the hot springs just outside of town. We're meeting Sasuke and Kakashi as well as Kushina, Hinata, and Sakura," Jiraiya smiled.
"You're not implying that you're going to peep on my mother and two of my peers, are you Pervy-sensei?"
"I'm offended, Naruto. There are plenty of other women for me to peep on," Jiraiya smiled. 'And some of them pay for the privilege,' Jiraiya imagined some of his favorite jobs.
—Private Training Ground 3—
Sasuke breathed heavily. He'd just put a hole in a boulder the length of his arm with his Chidori. It was the second of the day and he was nearly exhausted.
"That's it. You can only perform this jutsu twice in a day. Any more and you'll burn out your chakra and your stamina, which would result in your death," Kakashi's arms were folded as he watched. "You have deeper chakra reserves than most ninja your age and you've got a fully mature sharingan."
"But not a Mangekyo Sharingan," Sasuke interrupted.
"What would you rather have: friends or the Mangekyo Sharingan?" Kakashi asked redundantly.
"Can't I have both?" Sasuke asked.
"There is no way that I know of to have both, Sasuke. It's one or the other. Believe me when I tell you that I would trade almost anything to get my friends back. If I had a choice, I would choose friends," Kakashi said forlorn.
—Uzumaki apartment—
"You can knit some of your tissues back together, Sakura, but you can't enhance them with your chakra," Kushina evaluated. "It's a great battlefield tactic, but I was hoping that you'd master the latter rather than the former."
"It's not like I can heal everything, Kushina-san; just minor tears. I don't know how I'm going to beat Neji," Sakura whined.
"Sakura, you'll be sparring against Hinata for the next two days. But you will only defend, never attack. If you don't see the benefit of your training, then I'll happily track down any instructor of your choosing to teach you after the exams," Kushina explained. "Hinata, Sakura has been training with Naruto and Sasuke to get her endurance up. The both of you will keep fighting until I get tired."
"Until I get tired?" the two asked in stereo.
"No. Until I get tired of fighting. I'll be watching from this comfortable lounge chair," Kushina smiled and showed off the lounge chair she'd stolen from Jiraiya.
Hinata and Sakura mentally screamed in horror. Screaming out loud only resulted in Kushina's demented laughter haunting them throughout an exercise.
—Training Ground 4—
"Holy crap! Lightning chakra is the best body-flicker augmentation ever!" Naruto screamed.
"If we had more time, I'd start teaching you some more advanced chakra shaping exercises, but we'll save that for later. Why aren't you using any earth chakra though? You're much better at it than lightning."
"Earth body-flicker is lame. I can barely move. It's not very good for my style and a lightning technique of any kind will punch right through it. Since I don't know any real earth jutsu, I'll just use wind and lightning," Naruto explained.
"If we had more time, I'd teach you some earth techniques, but we have to start making our way to the hot springs. Remember not to give away what we've been training until you fight at the exams," Jiraiya lectured. "Try not to think about it too much. Try to relax tomorrow. Too bad you can't manage to sit still," he muttered.
Chapter 9
"The first match will be Neji Hyuuga and Sakura Haruno," the Hokage spoke. "All other examinees should go to the waiting area."
The clamor of the arena was deafening, but everyone was prepared. The genin knew that it was coming and were only mildly nervous about fighting in front of so many people. Daimyos, jonin, merchants, and many others watched the chunin exams in order to evaluate the strength of the ninja they might hire. Naruto and Sasuke wished Sakura luck before retreating to the staging area in the heart of the arena.
"Your fate is to lose, Sakura. You should learn when to quit before you die," Neji intoned as the proctor looked on.
"Two Kages are here today, so giving up without a fight would be stupid for both of us, Neji. Think a little before you give advice," Sakura smirked.
"Fight!" yelled the proctor, jumping out of the way. Neji assumed a stance that Sakura was already familiar with and Sakura body-flickered into Neji's reach, delivering a light blow to his arm. Neji accepted the blow and struck at one of Sakura's tenketsu, closing it. Sakura jabbed several more times, but Neji just used the opportunity to close more of her tenketsu.
Neji had closed off most of the tenketsu in her left arm and several in her other limbs and torso, but Sakura smiled at him and said, "I hope you've got more than that, Neji, or this fight is going to start going south for you very soon," as she opened the closed tenketsu from her core outward, in sequence. The Hyuuga watching in the stadium gasped along with Neji.
'She can open her tenketsu without touching them? I'll simply have to shut them all down at once,' the arrogant youth thought. "You are in range of my divination, Sakura," he started to tell the pink-haired girl.
"You are in range of my body-flicker, you arrogant ass," Sakura replied as she body-flickered into his blind spot, delivering a hard kick to the boy's back. Neji rolled to the ground, spinning to his feet and rushing close to Sakura, seemingly unfazed.
"Two," he calmly intoned. "Four," he listed, "eight, sixteen, thirty-two, sixty-four. Eight Trigrams Sixty-four Palms," he said, completing the technique that should instantly incapacitate a foe.
"Oh no!" Sakura gasped. "You've shut down sixty-four of my tenketsu! I feel so tired!" There was only the barest flicker of chakra in her core, so close to absolutely nothing that it might as well have been for anyone else. Once a single core tenketsu opened, she started popping more tenketsu open as she spoke, freeing her trapped chakra. "Oh, wait. Nope," she needled. "My turn," she said as she started wailing on the unsuspecting Neji as Hinata's pent up frustrations flooded out of Sakura.
"Vacuum Palm" Neji expressed as he knocked Sakura back. Neji had several light bruises, but the pink-haired girl was not strong enough to knock him out. Sakura winced as she flew, focusing on the healing jutsu to repair the organ damage as she skidded across the dirt.
She pulled out several kunai and threw them in rapid succession at Neji, creating a barrage that she knew he couldn't dodge. He simply spun, creating a dome of chakra around him that seemed to deflect all of the incoming projectiles.
'Dammit!' Sakura cursed inwardly. 'He can't really hurt me with his Gentle Fist, but I can't put enough of a hurt on him to end the match. If only I'd had more time…'
Sakura body-flickered with a leg sweep, but Neji jumped out of the way as if he'd practiced avoiding leg sweeps thousands of times. Neji approached her again with simple Gentle Fist taijutsu. Sakura put more power behind her blows and focused on keeping her tenketsu open after each strike. She could barely keep up with his strikes, but she was starting to fatigue the so-called genius.
Neji tried to use the Sixty-four Palms again, but Sakura knew that opening a full set of closed tenketsu took more time than Neji would give her again. She quickly used a body-flicker to get as far away from Neji as the arena would allow. Knowing she had to come up with something or she wouldn't be able to last much longer, she tried to channel chakra back into her muscles and bones to give herself a strength boost. She dropped a quick test axe kick into the ground at her feet, leaving a very small, barely noticeable crater under her heal.
