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Warm sunlight streamed in through closed blinds, painting stripes on the insides of Kakashi’s closed eyelids. A tapping on his window forced him to crack open one eye. Messenger hawk. Kakashi sighed and ran a hand over his facemask. He’d stumbled back so late after meeting with that Jounin from the International Relations Department that he’d passed out cold between the sheets before he got the chance.
Normally he’d head home after finishing his research, but the curves on her… Kakashi grinned. It was a good thing too, otherwise he’d have been caught bare-headed. The rest of the Jounin seemed to have acquired his team’s idiotic obsession with finding out what his face looked like and he wouldn’t put it past Inoichi to try and extract memory data from a hawk. Zabuza was right, this whole teaching thing was making him soft.
He ate quickly, barely glancing at the message: a memo about the upcoming Chunin exams. He already knew more about the logistics than the rest of the team leaders. His source in the IRD had been very forthcoming. With intel and a couple other things too. Kakashi let his mind wander back to sweet, sweet lips, and even sweeter thighs.
The cuckoo clock, a birthday present from Guy and the only personal possession in the room, began to squawk. Kakashi watched it flap its wings with mild interest. Right, the Chunin exams. He’d have to put in his team to the Hokage soon if they were going to participate. Unless that was yesterday? He peeked at the memo. He had until tomorrow at 4 p.m. to decide. That reminded him, he’d told his Genin to meet on training field four at six o’clock sharp. It was now a little after eleven. He’d be just in time.
“You’re late!” Sakura and Naruto shrieked in unison, their faces turning fascinating shades of red. Sasuke merely snorted as if he’d been expecting such behavior.
At this point they really should, Kakashi realized. This was, by his count, the 13th consecutive day since the Land of Waves that he’d stood them up for training, and yet even Sasuke the non-believer always showed up as instructed. Interesting.
“Well you see, there was this little old lady who needed help with her groceries…”
But Team Seven had already returned to their second favorite activity after scolding Kakashi: bickering.
“Aren’t you glad we didn’t ditch practice to get ramen now, huh?” Sakura hissed as Naruto slouched down inside his jumpsuit.
“That wasn’t my idea.”
“It was too! Sensei, I swear, I would NEVER-”
“What about the time you ran home to get your hairbrush?” Sasuke cut in. Sakura shut up with a small ‘eeep’.
Kakashi shook his head. He thought he’d struck gold with his brilliant little idea to force them to work together to shave Guy’s head, but that appeared to have been a fluke. Sure, Asuma grumbled about how he was stuck with “Hungry, Bossy, and Lazy” but at least HIS team could go out to eat together without destroying the restaurant, or worse, lapsing into tense, uncomfortable silence.
“Alright guys- and girls,” he added as Sakura scowled. “Are you ready for the mission today?”
Relief shone in their eyes.
Kakashi didn’t tell them anything. He merely took off at a pace that would require them to maintain a brisk jog to keep up. If they couldn’t breathe enough to talk, then they couldn’t fight. It was that simple.
“I bet… this means… we’re on a… super top-secret… mission,” Naruto huffed out when he finally had them all stop for a break in a small, densely-wooded clearing.
“You dolt, it probably means Kakashi’s pulling our training out of his ass. He said we were the first group he’s ever passed, remember? He probably never wanted students,” Sasuke said bitterly, which reminded his shocked sensei how perceptive the boy could be. Except when it came to Itachi, his fellow teammates, anything that involved empathy or common sense, really.
Sakura could only grunt from her position sprawled at the foot of a towering oak tree. She used some of the water from her canteen to wash off the dirt that had accumulated on her face before drinking the rest.
Kakashi decided he’d heard enough and materialized in the middle of the clearing. “I bet you’re all wondering why I brought you all out here. Now that we’re far enough outside the village, I can tell you.” Against their better judgement, he could see them lean forward with interest.
“We’re going camping.”
The results were predictable. Sakura flopped back in despair (she hadn’t packed an extra set clothes- how was she to know that her ordinary training could turn into a survival exercise at any moment?). Sasuke sat in stone-face silence, perhaps praying for a group of enemy ninjas to attack from the sidelines. Naruto pumped his fist in the air.
“Yesss! Camping with Kakashi-sensei! This is gonna be the best day ever.” He went in for a hug, which Kakashi neatly side-stepped.
“Oh I’m not going to be with you. I’ll be at a nice little inn a few miles from here where there’s running water and hot food. I’ll come and get you tomorrow.” He paused for dramatic effect. “What’s left of you, that is. Did I mention the bears in this area are particularly vicious?”
