"What are you reading there, Naruto?" asked Sakura, revealing exactly how bored she was.
"A book," said Naruto, frowning thoughtfully.
Sakura rolled her eyes at the idiocy of the response. "What kind of book?"
"A friend of mine, Yuuno Scrya, loaned it to me," answered Naruto, still not looking up. "It deals with some useful utility spells."
"Che," muttered Sasuke in a dismissive manner.
"You're reading some fantasy story?" asked Sakura. "Can't you study something useful?"
"Hmf," said Naruto, frowning more and tracing out something on the page.
Kakashi opened the door and looked over the assigned group. This group looks like another failure. Brooding emo boy, check. Fangirl type, check. Hyperactive knucklehead... no. Bookworm apparently.
"So you're the three genin I'm stuck with," said Kakashi aloud. "I have to say - I'm not impressed. Meet me on the roof."
Kakashi got to the roof and discovered Naruto was already there?! Did he use a bunshin or something? Maa, whatever.
Sakura and Sasuke reached the roof a moment later, Sakura glaring at Naruto as she did.
"What was the big idea jumping out the window?!" Sakura demanded.
Naruto turned another page in his book, not looking up. "I got here, didn't I?"
"Well, suppose we start with introductions, shall we?" asked Kakashi.
"You're kind of suspicious, why don't you go first?" asked Sakura.
"I'm Kakashi Hatake, and I don't really feel like telling you about dreams, I like a lot of things, and there are a number of things I dislike. You're next, angsty-boy."
"Sasuke Uchiha," said Sasuke, brooding. "I dislike useless fangirls, betrayers, my Uncle Genma, takoyaki, and generally have little patience with abject idiocy. I have nothing in particular I like, that I might be willing to mention in current company. My goal is to kill a certain someone in an extremely violent or humiliating manner, preferably both."
"Okayyyy," said Kakashi, who wasn't expecting that much wordiness but understood the sentiment. "Next would be you, bookworm."
"Naruto Uzumaki, genin ninja and journeymage, artillery-spell specialist," said Naruto, putting away the book carefully. "I like ramen, some dragons, big explosions, tweaking jutsu and spells, and my fiancee."
"'spells'?" asked Kakashi.
"'dragons'?" asked Sasuke.
"'fiancee'?" asked Sakura.
"I dislike collateral damage, friendly fire incidents, not having backup when I REALLY find myself in over my head, and people dissing my fiancee," said Naruto. "She's got some blood pressure problems or something, but she's a nice girl and according to damn near everyone at the bureau who took a look at her - she really does like me. So unless you want a thunderbolt dropped on your head at some point - don't diss her."
"Gone off into fantasyland, dobe?" asked Sasuke.
"You diss me, that's fine, people do that all the time," continued Naruto with a nod towards Sasuke. "Just don't go after her. According to one of the older gal's in the Bureau, Hinata's got self-confidence issues and I need to work on getting her over that."
"Fantasyland," repeated Sasuke with a smirk.
"Sakura Haruno," said Sakura by way of introduction when she decided the byplay had ended. "And I like..." (blush) and my dreams are..." (blush fidget) and I dislike annoying uncool boys like Naruto!"
Kakashi sighed, wondering if these three were going to fail worse than the last batch. Oh well, might as well get on with it. "Tomorrow there will be a little test -"
"Hey, what can you tell me about Kakashi Hatake? Know anything about him?"
Teuchi looked over from where the noodles were boiling. "Kakashi? The famous copy-nin, Sharingan Kakashi?"
"That's probably him," agreed Naruto between bites of noodles. "I just got assigned to his squad. Some kind of survival training or test going on tomorrow morning."
One of the other customers snorted. "Aren't you supposed to not eat before Kakashi's test?"
"You got to eat regularly to keep your chakra and mana up," said Naruto, waving the point off with his chopsticks. "Besides, he said not to eat 'breakfast' - this is dinner. And before I head off tomorrow I'll just get an early morning snack or something and bring along some juice. If he's gonna work us until we drop or something, cause he was talking about making us throw up, then something like that'd be okay."
The customer in the jonin vest stared at Naruto as if a dog had just walked up and started singing enka.
"What?" asked Naruto, checking to see he didn't have any noodles on his face.
"So you were late until we've only got two hours to get those bells from you," noted Naruto.
"Right, and in order to get them, you'll have to come after me with killing intent," said Kakashi.
"Ah, that explains it," said Naruto, nodding. "I was wondering why you were going out of your way to be annoying."
"Like you know me?" asked Kakashi.
"Kakashi Hatake, aka Sharingan Kakashi, alias 'the infamous Copy-nin Kakashi', alias the son of the White Fang, Scarecrow of the Leaf, sometimes known as the Rival of Maito Gai. Favorite word: teamwork. Favorite foods are salt-broiled saury and miso soup with eggplant. You least like fried foods or really sweet stuff. Accomplished over a thousand missions, almost fifty of them S-Rank. Major expert at ninjutsu, expert taijutsu, jonin-level genjutsu. Your speed at hand-seals is said to be nearly as fast as the Third. Graduated from the Ninja Academy at age five, made chunin a year later, jonin at thirteen. Joined ANBU after a tragic unrequited love triangle-"
"That's enough," interrupted Kakashi, who then paused. From someone with dead-last Academy records, that was some pretty good intel. "You researched me?"
"You didn't give us a lot of details yesterday," said Naruto with a shrug. "Missions can succeed or fail based on how much information we get, so I figured that was part of the test. Was I wrong?"
"No, actually you passed that part of the test," said Kakashi, covering any surprise at this by development with the lie that he had expected it. "I was just surprised you did so well."
"WHAT?!" screeched Sakura. "Nobody said we were supposed to do research!"
"Always look underneath the underneath," lectured Kakashi. "You should know that. You are a ninja now, right?"
Sakura twitched a few times at the thought of NARUTO having picked up a clue she hadn't. This did not bode well.
"So information-gathering was the first part, bell collection is the second," mused Naruto aloud. "Hmmm. Okay, Sasuke and Sakura. I'll let you go first."
"Huh, why?" asked Sakura.
"Because I got a point for information-gathering," said Naruto as if it were obvious. "There are two bells, three of us. So if you two go together, you've got a better chance."
"That's reasonable," admitted Kakashi. "However it's also wrong. Only two of you will be going on to become genin. The third gets no lunch and goes back to the Academy."
"Well," mused Naruto after another pause, "if I fail - I can always fall back on being a mage. Maybe go and see more of the worlds. Since I have backup options, it still means that Sasuke and Sakura should go first."
"I see," said Sasuke with a nod. "Go play with your fantasy books and dolls then. We'll just take the bells."
"Right!" seconded Sakura. "I'm ready Sasuke!"
"Stay out of my way," said Sasuke as reply.
Kakashi shrugged. It didn't look like this was going to go by his script. "Begin."
(Posted Tue, 06 Apr 2010 17:07)
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