'I know that wasn't right, but it's the best I'm going to be able to do for the rest of this match. I hope it's enough or Neji is gonna win,' Sakura thought.
"You are in range of my divination," Neji started to intone.
"Shut up, Neji," Sakura exclaimed as she struck him with a medically enhanced fist across his chin, taking only the first two strikes before sending the boy flying. Neji did not expect the force of the blow and tried to roll with the punch, but it had much more power than any of the girl's previous strikes and he was caught off guard enough to fly to the ground. The proctor approached Neji, checked the boy for injuries, and announced,
"Winner: Sakura Haruno!"
The crowd cheered as Sakura waved on her way back to the staging area. She won, which meant that she'd have to fight again after everyone else finished. She didn't have any tricks for beating anyone else, but at least the first match was over. Hinata secretly smiled, knowing that Neji had finally gotten a taste of what it had been like for her for so long, but she found herself feeling sorry for him because being the best had long been the only thing he cared about since his father died.
Naruto and Sasuke waited for Sakura to reach the waiting area before congratulating her. "I knew you were strong, but you took out Neji! He dropped that other girl like it was part of his morning ritual! Way to go, Sakura!" Naruto shouted.
"It was pretty boring, but what matters is that you won, Sakura," Sasuke said. "How did you avoid getting your chakra network shut down by his attacks though?"
"I didn't avoid it. Kushina-sensei taught me how to open and close my tenketsu at will. I have no idea how I'm going to move past the next round though. We kind of specialized during my training," Sakura smiled nervously.
"Next up: Shino Aburame and Tamari of the Desert," an announcer boomed. Temari strolled out with her fan while Shino moved slowly into position.
"Fight!" the proctor shouted before jumping away.
"I wonder if you'll have as much luck against me as you did my teammate," Shino wondered aloud.
"That depends, bug-boy. Are you as weak as she is?" countered Temari.
"You'll find that weakness is relative, I think," Shino opined as his tunneling insects began crawling up Temari's legs.
Temari screamed and danced trying everything she could to scrape them off, even going so far as to glide on her enormous fan, but her panic allowed the chakra eating bugs to feed from her reserves. She barely noticed in time to create a wind jutsu that scattered the bugs.
'I have to buy more time, but I can't stand still with this guy or he'll get me with those damned bugs,' she thought, still gliding.
Shino didn't give her a chance to form a plan, however, throwing kunai at the easy target. Temari wasn't worried about the kunai and batted them out of the air easily with a gust of wind before noticing the swarm of bugs behind her. She spent a long few minutes swatting bugs away and moving around until she was simply too exhausted to continue and Shino knocked her unconscious.
"Winner: Shino Aburame!" the proctor announced.
Shino returned to the staging area where everyone congratulated him on a job well done. Kankuro was in the area with Gaara and the two stayed silent while Temari was taken to the medical tent by the Leaf medical-nin.
The same booming voice came over the loud speakers announcing the match between the Cloud-nin and the Rock-nin. Naruto was surprised to see the strange woman from Mist waiting for him as he searched for a bathroom.
"Hello there, Little Flash," she smiled, her arms across her chest.
'Oh, fuck. Does she know? Is she here to kill me? Play it cool, Naruto. She isn't exhausted anymore,' Naruto thought. "Hi there," he smiled.
"I came here special, just to watch you fight. Naruto, was it?" He nodded. "Don't disappoint me, Naruto. I don't want to think that I owe a debt to someone weak," she smiled eerily.
Naruto returned after his little detour to find that the Rock-nin had defeated the Cloud-nin. And that the Mist genin was already waiting in the arena.
"Naruto Uzumaki, please report to the arena. Your match is about to begin," the loudspeaker boomed.
Naruto rushed out onto the field, zipping his zipper. "Sorry. Sorry, everyone. I had to take a leak. I'm ready now," he flustered.
"Are you sure, Uzumaki?" the proctor asked. "If you have to take a bathroom break, we can move on to the next match."
"I'm good. I just had to piss. Let's do this already," Naruto exclaimed, getting into a basic taijutsu stance.
"Okay. Fight!" the proctor said, jumping away. The Mist-nin quickly summoned a mist as Naruto just stood there. The mist cleared as the befuddled Mist-nin stood next to where Naruto should have stood, his sword already embedded in the ground after what must have been a horrifyingly powerful swing. The Mist-nin looked around, but missed the flash as Naruto crossed the entire arena from the outer wall.
'Earth and lightning without hand signs. And the speed is impressive. The blonde, spikey hair and the speed are only confirming my suspicions that he's related to the Yellow Flash. He was supposed to be a bachelor, but that wouldn't be a hard thing to conceal from enemies during war,' the auburn-haired jonin thought as she watched the fight.
Naruto used an improvised earth technique to tunnel directly beneath his starting spot, replacing himself with a shadow-clone. From his position outside the mist, he used lightning chakra to enhance his speed across the arena and then put wind chakra into his fingertips as he struck the Mist-nin's sword, cutting it where he struck. The Mist-nin leapt back, leaving his broken sword as he wove more hand signs.
Naruto converted his chakra into water chakra and released it in a massive wave, cancelling out the mist field. The Mist-nin's eyes went wide as bad water chakra simply overwhelmed his technique.
'How could he have that much chakra? It's not even pure water chakra!' the Mist-nin thought.
Naruto stood looking at the Mist-nin. "Did you want to try anything else or can I try something?" Naruto asked with a smirk. The Mist-nin pulled out a kunai and charged Naruto in a rage. "That'll work," Naruto chuckled, creating a gale-force wind at shoulder-level into the charging Mist-nin. He then put his hands on the ground, creating a chasm beneath the Mist-nin. The Mist-nin fell back into a pit instead of the ground he'd expected.
Naruto used a neutral body-flicker to close into the pit next to the Mist-nin. The Mist-nin threw a shuriken barrage at Naruto, which Naruto dodged by burrowing into the earth. Shadow-clones reached up from beneath the Mist-nin, holding the Mist-nin down where most observers couldn't see or hear them.
"You put on a good show, but the match is mine. You can walk off or be carried off," Naruto said quickly. "I'm giving you the option."
"Carried off," the Mist-nin said seriously. "I can see that you're ninjutsu and taijutsu outclass mine, but if I walk off, it will show weakness."
Naruto was stunned. He hadn't expected that. "Well? Do it already," the Mist-nin hissed. Another arm shot up, wrapping around the Mist-nin's neck, quickly choking him unconscious.
"Winner: Naruto Uzumaki!" the proctor shouted. Naruto strutted off the field, still a little disturbed by the Mist-nin's attitude. The Leaf genin in the staging area congratulated him on a decisive match.
"Gaara of the Desert and Sasuke Uchiha please come to the arena," boomed the loudspeaker. Sasuke hopped down to the arena, waiting for Gaara. Gaara was not far behind.