Kakashi chuckled to himself as he vanished into the foliage, Team Seven’s wails echoing in his ears.
Of course, he did not go to the cozy inn but settled himself in for a long night of staking-out. The IRD Jounin had let slip something about the Forest of Death, and to use that arena for anything other than a no-holds-barred survival test would be a waste. It was an excellent way to weed out those with very little field experience and damnit, if his kids were going to go, they sure as hell weren’t getting eliminated by something so basic as roughing it for a few days. Unfortunately, they were not off to a very good start.
Sasuke had already pitched his tent, using the blanket from his field kit and some branches collected from the surrounding area. He was watching with a smirk as Naruto struggled with his. Sakura hadn’t even started and was searching through the bushes for plants she could use as shampoo. She drifted further and further from the campsite, her nose practically pressed to the ground. The sun would be setting soon and they had yet to secure food or water, let alone set up a watch.
“Why dontcha stop looking all smug and do something useful, asshole!” Naruto hollered.
“Why don’t you BE useful for once?” Sasuke shot back. That was all the prompting Naruto needed to abandon his pile of sticks and blankets and start a fistfight. Kakashi settled back on his haunches. Perhaps he should’ve brought a book to read.
A scream pierced the air. Sakura. Kakashi cursed himself for being so lax. Naruto and Sasuke froze too before wordlessly grabbing their weapons and running into the woods together.
Kakashi leapt from tree limb to tree limb, keeping an eye on the two boys while at the simultaneously locating Sakura’s chakra. She was stationary, but didn’t seem to be hurt or exhausted. Oddly, she seemed to be making a clumsy attempt to mask her chakra, which in and of itself was a much higher level technique than what she’d seen from her. Of course, she had picked up on the chakra control lesson remarkably well. Kakashi realized he’d been teaching those techniques on the most basic level so the boys could get the hang of it, while stressing the physical aspect of the ninja arts to compensate. Which was the opposite of Sakura’s strengths. He made a mental note to pay her a bit of extra attention once this exercise was over.
Naruto and Sasuke proved that they could at least put aside their petty feud when one of the team was in immediate danger. However, dashing headlong into an unknown enemy was not the most appropriate response.
This finally occurred to Sasuke and he yanked back on Naruto’s collar to slow him down.
“What the hell-” Sasuke clamped a hand over his mouth.
“We need a plan,” he muttered out of the side of his mouth. “We can use the element of surprise to our advantage. You stay here while I scout ahead. When I’m in position I’ll make a hawk call. That’s your signal to come find me.”
He should also make a distress signal, Kakashi mused, and perhaps even one to indicate retreat, but Sasuke was never one for backup plans. Still he had to admire the way the kid melted into the undergrowth. He almost needed his Sharingan to keep track of him. Almost.
Kakashi rushed ahead to check on Sakura and what he saw made his stomach turn over. She must not have been paying attention to her surroundings because she’d stumbled across a bear’s den at the bottom of a ravine and now a ten-foot monstrosity was sniffing ever closer to her hiding spot behind a boulder. He almost intervened right then and there, but Sasuke had the same idea.
Without bothering to contact Naruto, he shimmied up the nearest tree. He fingered his ninja stars before deciding on a kunai. He took careful aim and let it fly, his hands perfectly still. The kunai buried itself almost to the hilt but the bear’s thick skull provided a layer of protection he didn’t anticipate. It let out an earsplitting roar and took a swipe at the tree Sasuke was hiding in.
This at least gave Sakura a chance to run to higher ground, which she took, then paused to look back at the battle. Sasuke landed lightly on his feet.
“Is that all you got?” he murmured as he let his Sharingan swirl to life. Kakashi made another mental note to talk with him about responsible use of power since casting illusions on animals was pointless and there was not much in terms of technique he could learn from a bear. At this rate, the kid would be blind before he hit twenty.
Sasuke let loose a massive Katon and the scent of singed fur hit Kakashi’s nostrils. The bear yelped in pain and closed its eyes, shaking its giant head back and forth, momentarily disoriented by the smoke and pain. It struck out blindly but Sasuke was able to dodge with ease.
“Get out of here Sakura!”
She hesitated. Then, her eyes widened and she pointed with a shaking finger. “L-lookout!” Another bear, this one even larger, emerged from the den. A bear Sasuke would’ve known about had he bothered to do proper recon. Idiot. Kakshi was tempted to bash his head against the nearest tree, but he was too afraid to tear his eyes away from the scene below him.
