Chapter Text
“Itadori. Tell everyone… It wasn’t so bad.”
“Not going anywhere?”
“You’d find us anyway,” Nobara points out, rolling her shoulders. She’s limited, as is. Just about the only things she has going for her are abnormal strength and high-class chakra control. And while this guy may not have the Six Eyes, she’s not enough of a moron to assume he couldn’t pick any of them out of the forest within a matter of minutes, if not seconds.
Uzumaki is, but he’s also dumb enough to think that he can take on a jounin by himself. Or, if she’s being kind, she could attribute it to stubbornness. With the Uchiha, it could go either way; the guy seems arrogant enough to make some wild assumptions.
“Sakura-chan and the Bastard won’t even have to do a thing,” Uzumaki proclaims, readying himself. “I’m gonna have those bells before you even know what hit you, easy!”
“Will you now?” Hatake asks, slowly reaching a hand into his pocket. The blond tenses, only for his expression to falter when the man whips out a small, orange book. “Is something wrong? I thought you were coming for me.”
Uzumaki’s expression spasms, face reddening. “But you… I… I mean… That’s a book.”
“Of course it’s a book,” Hatake replies, raising a brow. “I’ve been dying to find out how this story ends. Carry on… It shouldn't make any difference in the outcome, considering who I'm up against.”
Just as the blond makes a fist, Nobara reads over the title with a twitching eye. She might’ve thought nothing of it, if it wasn’t for the giant cross on the back. “Icha Icha Paradise?” she says flatly. “Are you reading porn?”
Uzumaki sputters, wind knocked from his sails. Hatake blinks slowly at her.
She works her jaw. “Don’t you think you should do that in your own time, Sensei?”
Hatake swaps out the book for another. Either that, or he replaces the cover. “I haven’t the foggiest on what you mean, Sakura-chan.”
Nobara throws a kunai at him. Unfortunately, he dodges.
“That was rude,” he informs her, just as Uzumaki decides to spring back into action.
“You asshole!” he cries, then launches himself full-force at the man. It goes as well as anyone could’ve predicted. That is to say, not well at all. He also seems to have forgotten that the entire point of this test was to get the bells.
Hatake briefly pauses, eyes flicking towards Nobara, before launching Uzumaki into the lake with a swing of his arm. He clicks his tongue like a disappointed mother, then returns his attention to his book while the blond disappears underwater.
A beat passes. A rally of shuriken flies free, following the blond’s descent. Hatake lifts a finger and allows the last to fall onto his finger, whirling, like a bladed ring. He glances up, hand on his hip when Uzumaki bodily throws himself onto shore.
While the two chat, Nobara quietly circles around the jounin. She knows, even without his lazy glance, that he knows she’s there. Still, she slips her hand into her weapon’s pouch—fully stocked, as of last night.
Dozens of Uzumakis spring from beneath the lake. Nobara indulges in a shiver of horror before ducking low, releasing a wide spray of shuriken towards Hatake’s legs. One clone pops, apparently solid, and the jounin shifts in place.
Her hand twitches downwards, just as one of the blonds latch onto Hatake’s back. While he monologues, for whatever reason, she zones in on the bells; they swing lightly, moving along with Hatake.
A kunai slips from her fingers. Hatake’s gaze suddenly snaps onto hers, and a breath catches in her throat.
One clone punches another. The jounin disappears in a plume of smoke. She backs up, watching as a sea of yellow and orange descends into chaos.
“Sakura…”
Nobara twitches. A rattling breath spills from Uchiha’s lips. He stares at her, eyes glazed; before he can say another word, she parts her lips.
“You look terrible,” she says.
Uchiha lets out a groan, low and pained. The ground wets, colored with rust.
Nobara raises a hand, and the world wavers.
She exhales, skin prickling. “What an ass,” she eventually says. She hopes Hatake hears.
A kunai sails through the air, and halfway through a snicker, Uzumaki plummets to the ground.