"Which one of us exists?" Gaara's voice dripped death.
"We both do, psycho," Sasuke activated his sharingan eyes.
"Fight!" yelled the proctor. Sand swirled around Gaara, hypnotic whirls spinning everywhere. Sasuke could see the chakra laced in every grain, but he knew there wasn't much he could do about the sand. A tendril of sand lashed toward Sasuke, but Sasuke dodged it easily. Sasuke tried to run past the sand, but even body-flickers weren't fast enough to bypass it.
'Naruto's speed might be fast enough, but I'm not sure. I can't duplicate it right now anyway though, so I'll have to think of something else,' Sasuke thought as he blew a fireball at the motionless redhead protected by sand.
The sand was fast attacking as well, but Sasuke was faster at dodging. He threw kunai that cloned to create a massive barrage, but the sand was always there. Claws of sand erupted, trying to grab him, but he always predicted the sand and dodged easily. Sasuke tried genjutsu but the illusions didn't phase Gaara's bloodlust. Gaara broke the illusions the same way Naruto did: brute force. Sasuke planted explosive tags around the arena as he went back and forth with Gaara, waiting to position the Sand-nin just right for the trap he was setting.
Finally, Gaara stepped into position and Sasuke sent chakra to detonate the tags. Gaara was blasted off his feet, repeatedly, until all of the tags Sasuke had planted were exhausted. Gaara stood, his skin peeling off like sand, his rage evident. A sphere of sand surrounded Gaara as he stood, revealing an eye of sand above and seemingly out of range.
Sasuke knew that the only way to attack Gaara would be to strike through the sand. He momentarily thought how nice it might be to have a byakugan to see through the sand instead of guessing at the inside, but quickly pushed that thought aside. He charged his hand with lightning, the chirping sounds bursting from the jutsu. He started running toward Gaara's sand shell, but the earth rumbled and an explosion sounded from the walls of the village, knocking Sasuke to the ground before he could complete his attack. Sasuke picked himself up and turned to try to see what was happening.
'What the hell is going on? Why is there a genjutsu over the entire stadium? Or is it the entire village? What was that "boom" just now?' Sasuke thought as he watched the visiting Kazekage leap from the Kage's box seat a split second before a strange, purple a barrier rose up around it.
Naruto had practiced enough with genjutsu to recognize one and practiced disrupting his chakra as a matter of course throughout any day, but the sleeping jutsu that covered the stadium caught him off guard. By the time he noticed what was happening, the Kazekage was standing next to Sasuke and Gaara was starting to lose his mind in the middle of the arena. Most of the jonin seemed to be pulling themselves out of the genjutsu, but the sounds of battles raging outside the stadium were easily heard.
"Orochimaru!" Jiraiya screamed from the stands as he jumped down to intercept the Kazekage. "We should have killed you years ago!" Jiraiya summoned two toads that Naruto didn't recognize on his shoulders. Naruto watched in horror as Orochimaru extended his head to bite Sasuke, leaving a strange mark on his friend, before facing Jiraiya.
"Kukukuku. Don't you have a village to save, Jiraiya-chan? The Sand is invading and this very arena is going to have the Shukaku on a rampage any minute now," the false-kage pointed at Gaara's sand-covered form. Naruto charged in with a lightning body-flicker to attack the false-kage, but Orochimaru's body impossibly bent to avoid the blonde's strike. "You might be nearly as fast as that annoying Fourth Hokage, boy. But you can't beat me yet," he mocked as he kicked Naruto across the arena.
Jiraiya charged Orochimaru, but the snake-sannin picked up Sasuke's unconscious form and ran. Naruto stood, watching Jiraiya leap after Orochimaru and Sasuke. Most of the jonin and ANBU present had already begun reinforcing the besieged village walls, so few had noticed Gaara growing into a monster the size of a building.
Naruto ran through the summoning signs to bring Gamabunta into the stadium and found himself atop the massive toad. "We have to keep that sand monster from hurting anyone in the stands. We don't have much room, so we'll have to pin it here as quickly as possible, Boss-Toad," Naruto quickly explained.
"That's a great plan, Naruto-boy, but that's a bijuu and I don't have nearly the strength to pin even the one-tail in these tight quarters," Gamabunta rumbled.
"If we don't hurry, that thing is going to start rampaging and a lot of people are going to die!" Naruto exclaimed. "We need to do something quick!"
"Can you do a transformation jutsu?" Gamabunta asked. "I could pin him, if I could take the shape of something with hands or claws."
The sand monster began to roar, waking a few of the genin who had been left behind by the older ninja. "I can think of something. Hang on!" Naruto unleashed a wave of chakra to transform the massive toad into the only thing he could imagine that was that big. For a brief instant, he found himself inside the landscape of the underground plumbing, where he looked into the sealed cage. 'I'm borrowing your form, whatever-your-name-is. I just wanted to let you know, since I think I've just figured out that you're one of the bijuu.'
"BORROWING MY FORM? WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?" the angry prisoner boiled from behind its cage.
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Who Is Responsible When It Becomes a Triangle (NaruSakuSasu, T, 1/?)
@senju-sandwich I am your fic exchange secret Santa in July-ish type person!
Your prompt: "Soulmate AU where just cause you’re soulmates, that doesn’t mean things will be perfect and easy. Maybe Sasuke or Kakashi as anti-soulmate stuff but gradually being okay with it. BAMF Sakura, team 7 friendship & family or romance if you’re going with NaruSakuSasu, but I’d love a happy Team 7 no matter the ship."
I have always wanted to read a NaruSakuSasu with a one-sided soulmate triangle (Naruto -> Sakura -> Sasuke -> Naruto). So I took this as the universe telling me to write it myself.
I know it’s supposed to be a finished one-shot fic for the fic exchange--but even though I was really trying hard to get it finished, I just couldn’t manage it, and it was really messy at the end. So I’m publishing it as a chaptered fic instead, starting with the prelude, which I am fairly pleased with. I hope to get the entire story finished ASAP, final word count maybe 4 or 5k.
Available on AO3 or below!
Sakura started believing in soulmates at nine years old.
"Why can't we learn something interesting in kunoichi class," Ino said that day, nice and loud so that Suzume-sensei could hear from the other end of the table.
Suzume-sensei, mid-sentence about table manners, paused, looked at Ino, shut her mouth, and opened it again, and shut it again. Someone giggled. The swots and good girls, like Sakura, held back smiles.
Emboldened, Ino added, even louder, "I mean, what's the use of learning about how to drink soup? Don't we all know that already from our families?"
The orphans and the low-class students in the class nodded and laughed even harder at this, so as not to give themselves away.
"Well, what do you think is interesting, Yamanaka Ino?" Suzume-sensei suddenly barked, her curls swaying in stark contrast to the rigidity of the rest of her body.
