"Not much," admitted Naruto.
"Well, I at least know this stuff," said Yuri cheerfully. "At least there's no bloodstains, feces, large carnivorous insects..."
Naruto watched her for a few moments. "What are you doing?"
"Cleaning," said Yuri, wondering if she could get a cute maid uniform. Something that would look good with her skin tone. She rather fancied the one she'd spotted on the lead domestic at that farm. For one thing, all those frills and laces could easily conceal an arsenal while not looking as if that were the case. Mainly though, it was cute.
"Uhm," said Naruto. "You don't need to do that, you know."
"Of course I do," said Yuri. "Huh. You might want to go with canned goods if you're going to be gone for a long periods of time. These short-term perishables like milk go bad too quickly and then you just end up throwing them out."
Kakashi Hatake knew something had changed. He was very confident in his own abilities, but one didn't get to survive to jonin level without learning a certain degree of caution.
Going into the Hokage's office, and finding a pair of women flanking the Hokage's desk was a further indication that his instincts were correct. Something HAD changed. Since both women had dark brown skin, white hair, long pointed ears, and were armed - he thought perhaps he ought to just go ahead and ask.
"Hokage-sama," began Kakashi.
"Naruto. Teleport-very-far-away jutsu." The Hokage nodded at his subordinate. "Very far away indeed."
"Ah," said Kakashi, looking over the two armored sentinels.
"Dark Elves," said the Hokage. "Apparently, in their culture - proving that you are a powerful male means that you are attractive to them no matter what your age is. Right?"
"Actually, Lord Hokage," said the one on the Hokage's right. "That you live in a world of dangerous and powerful individuals and have managed to survive to this age as a leader of such - that makes you a worthy leader and desirable mate."
Kakashi boggled so much that even with his face mostly concealed it was blantantly obvious.
The Hokage merely nodded with a slight smile.
"Naruto's jutsu is responsible for this?" asked Kakashi, deciding he'd think about the details later.
"Yes," said the Third Hokage, smile still in place.
"It's not just the two of them is it?" asked Kakashi, knowing that the answer would have repercussions through the ninja world.
"No," said the Hokage.
"Troublesome," said Kakashi.
"Depends on your definition of trouble," said the Hokage. "Some troubles aren't so bad to bear."
That both of the Dark Elves bore the exact same smile was a detail that Kakashi didn't miss - but didn't think he wanted to think about.
"Okay," said Kakashi the next morning. "The object is to take these two bells from me. Ninja tools are okay."
Naruto's hand dipped towards his belt.
"Summons are not. Ninjitsu, taijutsu, genjutsu - all of these are acceptable." Kakashi watched Naruto's expression fall from confident to dismay then settle into frustration. Way too easy to read.
"What about traps, poisons, explosives?" asked Sakura. Not that I've got anything ready, but this test doesn't make a lot of sense. I'm missing information.
Kakashi blinked with his one visible eye and reconsidered the kunoichi on the team. "Try to be considerate, other teams have to use the area after all."
"Two bells, so one of us has to fail the test," pointed out Sakura.
"True," said Kakashi.
"So pets and ninja companions that don't need to be summoned are okay?" asked Sakura.
"I wasn't aware you had any," said Kakashi. "So, no. If you were an Inuzuka, that might be different."
"Okay," said Sakura, brow furrowed as she tried to figure this out.
"That said, you'll have to come after me with killing intent to have any chance of getting..." Kakashi paused as he felt something that wasn't quite electricity nearby. He moved quickly, then noticed a slight distortion in the air around where his belt pouch had been. "Naruto! I didn't say 'start' yet."
Naruto shrugged. "Worth a shot."
"Hmmm," hmmmed Kakashi, before nodding once. It had been sneaky and relatively subtle for him to try and teleport the bells away. Well, subtle for Naruto from what he knew about the brat. "Now. Start."
Something had changed. Changed a lot. Sasuke wasn't sure what all had been involved, but he'd been adding things up as he went along.
Sakura had been a pathetic fangirl a few days ago. Now she was largely ignoring him and seemed more serious as a kunoichi. While he certainly approved of the change, he was also puzzled by it.
Naruto seemed far more serious. The dead-last loser clown loudmouth was keeping quiet for the most part.
