Time trickled by as they trained.
By the time the sun was high in the sky, Sakura was sprawled out like a salted fish in the shade of a tree, utterly unable to comprehend how these two boys possessed such boundless energy. It had been the entire morning; didn't they know how to rest?
"Yo, good morning, Sakura!"
Hearing the flippant greeting, Sakura's temper flared. She shot to her feet, her glare murderous as she stared daggers at the man before her. "Kakashi-sensei, could you perhaps try to have some concept of time? Do you even know what time it is now?"
"My apologies. I was looking in the mirror this morning and accidentally lost myself in my own reflection," Kakashi said with an apologetic smile.
Sakura scoffed. It was the first time she'd realized just how shameless her teacher could be.
"Hey! You two, hurry up and rest. The exercise will begin in one hour!" Kakashi's visible eye curved into a crescent as he called out to the two figures in the distance.
Naruto's movements faltered, the right hand supporting his entire body nearly giving way. "...497, 498, 499… 500!"
Pushing himself up with effort, he looked at Sasuke, who was also training nearby, and advised, "Going to extremes will only backfire. Your training regimen should be tailored to your own condition."
With that, he walked towards the nearby river.
Sasuke spared him a sideways glance. He wasn't an idiot; he naturally understood that the other boy wasn't wrong. But for the first time, for the very first time, he felt such intense anger at his own past laziness.
What had he even been doing all these years?
They were both training, but he couldn't even keep up with half the training volume of the other boy!
Every time he thought of this, a wave of disgust washed over him for the impotent rage he'd felt whenever he'd been defeated at the Academy.
Thump!
"Sasuke-kun!" Sakura cried out, rushing over to help the fallen Sasuke to his feet.
"Full of fighting spirit, I see!" Kakashi nodded with satisfaction. "However, you won't get far in the upcoming exercise without ample stamina. And the consequences of failing this exercise are quite severe…"
He paused deliberately at the crucial point, drawing it out, but unfortunately for him…
Naruto was off doing something by the river; Sasuke was too exhausted to even speak; and Sakura, well, her crush was clearly more important to her than Kakashi-sensei was.
"Ahem, if you don't pass this exercise, you'll be sent right back to the Ninja Academy to start over!"
Sasuke: "…"
"Eh?!!"
Looking at Sakura's stunned face, Kakashi's wounded pride finally felt a sliver of comfort.
One hour later.
"…Your mission is to take these bells from my possession. Understood?" Kakashi said with a grin, dangling two small bells.
"Why are there only two bells?" Sakura's studious nature kicked in, and she immediately spotted the critical detail.
[Bells, huh… I wonder if the Guardian Bells from the temple are still there?] Naruto mused. Though he'd never understood how that temple's Buddha statue had sent him back three years, there was no doubt that the Guardian Bells of both Kuro and his adoptive father, Owl, had allowed him to witness many interesting things.
"…Understood?" Kakashi asked again.
"Un-understood…" Sakura gulped, her voice laced with nervousness.
"Then, the exercise… begins!" With a sweep of Kakashi's hand, the three genin vanished from their spots.
Kakashi nodded in satisfaction. It seemed their fundamentals were all solid; his life might be a bit easier from now on.
"In the bushes… behind the tree trunk… interesting." He suddenly realized that with a quick scan, he could only locate two of them.
Naruto glanced at his teammates hidden to his left and right, their positions rife with openings. He nodded internally. Without the pressure of a true life-or-death situation, their current hiding skills were quite good; he couldn't demand too much.
Breath control and sound suppression were the two core tenets of the stealth techniques he had learned in his past life. They were no less applicable in this one.
"Here he comes. His target is… Sakura." Kakashi was heading straight for Sakura's hiding spot.
Naruto's left hand tightened around his sword's scabbard, waiting intently for an opportunity. As Kakashi drew nearer, Naruto saw a faint red dot illuminate on the jonin's back. His blade began to slide silently from its sheath.
The Deathblow marker—an old specialty from his past life.
Basically, in his experience, as long as that red dot appeared on an enemy, he could make short work of them.
Shhh-shhh!
Two shuriken flew from Sakura's hand – one an obvious feint, the other streaking from Kakashi's blind spot. The girl's practical combat scores at the Academy might not have been top-tier, but she wasn't at the bottom either.
Kakashi sidestepped one, but the second, following close behind, struck him squarely in a vital area.
"D-Did I get him?!!" Sakura stared in disbelief.
"Not quite!" Kakashi's voice suddenly sounded from behind her. The "Kakashi" struck by the shuriken dissolved into a puff of smoke, replaced by a log.
"One of the three essential ninja arts – Ninjutsu!"
Kakashi's hand, shaped like a blade, chopped towards the girl's nape.
Suddenly, a figure leaped down from the tree branch above, hands gripping a sword hilt tightly. The chillingly sharp blade plunged accurately into the red dot on Kakashi's back.
"Ugh…" Kakashi's lips moved slightly as he caught a glimpse of the figure in his peripheral vision. But his life force was already fading, and he slowly crumpled to the ground.
"Ah!!!" Sakura shrieked in terror, watching the scene unfold. She didn't understand. Wasn't this just an exercise? Why! Why had someone been killed?!
Naruto pulled his blade free, ignoring the stunned girl. Instead, he meticulously scanned his surroundings.
He knew better than anyone what it felt like for a blade to pierce flesh. That strange sensation just now, like stabbing into some dense, resistant matter, was definitely not the familiar feeling.
"Left, right, front, back, above… below!" Naruto leaped backwards. From the patch of earth where he had just been standing, a pair of hands suddenly shot out.
"Fire Style: Great Fireball Technique!"
Sasuke, drawn by the commotion, seized the chance. His hands flew through seals, and a massive fireball, nearly a meter in diameter, slammed violently into the emerging hands.
Naruto, meanwhile, lunged from the right, swiftly scooping up the paralyzed Sakura and retreating.
BOOM!
Sparks flew!
A large, scorched crater was seared into the earth before their eyes.
Sasuke landed steadily on a thick tree branch. Just as he was about to closely examine the ground below, a pair of hands shot out from the dense leaves above his head, dragging him into the darkness.
"Argh!" Sasuke's piercing scream startled the birds in the forest into flight.
Immediately after, Sasuke's "head" was tossed out from the trees.
The sight and sound were all too real. Sakura, who had just regained her composure, rolled her eyes back and fainted dead away.
Naruto's eyes narrowed slightly. He didn't even glance at the head on the ground. Illusions like this? One of his teachers, Lady Butterfly, had been quite adept at them. Unfortunately, his own aptitude for genjutsu was rather poor; he'd never grasped its finer points. However, he had a knack for seeing through them.
"Another of the three essential ninja arts – Genjutsu!"
Kakashi's form slowly emerged from the earth. As he appeared, the bleeding head on the ground transformed into a rock of equivalent size.
A shuriken flew, and Naruto's figure followed close behind it.
Clang!
Kakashi's kunai flashed, deflecting the shuriken. A heavy sword blow followed immediately. The sheer force of the impact made Kakashi stumble. Naruto seized the opening, darting behind him. Reversing his grip on his sword, he braced the pommel with his right hand and thrust fiercely towards his enemy's spine.
[Falling Shadow…]
Thwump!
That peculiar sensation of impact, not quite right, came from his blade yet again.
[What is it this time?]
The smoke cleared, revealing a log impaled firmly on his sword. Once again, this Substitution Jutsu, a combination of clone and transformation techniques, frustrated him immensely.
He knew the Substitution Jutsu – it was one of the three basic techniques required of a ninja. He could perform it, but not with the seamless proficiency Kakashi demonstrated.