Ino was not so easily daunted. "Something we haven't learned elsewhere—something exciting! Seduction technique or, or... or soulmates!"
The mention of "soulmates" set a hum and chatter among the girls.
"Yes please do teach us about soulmates!"
"Do they really exist?"
"Course they do; my big sister's got one."
"Girls!" Suzume-sensei shrilly cut through the chorus. "We are here to learn useful etiquette for disguising yourself in your future missions! Soulmates are not useful for kunoichi!"
The teacher never really got it together after that, and the class ended with the bell, but Sakura learned that soulmates were real. And when she filed back into the the classroom and eyed the dark, sharp hair of Sasuke-kun, she knew who hers must be.
———
Sasuke started believing in soulmates at seven years old.
"Mama," he said, as his mother tucked him into bed, "what is Ayako?"
His mother nearly stumbled, first in her movements--an impossible thing for the effortlessly graceful kunoichi--and then in her words: "Nobody. Who told you...? Nobody."
"But Father has it written on him," Sasuke protested, interally hoping for a praise on how clever he was to be able to work out the kana he had seen written on his father's chest.
"Nobody," repeated Mikoto, distressed. "I think you're old enough to bathe without your father from now on. Goodnight."
"Nii-san," he managed to say to his brother's disappearing back some days later, "wait, Nii-san!"
To his delight, Itachi paused and looked back.
"Do you know what is Ayako?"
Itachi looked down at him. "You saw it written...?"
"On Father," Sasuke agreed eagerly.
"Did you ask Father?"
"No.. Father doesn't... I asked Mama, but she was unhappy..."
Itachi also looked unhappy, in the very slight downturn of his mouth. "You'll learn when you're older how an Uchiha earns their eyes."
"But I want to know NOW," Sasuke protested as Itachi started to turn to go. "Why do you always say later, later, later, Nii-san! If you tell me now, I can practice for later!"
All he got were fingers to the forehead, until a horrible night sometime later.
"Foolish little brother," his parents' murderer said, "you want to know how to get eyes like mine? By killing the one whose name appears on your chest—your soulmate."
———
Naruto started believing in soulmates at four years old.
"What?! Why ya gotta choose HIM?" Naruto screamed at the new parents leading the toddler away at the orphanage. "He still pees in a diaper -ttebayo! He's not a big boy like me! I wouldn't make any mess or... well, some mess, but I'd help clean up..."
The two new parents only rushed away faster. The blond's shoulders slumped.
"Naruto-chan," creaked the tremulous voice of his foster mother, Kaede-baa-chan. "Shall I tell you a secret?"
The little jinchuuriki clambered up into the ancient woman's lap. She only smiled, despite the pain of the cancer in her bones.
"You're soon to age out of the orphanage, my boy," she said. "But don't worry about that. Whether you get parents or not, one day, a name will appear here." She traced a line over his heart. "And that will be the one who will be your heart's joy, the only one who can make you truly happy in this world. And once their name is on your chest, when you touch them..." She lowered her voice to a whisper. "Your fingers will glow."
"Really?" Naruto whispered back enthralled.
"It isn't real for everyone," Kaede-baa-chan conceded, "but I believe it will be for you. There will be someone out there who is special—oh, but VERY special!"
"And I'll be special for them too dattebayo!"
———
Kakashi was twenty-six when he told his three cute little genin that soulmates were a lot of bullshit.
"Ninja don't get soulmates," he said brutally. "Ninja can't find happiness in another person, and ninja don't get happy endings."
"Didn't any of the Hokage have soulmates?" Naruto asked, or more challenged. Sakura looked destroyed. Sasuke wasn't looking at any of them.
Kakashi thought of Minato-sensei, whose flame-haired bride somehow unleashed the beast that killed them both.
He thought of Lord Third, who lost his wife in the same attack.
He thought of Lord Second, who died alone, and Lord First, whom they said was dead inside from the moment Uchiha Madara left the village.
"None of them," Kakashi lied.
Naruto huffed. "Well! I'm gonna be the first Hokage with a soulmate then 'ttebayo!"
———
Sakura's fingers glowed first, wrapped around a cursed boy in the Forest of Death.
Sasuke's fingers glowed second, as his face hovered over an unconscious boy in the Final Valley.
As for Naruto's fingers, they didn't glow until a pink-haired girl embraced him in the hospital and told him that next time they'd rescue Sasuke together.
Kakashi, sitting outside on the hospital windowsill, let out an unheard breath.
Well, he thought to himself, this is another fucking disaster.
Kakashi as Team 7 sensei:
#narusakusasu#narutogiftexchange#gift exchange#my fanfic#love triangle#soulmate au#kakashi didn't sign up for this shit#senju-sandwich#naruto fanfic#long post#cancer mention#fictional peril
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okay but WHY does tumblr never show me posts from my mutuals what is the explanation 🤡🤡
#yall better start tagging me in every shit now#you are going to bed at 4 am? i want to know#crying over an anime i don't even watch? sign me the fuck up#I WANT TO SEE WHAT MY MUTUALS ARE POSITNG DAMMIT#fr tho i miss so many things this way???#it was someone's dogs birthday and i didn't even know#im pissed#not Kakashi
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Naruto : who the actual fuck.
iruka : LANGUAGE!
Naruto : whomst the actual sexual intercourse.
iruka : what the fuck?
#kakashi in the background like told ya iruka#sasuke is like wow naru your vocabs has improved#iruka is like I didn't sign up for this shit#incorrect naruto quotes#incorrect naruto#iruka#incorrect iruka naruto#naruto
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I promise to never leave you alone
Pairing: Naruto x reader
Genre: Fluff, Angst
Synopsis: Naruto is sad and you can't leave him alone.
Warnings: Sad Naruto, it hurts. Mentions of pregnancy.
"Yamato Taichou~" You whined. He wasn't paying attention again and it was starting to annoy everyone.
"Huh? What did you just say?" He asked as he came out of his thoughts.
"I said," You swallowed your annoyance at his out of character behaviour. "And I repeat again, we divided ourselves in teams of three to check out each hideout. You and I are teamed together so if you could please get moving because Sai, Sakura, Naruto and Kakashi-sensei have already left."
"Oh! Oh yeah…" Realisation dawned on him and you let out a sigh that he was finally on track. "Uh- I am sorry Y/N. I know I am a bit out of character-"
"Bit?" You raised your eyebrow.
"Right. Sorry." He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly.
"Look Taichou," you calmed yourself down. You needed to handle this smartly. "I know you received your letter about your wife being pregnant. And I can see how restless this mission is making you. I guess it's for the best of both the mission and yourself that you leave for Konoha. I'll handle this myself. It's no biggie."
"Wh-What? No! No, absolutely not. I can't leave you to do this alone!"
"Oh yeah? Well if you keep zoning out you'll get yourself killed." You crossed your arms.