“Hey! Why the hell did you—” he cuts himself off, blinking wide-eyed at Nobara. “Sakura-chan?”
His face splits into a grin, and she spins on her heel. “Let’s go.”
“Wh— huh?” Uzumaki runs up beside her. “Sakura-chan, where are we going?”
“We’re grabbing Uchiha,” she says, “And then we’re going to beat Hatake’s ass.”
His expression twists, like he’s not sure whether to be pissed or pleased. “We don’t need the Bastard, y’know…” he whines. Nobara wonders if he’s noticed that he says the word like a title, rather than an insult.
“We’re getting him anyway,” she replies, because she’s fairly certain she’s figured this whole thing out. And while she can’t say she’s especially attached to the idea of Team Seven, she’s even less willing to throw herself into the life of a civilian. “You can fail to pummel him into the ground when we’re done with this.”
“I wouldn’t fail!” he claims, bristling. When he catches Nobara’s eye a moment later, he tacks on a slightly-sheepish, “Sakura-chan.”
Nobara gives Uzumaki a pointed look. In turn, he takes on an expression that wouldn’t look out of place on a kicked puppy.
“We don’t have long left,” she says, averting her gaze. “And if we fail, I have a feeling the other two will be insufferable.” She will be, too, but that’s not really the point.
The blond perks up. “We won’t fail, y’know! I’m not going back to the Academy! And you neither!”
“What about Uchiha?”
“...Huh?”
“There are only two bells,” she reminds him. “So someone has to go back to the Academy.”
Uzumaki furrows his brows. For all of his blustering, the idea doesn’t seem all that appealing to him. “Uh… Well, I mean…”
Nobara comes to a sudden stop, causing the blond to stumble. He opens his mouth to question her, only to stare blankly when he sees Uchiha’s head sticking out of the ground.
“...Sasuke?” he asks, like he doesn’t believe what he’s seeing. When the other boy bristles, he snorts loudly. Nobara, unfortunately, is not immune; the moment Uzumaki collapses to the ground, wheezing, she chokes out a laugh into her palm.
“Looking sharp,” she says.
“Need some help, Sasuke?” Uzumaki asks between snickers. Uchiha’s gaze is murderous.
Lips curled into an unsubtle smirk, Nobara sinks to her knees with a kunai in-hand. “Hold still,” she says with some level of cheeriness, then digs the metal into the ground.
“I don’t need your help,” Uchiha bites out, just as Uzumaki scoots next to her.
She meets his gaze. It’s dark—ink black, rather than blue. “Too bad,” she replies, false-sympathetically. Uchiha’s lips part, just barely. For just about anyone else, that’d be equivalent to screaming in shock.
“What’s wrong with you?” Uchiha eventually asks, eyes narrowed.
“Hey,” Uzumaki growls.
Nobara plunges the kunai into the dirt once more. “A lot of things,” she tells him. “Now get out.”
Uchiha stares at her for another moment before wriggling himself free. Irritatingly, he does so with some measure of elegance. “Why are you even here?”
“We’re here because we’re all gonna get those bells!” Uzumaki snips back, like he wasn’t opposed to the idea barely ten minutes ago.
“I—”
“Don’t need our help, we know,” Nobara interrupts. “But you’re getting it anyway."
“There are only two bells,” Uchiha says, an echo of her statement to Uzumaki. “We can’t all get one.”
“Well,” Uzumaki says, twitching when both of their eyes snap in his direction. “I mean…” He takes a breath, meeting their gazes head-on. “I have my clones, right? And, well— I’m not any good at genjutsu, but I can still transform ‘em okay.”
Uchiha takes pause. “You want to make a third bell.”
“Yeah,” the blond says, puffing his chest out. “Not a bad idea is it?”
“We’d actually have to get them first,” Uchiha replies, but doesn’t discount the idea. “Which… Should be easier than beating Kakashi outright.”
Uzumaki grins, fox-like. “Sound good, Sakura-chan?”