“Hey Rotbreath, look at me! Thanks for the heads-up by the way Sasuke.”
Of course. The number-one kucklehead ninja strikes again.
Naruto barreled his way down the steep slope and rammed his shoulder into the leg of the bear in front of Sasuke. No effect, other than the animal was now furious and focused solely on him. Naruto then swung his fist into its nose as it bent down for a bite. The bear swiped him out of the way with such ferocity that he went sailing through the air, crashed through a few layers of branches, then lay still at the mouth of the den.
“I said run, Sakura!” Sasuke repeated. “I’ll hold them off.”
“I’m not useless you know,” she shrieked.
“Then do something,” Sasuke said hotly.
For a moment Sakura looked like she was going to cry. Then, she squared her shoulders and brought her hands together to form the seal for the Shadow Clone jutsu.
“Nice,” Kakashi whispered. The shadow clones would have their scent as well as their appearance. Sasuke seemed to catch on too, as he made a few clones of his own and sent them scampering over to Naruto’s position. Sakura was using hers to lure the other bear away from him.
Sasuke let off another Katon and this time when the bear reared back he jumped up and with an acrobatic twist, neatly slicing the jugular. He was in pursuit of the second one when Sakura called him back.
“We have to help Naruto- he’s hurt!” He gritted his teeth and dispersed his clones. Sakura’s were able to get further from her anyhow, though he didn’t know how long she’d be able to sustain them with her limited endurance.
She was kneeling at Naruto’s side when he reached them. Kakashi sent a small prayer of thanks to the Kyuubi, for without the fox’s healing abilities the boy’s injuries could have easily been fatal. From his vantage point he could already see blood soaking through the orange of his clothes, but he was beginning to stir.
Sasuke hung back, wary as Sakura cut open the shirt and began to feel around the wound.
“Do you have bandages?” She snapped, suddenly businesslike.
“In my first-aid kit back at camp.”
“That’s too far away. The claws missed any major arteries or organs but he’s got a real bad gash on his side that could cause him to bleed out.”
“How do you know that?” Sasuke asked, incredulous.
“I-I can feel it. Through my chakra. If I focus it in my fingertips,” Sakura said, a flush creeping up her neck. Kakashi was stunned. That she had the wherewithal to figure out basic medical ninjustu on the fly without any formal training other than basic chakra control was nearly as miraculous as Sasuke awakening his own sharingan.
“But there’s no time to explain!” The urgency in her voice was back. “Give me your shirt. I need something to stop the bleeding.” Now it was Sasuke’s turn to hesitate.
“Now! Unless you want to come over here and put your hands over the wound.”
He suppressed a shudder and did as he was told. Sakura didn’t even glance up as he handed over the shirt. A sight that would have surely sent her into fits of hysterics just a few hours ago. She completed a thorough assessment that could’ve been torn straight from the pages of the first-aid handbook.
“Doesn’t look like there’s any head or neck injuries so it should be safe to move him. Can you find us a place with water and shelter?”
Sasuke jerked his head in a nod, then sped off through the trees. By the time he returned, Naruto was sitting up and joking about how he’d literally taken the shirt off of Sasuke’s back.
“I wouldn’t laugh about my own weakness, moron,” he griped but it lacked the usual venom behind it.
Naruto stood with one arm around him and the other around Sakura, they made slow progress until Naruto came up with the idea to let his shadow clones scout ahead and clear a path. When they finally reached the new campsite, a nice, open patch of grass next to a river, Sakura’s legs buckled with exhaustion. She fought back tears at this embarrassing display of weakness but the boys pretended not to notice as Naruto entertained her with a dramatic reenactment of the bear attack while Sasuke collected wood for a fire.
Kakashi marveled that after such a short period of time, Naruto was no worse for wear. He even had the energy to make MORE clones to go back and collect their packs from the old site. He waited until the kids had settled down around the fire with some dried fruit and jerky for dinner before appearing in their midst. He was pleased that he immediately had to duck kunai thrown from three different directions.
Their teamwork might not be perfect yet, but they’d shown that they could pull it together when the shit hit the fan; which was perhaps the most important skill for a ninja to have, in Kakashi’s opinion.
“Not bad,” he said. “What say you we end this mission early and hit up that little inn I mentioned earlier? If I remember correctly there’s a hot spri-”
“Oh THANK YOU Kakashi-sensei.”
“Best camping trip everrr!”
Only Sasuke looked mildly disappointed.
The next day Kakashi showed up to the Chunin exam briefing to put forth the names of his squad for promotion. He was one hour late, much to his delight.