"But-"
"Honestly Taichou! It's fine." You emphasized. "You know I can handle this much. You can go! It's a big thing for you! And your behaviour is only natural. The mission is gonna take a few more days so it's better to leave now. I am sorry if I am stepping any boundaries but I bet your wife wants you with her just as much. You should go."
His face turned red, embarrassed about being caught and for letting his emotions get the better of him. "Y/N are you sure?"
"Absolutely." You nodded with your eyes closed.
"Okay! Bye then!" And with that he ran so fast you felt a swoosh of air on your body.
"Yamato-taichou! Wait! Not so fast! What about the mission report details that you-" And he was nowhere to be seen.
"Dang it!" You yelled. "I have to write everything from the start myself. I hate paperwork."
____
"Why was there a delay in the mission?" Tsunade-sama asked as she leaned against the wall of her office, going through the report you just handed to her.
"I had to write the whole mission report by myself from scratch. Nobody helped. Sakura was in the hospital and Naruto said he doesn't remember anything! He didn't even try and ran away as soon as we entered the Konoha gates. Even Kakashi-sensei ditched me." You spat.
"Isn't that Yamato's job? Where's he? Why didn't he do it?" She raised her head to look at you.
"Oh I don't know, you tell me?" You gave her a deadpan look.
She furrowed her eyebrows, confused as to what you aimed at. And then she let out a loud laugh.
"Very wrong timing indeed Hokage-sama. Couldn't you have waited to tell her a bit later about her pregnancy? I was so exhausted after the mission and then I had to pull an all-nighter to finish this shit. And it still won't finish!" She laughed again, clearly taking enjoyment in your misery.
"He ran away to meet his wife, didn't he?" She chuckled. "That man." She shook her head with a smile. You found yourself smiling too.
What was a sleepless night compared to your Taichou's huge smile? He was so happy and that was enough for you to forgive him.
But that smile soon faded away. Your own words suddenly hit you like a truck.
"...and Naruto said he doesn't remember anything! He didn't even try and ran away as soon as we entered the Konoha gates."
That wasn't very Naruto-like. He was not like this. In fact he was the one who was always up to help people out even when they didn't ask for it! So when you combined his words with his weird behaviour and sullen look, you realised what had happened.
"Tsunade-sama, is my work here done?" You asked suddenly.
"Huh? Yes, just sign over here and you are done. Go get some sleep." You bent down to sign and then left the Hokage tower from the windows instead of walking out the door. You were in a hurry.
Sleep could wait. Naruto could not.
You leapt through the roofs, an unsettling feeling in your stomach. You were quick, increasing your speed by each step to reach Naruto as soon as possible.
A series of knocks and "NARUTO OPEN THE DOOR!" You yelled.
No response.
"Please?" You begged.
After a couple of minutes and a few more bangs later, the door was left slightly ajar. You hesitated for a moment and then barged inside.
"Naruto~" Your voice was soft as a whisper. As if, if you raised your voice any further you'd break the boy in front of you.
"It's about Sasuke isn't it?" Concern written all over your face.
He didn't say anything. You thought he wouldn't reply. But to your surprise he did.
Naruto was your best friend. As soon as you joined team 7 on missions, Naruto and you got along very easily. He made the serious gruesome missions somewhat bearable. It was nice having him around.
"It's not just him." He replied. Voice so dull and down that it broke your heart. He looked so sad. Something which you have never seen before. It was definitely more than when he was sad about Sasuke.
"Naruto~" You came and sat by his side. His head hung low as he drew circles on the ground. "What is it? Tell me."
"Why does it matter to you? I'll be fine. I always am. Leave it. You should go."
"No Naruto, I won't leave. I can't. I can't leave you like this. Something is obviously wrong and I care enough to want to fix it. Tell me! I wanna help!"
"You can't fix it Y/N. Not everything can be fixed."
"I can try?"
"Oh yeah? Can you bring my parents back? Can you bring Sasuke back? Can you return me my childhood? Can you make the pain go away? Can you give me true happiness? For once in my life? Can you stop Sasuke from ruining his life by whatever revenge stuff he has going on there? CAN YOU?" He yelled.
You shut up. Silence.
"Tsk, see I told you, you can't. So leave me alone. Go."
"You really want me to go? You really want me to leave you alone?" You asked.
He didn't reply. So you stood up and walked towards the main gate.
"WAIT!" Naruto yelled. "ARE YOU JUST GONNA LEAVE LIKE THAT? BECAUSE I ASKED YOU TOO?"
A smile crept up on your face and you turned around. "Of course not Naruto. I will never leave you alone. Sasuke might have left, he has his reasons, but I won't. I will never have a reason to leave you behind."
Naruto stared at you. Speechless. With wide blue eyes. And mouth slightly agape.
You reached down to his level and looked him in the eye, the smile never leaving your face. "It's your birthday tomorrow. Meet me at my house at 7 p.m. sharp. We need to celebrate having you in our lives. You are a blessing Naruto. For all of us. Especially me. I couldn't have asked for a better best friend."
Naruto was wrapped in your embrace. You were told you gave awesome hugs. Streams of tears soaking your t-shirt. But that didn't matter. T-shirts could be replaced, Naruto couldn't.
"I am sorry." His voice was muffled but you could make out what he said.
"No Naruto, I am sorry. I should have seen it sooner. I should have come sooner. I should have helped sooner. But I didn't. I should have cared more. It's my fault. Please forgive me. I promise to never leave you alone again." You replied. "But don't ever forget. I care about you, Naruto. I see. I understand. You are not alone. Ever. We will always love you. We will always be with you."
Naruto nodded. A smile forming on his tear stained cheeks. You pulled the hem of your sleeves over your palms and wiped his tears away.
"Ramen?" You proposed.
"You bet -ttebayo!"
He was back. You grinned.
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WARNINGS: Cussing, Alcohol, Intoxication.
☆☆☆☆
Iruka and Kakashi had a bit of an... argument. So, now, Iruka was sitting in a restaurant with the legendary Pervy Sage that Naruto told him about, a cup of warm tea in his hands as Jiraiya sipped on his sake.
"Listen, kid," Jiraiya said, adjusting his position and setting his elbow on the table, cheeks lightly flused from the alcohol.
"Just relax. Get a drink! Go hang out with the ladies!" He man winked and the chunin sitting across from him.
Iruka sighed. "You... haven't listened to a word I've said have you?"
Jiraiya sent him a shit eating grin and a smug, "nope!"
Iruka put his head on the table, buting his lip. He felt so... lost.
So... helpless.
He just wanted it to stop.
The old man sighed. "Listen, I'm the last person to ask about this stuff. I barely get anywhere with the girls, guys would probably not be much different. And Kakashi... he's... God! He's himself. He wears a mask on top of his mask, he reads porn in public (albeit my porn—), I really don't know what to tell ya."