There had been talk about Naruto gaining summons, and some sort of new jutsu. So Sasuke had paid attention when Sakura had tried to distract Kakashi and Naruto had put his hands in a nonstandard seal position. He'd caught a glimpse of the air distorting around the pouch with the bells, but their jonin-sensei had proven to be too alert for the ploy to work.
Still, it had been a good try. Now it was his turn.
He drew kunai and began slashing at the jonin, using a combination attack he'd perfected through countless hours of practice.
Unfortunately, it was like trying to hit smoke. The jonin was not only avoiding each strike effortlessly, he pulled a book out and started reading it DURING THE ATTACK!
It was like he was TRYING to annoy... oh.
Sasuke leaped back, pulled out a small notebook, and started writing in it.
"Eh? Is that it?" asked Kakashi.
"No, just making sure I wrote your name down correctly," said Sasuke absently before closing the notebook and putting it away again.
"Oh? A list of people you really admire?" asked Kakashi.
"No, vengeance list," said Sasuke, going through handseals and drawing a deep breath. "Fire Release! Great Fireball Technique!"
The blast completely enveloped the jonin.
"Sasuke! Behind you!"
"Eh?" asked Sasuke, twisting.
"THOUSAND YEARS OF DEATH!"
POKE!
"Oh man," said Naruto from somewhere nearby. "That looked like it hurt. And was embarassing as hell... wish I had a camera."
There was a meaty smack, which was probably Sakura responding to Naruto's comment with some completely appropriate violence.
Sasuke approved, because that HAD hurt and it WAS embarassing.
"First lesson," said Kakashi. "Taijutsu."
Sasuke slowly got up, trying to ignore the spasms and pain from his buttocks, to see Naruto being very precisely beaten down while Sakura raced towards him as if she could actually do something.
Naruto ended up getting kicked into the shrubbery, not having lasted even two minutes, and the jonin quickly went to a set of handsigns.
"Ninjutsu," said the jonin, still going through hand-signs.
"Look out!" yelled Sasuke, getting up and leaping to the side himself. He didn't really want to see whatever was going to pop out at the end of all that.
There was a short scream from Sakura, indicating that she had NOT gotten away in time.
Sasuke frowned, put his back against a tree, and slowly eased around to where he could look back into the clearing. Sakura was down and smouldering slightly.
Of considerably more concern was that Kakashi Hatake was nowhere to be seen.
Kakashi had noticed two more presences and figured these were the summons or animal companions that Naruto and Sakura had been referring to. They'd obviously summoned them earlier and sent them off to hide, which was actually good thinking on the parts of those genin.
When Naruto had gotten beaten on, the two had remained hidden but had given their position away.
Getting a good look at one, he was reminded of what he'd seen in the Hokage's office.
Skin the color of chocolate, hair that was a pale white, long ears. Blue denim coveralls and a pair of slippers, both pretty well-worn, and that was it as far as her outfit was concerned. In each hand was a curved dagger of about the length of his own hand. Those long ears of her were twitching, but otherwise she was completely still and crouched on the lowest branch of a tree.
When she moved, he was moderately impressed as the only indication he'd gotten that she was aware of his presence was the way those ears had abruptly stopped twitching. She rolled and leapt, using the branch as a springboard to head towards him with both knives.
Inexperienced in this sort of combat though, as he was easily able to get underneath her and drive his fist into her belly. Her green eyes widened a moment before, probably realizing her mistake. Naturally, the girl folded around the impact site and was left curled up and puking on the grass.
Next he made his way to the second of the odd presences and was rewarded with a very different looking individual. Blue hair, wings, spear in one hand, very pale.
"GOT YOU!"
And someone who had been completely undetectable had just revealed herself and was launching an attack.
"That was pathetic," chided Kakashi as he used a palmstrike to smack the redheaded girl aside, deflecting her charge so that she slammed into a tree. "You gave away a nearly perfect ambush by yelling out that you were attacking."
Now the winged girl was attacking, doing some sort of weapons-enhancement jutsu on her spear so that it was radiating cold and trying to perform a rapid-strike technique.
He tripped her, waited for her to spread wings, then tapped her in the back of the head. She went down the rest of the way without further difficulty.
Kakashi paused, listening with more than his ears, but that appeared to be it.
"Hmmm," hmmmed Kakashi.
(Posted Fri, 22 Jun 2012 05:43)
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