Nobara reaches out, almost absently, and flicks a tuft of gold-spun hair. Her mouth moves before her thoughts catch up with her. “You’d look better with pink,” she tells him.
He stares at her, dumbstruck, and she closes her eyes.
“Yes,” she amends. “Sounds good.”
Pink shimmers into yellow, and red into orange. Nobara cups her hands around her mouth and ducks into the fray.
“You’re done for this time, Ba-ka-shi!” she calls out, digging her heels into the dirt. Hatake blinks, a little slower than normal. Evidently, the nickname means something to him, because of course it does.
“CHARGE!” a horde of Uzumakis cry. She weaves between them, launching an array of weapons between each gap. Several of the clones glance in her direction, shifting just enough to cover her.
Hatake launches himself into the air, easily taking out a dozen of the clones at once. Another slips into the center, taking a knee; his fingers circle around his lips, brows furrowed in concentration.
“Got you now!” Nobara crows, Uzumaki’s voice layered over her own. “Take ‘im out, Bastard!”
The jounin sends a kunai towards the crouching blond, startling when he goes up in smoke. A fireball spins behind him, burning bright. Ash drifts through the wind, flaking off from a half-burnt log.
Hatake reaches out towards the attacking ‘clone.’ Nobara raises both hands, fingers slotting into the ‘Snake’ seal just as another clone takes the hit.
The jounin descends, and Nobara releases a kunai.
“Time to end this,” she says. From either side of the man, several of Uzumaki’s clones attack, and Uchiha sends out a handful of shuriken.
When Hatake jerks backwards, half of the clones go up in smoke. Another kunai, hidden, reorients the first. Uzumaki latches onto the jounin’s back, a mimicry of his second go at the man, and catches the kunai at Hatake’s throat.
“You left your back open again, Sensei,” he says smugly, while Nobara’s second kunai cuts through string. Uchiha steps forwards, disguise falling, and catches the bells before they can hit the ground.
“Maa,” Hatake says airily. “I suppose I did. But what will you do now?”
Uchiha tosses one of the bells at Uzumaki’s clone, rolling his eyes when the latter yelps. He squints at the object, grumbling under his breath, before handing it over to Nobara.
“This,” Uzumaki says, holding his hand out when the clone leaps overhead. A bell lands safely in his hand with a characteristic jingle. He directs a glance towards Uchiha, the apparent culprit for the sound, and breaks out into a grin. “What will you do now, Sensei?” he echoes the man mockingly. “We’ve all got a bell.”
“I do believe I told you whoever doesn’t steal a bell from me fails…” Hatake muses. “And as far as I can tell, that bell there didn’t come from me.”
“‘All you need is one bell a piece,’” Uchiha says flatly. “That’s what you said, afterwards.”
Uzumaki nods wisely. “‘Use whatever’s at your disposal.’ You said that, too, y’know.
“Besides, it’s not like any of us just stood by,” Nobara points out, crossing her arms. “Looks like you’ve backed yourself into a corner, sensei.”
Hatake holds her gaze for several moments before letting out a low hum. “Alright,” he concedes, almost wryly. “You pass.”
A pause.
Uzumaki throws his arms upwards in a cheer, only for his eyes to widen when he starts tipping backwards. Uchiha reaches out, righting him just before he hits the ground.
“Idiot,” Uchiha says without heat. With his lips curled into a smirk, he resembles a cat—content and undeniably smug.
“Bastard,” Uzumaki replies in the same tone. Once again, he’s wearing that fox-like grin.
There are differences, even discounting the coloring. But at times like these, the lines become blurred. And she’s never been one for being left behind.
Nobara steps forwards, planting her hands on either of their shoulders before prying them apart. “I need a break,” she tells them. “And you two are going to carry my things.”
“Um,” Uzumaki says, at the same time Uchiha narrows his eyes.
Nobara raises a hand, standing between them. “Not now,” she says cryptically, completely ignoring Hatake’s raised brow. “Maybe never. We’ll see.”