Iruka nodded, running his thumb over the rim of his glass. "Mind if I have a sip of the sake?" He asks, a tired glance meeting Jiraiya.
Jiyaiya solemnly nods, pouring him a small glass and sliding it over.
"He... has a soulmate too, Jiraiya. And he's found them for gosh sakes!"
The man across from Iruka pauses. "No... he hasn't. His eye... I've never seen the colour."
You see, finding your soulmate could be tricky. If you touch your soulmate, you can see their eye colour, and your own. If you kiss them, everyone can see both their and your eye colour. So, you never knew if someone already had their soulmate, if they were yours, or if they didn't have one.
"Wait, wait, really? But, I can— wha?" Iruka sputtered out, his breath quickening.
He couldn't believe it. Does that mean? He had just gone home one day and seen the chocolate brown of his eyes. He must've bumped unto Kakasji that day.
"Oh my gosh..." he muttered, looking up to the Pervy Sage.
"Thank you! So much!" He spoke with a smile. "You really helped!"
Jiraiya smiled. "I really did, didn't I? This is why you came to me for such advice!" This was said in a teasing and arrogant tone. "But seriously, why did you ask me about all this stuff?"
Iruka slides the glass back over to the old man with a sigh. "You're... just really easy to talk to. You always give good advice, or make me feel better. Plus, once you sober up, you never remember what I've told you. Sober you still doesn't know I'm gay."
Iruka's brows shot to space. "What?!" He asks, panicked. "How many times has this happened?"
Iruka brings his fingers up to his face, counting. "Uhm... this is the seventh time, I think."
Jiraiya pales, pushing the piture of sake away from himself. Iruka pushes it back.
"No, it's fine, drink." He mutters gently.
Jiraiya let's out a childush huff, crossing his arms over his chest. "Fine, next time you need to talk, though, we're going on a picnic!"
Iruka rolled his eyes, knowing the man wouldn't remember, until Jiraiya pulled a pen out of one of his pockets.
"You... you just have one of those on hand?" He asks, bewildered. There was no need for them as a Shinobu, even as a teacher he didn't often carry them around.
"Yes! Of course! To sign the autographs!"
"Autographs?"
"Yes! For the ladies!"
Iruka snorted. "Last time you even looked at a lady, she ran away screaming."
"She just had bad taste!" Jiraiya spouts indignantly.
"You ran after her with your arms out yelling 'boobies'!"
Jiraiya tapped his glass against his lip. "I... don't remember that one."
"You were drunk."
"Oh."
Iruka sighed, shaking his head. He pushed himself up, putting some money down. "I... have someone I need to go talk with." He swallowed nervously.
"Good luck!" Jiraiya said cheerfully with a thumbs up.
Iruka let out a tired laugh.
He soon reached Kakashi's home, and knocked. He was scared half to death, but the calm way Kakashi opened the door and gave his closed eyes smile made the clench of his chest loosen slightly.
Iruka was soon sat down with another cup of tea. Kakashi sat across from him on the couch.
They chatted idly for a bit, tension polluting the air, before Kakashi tilted his head, asking a question.
"I'm sure you didn't come here just to hang out. Especially..." he didn't finish, so Iruka closed his eyes and spoke.
"I... think you're my soulmate." Kakashi didn't freeze up as Iruka thought he would, instead he did another closed eye smile.
"I know," he said simply.
Iruka's eyebrows furrowed as Kakashi continued on. "I was waiting for you to figure it all out, just to be certain."
Iruka stumbled over his next words.
"Y-you... you, you kept this from me?" Iruka stood up, starting to pace.
"I've loved you for months! I thought you already had a soulmate! It broke my fucking heart!" Iruka threw his hands up in the air, frustrated, before bringing them down and pinching the bridge of his nose.
"Worrying over every little thing, every little feeling that would pop up when I was around you. I would've been so. Fucking. Relieved. If you would've just told me!
"It's not that hard! And you would have evidence to support it, right? Because it isn't just a hunch, it never is with you!
"You're always so careful, you would've double, no, triple check you hypothesis! You would've made sure. You wouldn't have just jumped out and said it!"
Kakashi was impressed by how much this man could talk with his hands.
"You could have saved me countless of sleepless nights, countless panic attacks and worries and nightmares, but instead, you keep it a secret, why, just to make sure?"
Kakashi flinches, trying to lighten up the mood.
"Well, I'm your soulmate, so you're stuck with my stupidity for a while."
Iruka turned, giving his lover a "no shit" glare.
Kakashi pushed himself off the couch, walking over and pulling Iruka into a warm embrace.
"I was scared too. There was still that little doubt, that little voice in your head. I'm sorry, Iruka, I really am. I'm so sorry."
Iruka nuzzled into Kakashi's neck, breathing in his earthy scent. "It's okay," he murmured. "I... overreacted."
Kakashi let out a chuckle, stroking his back. "Bad day?"
Iruka nods into his neck before pulling back, pecking his nose.
Kakashi hooks his fingers into his mask, pulling it down. "You, uh, missed." He says, his face going uncharacteristically red.
Iruka took in his features, involuntary reaching up and stroking his lover's cheek with his knuckles.
He let his fingers glide to the underside of Kakashi's jaw, pulling him forward until their lips met.
Iruka's lips were soft, warm, Kakashi's were chapped, but Irula loved them nonetheless.
Iruka pulled back, putting his cheek to Kakashi's and closing his eyes. "I love you too."
Iruka pushed away from Kakashi, furrowing his eyebrows with a concerned expression. "W-what?"
Kakashi chuckled. "You said you loved me during your rant. I love you too."
Iruka went red, shifting his eyes away.
Kakashi sighed, hugging him back to his body again.
"How did you find out, anyways?" Iruka asked.
"It's a long story."
Iruka narrowed his eyes. That damned man remembered everything. He was playing cupid.
"We have time."
We. The word was music to Kakashi's ears.
"Jiraiya." Kakashi said. "Took 'im out for drinks and we would talk. He usually forgot what I'd said by morning."
That damn man! He remembered everything! He was playing cupid.
#kakairu mini bang#june 2020#quarantine 2020#2020#kakashi#kakashi x iruka#hatake kakashi/umino iruka#kakairubang2020#iruka sensei#naruto and iruka#iruka umino#dadkashi timeline#dadkashi#dadruka#KakaIruBang2020#KakairuBang2020#kakairu
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A little excerpt of a modern police Au
---
"What," Madara growled, pinching the bridge of his nose with one hand, "and I do mean this," the other white knuckled the arm rest of his recliner.
"The FUCK is going on?!" Madara's eyes flickered from Naruto and Sasuke, scowling from on their knees in the middle of his living room, to Obito and Shisui.
Both had a vice grip on the the indignant pair and who were covered in....what...
What WAS that? Madara squinted.
Cake batter?
A thick pale yellow substance clinging to their uniforms drying in a tacky mess. Frosting smudged over their faces and hands transferring to Naruto and Sasuke's clothes.
They even had sprinkles, in multiple colors and shapes Madara noticed, in their hair.
It was too fucking late, or, well, early for this shit, it was now a quarter after 3.
Then his eyes went to Kakashi and Yamato, still red-faced, trying to catch their breath from bursting through his god damn front door after Shisui and Obito dragged Sasuke and Naruto, kicking and shouting, through said door.
Finally his eyes settled on an amused Kagami and far less amused, possibly murderous, Tobirama. Both had taken up residence on his love seat, sitting a little too close for Madara's comfort, half a cushion was exposed in Kagami's side.
Tobirama's arms crossed and tapping his index finger against his bicep.
"Officer Uchiha, care to explain?" Madara grit out, tilting his head back against the cushion, a migraine rapidly forming behind his eyes.
Obito, Shisui and Sasuke argued over each other, with their version of events, voices over lapping into an unintelligible garble of words.
"SHUT UP." Madara boomed, hair rising and bristling over his robe, effectively silencing all three of them.
"Why did I hire so many people with the same surname" Madara muttered to himself, no one dared to give him an actual answer.
"Officer SHISUI Uchiha. Explain." Madara tried again, his tone pitched low, drumming his fingers against his thigh impatiently.
"We got a dispatch call at 12:45, from a concerned neighbor about two people climbing through the basement window of professor Senju's home."
Madara knew where this was going, he leveled Sasuke and Naruto with a narrowing of his eyes, and nodded for Shisui to continue.
"We arrived at professor Senju's home at 12:57, I knocked on the door while Obito went around to check the window, there was no sign of forced entry so he came back. Kagami and Tobirama opened the door for us and invited us in, we informed them of the situation. Tobirama lead us to the basement, which
is also his lab-"
"That's where we found these two brats rilfing through his shit!" Obito glowered at his cousin, tightening his grip on Sasuke's shoulder, who grimaced but kept quiet.
"Then they ran away! Out through the god damn window again like little gremlin racoons!"
Shisui sighed as Obito fumed, undeterred by the interupption.
"We followed them, not out the window, well Obito followed them out the window I took the stairs."
"Im not going to commend you for having at least one brain cell between the both of you."
"Anyways," Shisui shrugged off the insult,
"While Obito followed them on foot I took the car to follow him, we ended up at...the Akimichi's Sweets Plant--"
"The fuckers ran in there! Like they mapped the place out! Some Scooby Doo type shit! At one point I was running away from Shisui with Naruto!"
Madara resisted the urge to put his face in his hands.
"They even set traps! Who the fuck--"
"Spare me the details of how you two came to be cake pops." Madara interjected and Shisui continued.
"Long story short, they had a car on the other side of the factory, they got in it we got in our car and Sasuke drove like a bat out of hell until he pulled up on your lawn, we tackled them coming up the porch."
Madara sat up to glance out the window, sure enough there sat Sasuke's car, headlights still on, the tires crushing the flower beds he had painstakingly cultivated to impress Hashirama. Behind Sasuke's car was Shisui's cruiser, also parked on top of a painstakingly made gift.
If he wasn't angry about being bothered after 2am with this garbage, he was angry now.
He cast a wrathful look towards Kakashi and Yamato.
"You two came into this how?"
"Got a call from Sasuke about the investigation, he said he found evidence of guilt and were being followed by "compromised" officers."
Madara raised an eyebrow.
"And you two just happened to be in the same place, together, at this time of night."
"We're off the clock, sir. And car-pulling was eaiser." Kakashi turned up his eye in a smile and Yamato put a sheepish hand on the back of his neck.
"Right." Madara clicked his tongue, crossing one slippered foot over his knee.
He didn't even want to check where their car was parked.
He turned his attention to Kagami and Tobirama.
"Am I to assume you also "car-pulled"?"
"Yes?" Kagami gave a nervous chuckle.
"And just what were you doing at professor Senju's residence at 1 in the morning, Kagami."
"Well, you see, research mainly, I'm there all the time and I-"
"They live together." Sasuke cut in.
"They're married!!" Naruto shouted, pointing an accusing finger at the pair before Shisui gently smacked it down.
Everyone, except Shisui who opted to look at the ceiling, snapped their attention to Kagami and Tobirama.
"S-surprise!" Kagami put his hands up, in surrender, the light catching the ring on his left finger.
"Unbelievable." Madara hissed through his teeth, rubbing his temples.
"I have proof that professor Tobirama is behind the grave robbing."
"Oh, do you." Tobirama's voice was dry, unimpressed. Kagami's eyebrows pinched at the accusation, he looped a protective arm around Tobirama.
"Yes, Sasuke, do you?" Madara leaned on his thighs, resting his cheek in his palm.
Sasuke wrenched out of Obito's grip, throwing a folder at Madara's feet.
"Here."
Madara picked up the folder and opened it, leaning back and inspecting the contents. His left eye twitched and a muscle in his lip jumped as he skimmed the reports.
He snapped the folder shut.
"Did you obtain this without a warrant?"
Sasuke snorts.
"Of course I had a warrant."
"Mhm, very well. Senju, is this yours?" Madara handed it over to Tobirama who opened it.
"Seems to be."
"Is that your hand writing?"
"Seems to be."
"And you're short hand and codes?"
Tobirama gave an agreeable hum, but seemed otherwise unaffected.
"It is my hand writing, my codes and my short hand. But I didn't write this." Tobirama put the folder down.
Madara closed his eyes in annoyance.
"And that means what?"
"I do not cross my Ts in that manner nor do I curve my Cs so sloppily."
"That doesn't mean shit! There's too much information that wasn't reported on!" Sasuke snarled.
"Shut up!" Madara snapped, Sasuke's jaw clicked shut but he matched Madara's glare with his own.
"This is what is going to happen," Madara sighed, "Everyone is going to go the hell home, Shisui and Obito are going to take a god damn shower before reporting back to the station and 8am. I also expect Kakashi and Yamato to show up on time and in separate vehicles. Tobirama you're going to be arrested tomorrow morning as a person of interest. Both as a formality and procedure. As for Naruto, you'll be reporting back to forensics where you're supposed to be, under Yamato. And Sasuke? You're off the case and I'm putting you on probation."
Madara put his hand up before anyone could voice their grievances.
"Very well." Tobirama conceded, standing up. Kagami rose with him, almost relieved to get out of this unscathed.
"Oh and Kagami."
"Y-yes Madara?"
"As for you, you are going to inform everyone of your eloping. Everyone and you'll do it personally."
"Even Izuna?"
"Dress appropriately, I hope your mile has gotten faster."
Kagami went pale as Tobirama lead him to the door before stopping.
"Give my regards to Hashirama." Tobirama smirked as Madara sputtered and a door in the back of the house closed softly.
Madara slammed the door after everyone had filed out. He turned back to his bedroom before the door swung open and Itachi stumbled in, looking confused.
Madara rolled his eyes, he should have seen that one coming.
"They left already."
"Ah..."
#naruto au#police officer shisui#police officer obito#police officer kakashi#police officer in training sasuke#Crime scene investigator yamato#police officer Itachi#police chief madara#professor tobirama#kagami#crime scene investigator in training naruto#naruto police au#naruto modern au#comedy#mayor hashirama#kakayama#hashimada#narusasu#tobikaga#shiita
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Oh, I didn't know! Sorry for asking Sasuke! Then when You can (and if You want) please a fluff NaruKaka. The same prompt, Naruto jealous because someone is trying to get close to Kakashi and he is (childish) possessive little (and cute) shit. But with a Happy ending 🤗 And thank You very much for writting for people! You are the best! 💞
AO3Kind of a sequel to the previous story but can be read as a stand alone too.
-
Kakashi could feel his partner coming down the hall like awalking storm cloud and had to coach his face out of an amused smile. They kneweach other quite well by now; Naruto would be able to tell he was smiling eventhrough the mask. When the door to his office opened Kakashi was slouched inhis massive chair like he had no other thoughts on his mind than getting asmuch of this paperwork out of his way as possible before the big day next week.
“So…” Naruto flopped down in one of the chairs opposite hispartner, one of the last few times he would sit on that side of the desk. “What’swith the new secretary?”
“Remember we talked about this last month? New secretariesare always hired when a new Hokage is named. That way they can learn how youlike to run things instead of annoying you with whatever systems I’ve had inplace. She’s just learning the job basics for now.” Kakashi finished theparagraph he was reading through and signed his name at the bottom of the pagebefore carefully setting his brush aside.
“Well I’m going to be using most of your systems anyway,”the other grumbled.
Just as Kakashi opened his mouth to answer the door crackedagain for a head of curly brunette hair to peek through, pink painting lipsshaped in to a fetching smile.
“Hokage-sama? Oh good you haven’t left!”
“What is it Miko-chan?”
“I’m heading out for my lunch break and I was wondering ifthere was anything I could bring back for you?”
“No, thank you Miko-chan but I’m alright.”
The woman nodded and waved with a pretty little gigglebefore disappearing and as soon as the door snapped shut Naruto was scrunching uphis nose with disgust and sticking his tongue out towards the space where shehad just been. It was amusing but it was also the sort of behavior that Kakashiknew he couldn’t allow to continue.
“Hey, look at me,” he called.
“I didn’t say anything!” Naruto protested automatically and Kakashishook his head.
“You didn’t need to. Look, you know I love you. I chose tobe with you, I want to be with you, so you have no reason to feel insecure.”
Puffing up indignantly, his partner made as though tointerrupt him. “I’m not–”
“Yes, you are feeling insecure,” Kakashi cut him off inreturn. “It could not be more obvious. But whether or not Miko is flirting withme as you seem to think she is, that shouldn’t have any effect on you. You’ve alreadycaught me. And if I’m going to pass the hat to you next week as planned thenyou’re going to have to work on behaving in a much more professional manner.Understood?”
“Understood,” Naruto grumbled back.
Watching him sulk was just too adorable. Kakashi tried notto but he could feel himself melting in seconds. He really was wrapped aroundthis idiot’s fingers.
“If you absolutely must stake your claim I can tell you whenshe’s coming back and we could let her catch us making out a little bit,” heoffered. Watching Naruto’s head spring up and a vicious grin spread across hisface was entirely worth the trouble that his advisors were sure to give himlater for defiling the office of his predecessors in such a way.
As if he hadn’t walked in on his sensei and Naruto’s ownfather defiling this place in much worse ways several times when the man heldoffice. If the rumors were to be believed it was practically a tradition – and whowas he to break tradition?
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I'm no longer surprised that some people think that about Zabuza since I realized that in the Naruto fandom, Kakashi is really underrated in terms of power, they only think he's strong when the susanoo is mentioned. It's sad and I hate that well-known tweet that became a meme that says "they used to say its an honor to meet the copy ninja, then whoop his ass", the truth is that this meme is very far from reality, since the only one who said that to him was Pain and in that fight Kakashi committed suicide and on top of that he managed to troll him, but people believe it and treat Kakashi as weak or they call him bum.
I wish people would pay attention to the anime and realize that he didn't have his own kekkei genkai or Hashirama cells or huge chakra reserves, and yet he always had the courage to face the strongest
I wouldn’t say Kakashi committed suicide. He didn’t do what he did wanting to die, he accepted that death would be the result of using the Kamui to save Choji’s life. That’s a sacrifice
But there is a lot of people who know who Kakashi is/respect him, and there’s a reason they respect him. He’s bad ass. Even in the fights he loses (pein) or the fights that are a draw (Obito) or the fights he wa sn clearly winning but didn’t get to take the finishing blow (Zabuza, Kakuzu) he was clearly a formidable shinobi
You put him against any regular shinobi he whoops ass without breaking a sweat. The thing is, they’re not facing ‘regular shinobi’ throughout the series
They’re facing top rate shinobi in the beginning (Zabuza, Orochimaru) and then straight up god like shinobi near the end (Pein, Madara)
Like… against a god level shinobi Kakashi’s not going to win and that’s FINE. He never signed up for that shit. Heck, Jiraiya got his ass handed to him by Pein and had access to an imperfect sage mode, yet his fan’s think he fought an amazing battle. They never put him down for losing the only fight we ever actually see him have. (Itachi ran away, Orichimaru peaced out. There was no actual end to most of his fights except against pein)
And these are the same people who will act like Itachi is the best, most perfect shinobi ever who can beat people like Madara (he can’t) when in all honestly when Kakashi didn’t make the mistake of looking him dead in the eye he actually got tricked by a shadow clone.
And let’s not even mention Minato. These same people calling Kakashi a crap shinobi straight up inflate what Minato did, saying he ended a war single handedly (he didn’t. He showed up to the fight after hundreds had already fought and died and took out the last fifty on his own, a feat Kakashi emulates in his second book without killing anyone and using only some well timed genjutsu, stealth, and a dirty pan) saying he beat 1000 shinobi on his own (nope. It was around 50 and even then he needed his allies to throw the kunai to get where he needed to be), and that he’s as strong as Hashirama (he most definitly is not but that one shot really gave them some stupid fooder with Kurema saying he was as talented as Hashirama)
In the shinobi world Kakashi is actually top rte, he’s just obv not going to get all the best fights where he kicks all the ass because he’s not the main character.
Jiraiya didn’t get to kick anyone’s ass except Ebisu who’s basically only a jonin because of his skills in teaching, not fighting
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