Without Kage Bunshin

Chapter 6: Purpose of a Test

Sakura's strong suit is in her academics, and she knows it. This does not do her much good because a bit of book smarts aren't going to be enough to kill the man who had killed one of her friends so effortlessly, no matter how annoying he can be. Come to think of it, Naruto had been the closest thing that she had to a real friend. She had distanced herself from what few friends she had in pursuit of Sasuke, who is the most important person in her heart, next to her parents.

Naruto was different. He had forced himself into her life despite her vehement and occasionally violent protests. When she wasn't attempting to flirt with Sasuke or studying, most of Sakura's time had been spent dealing with Naruto. Whether she was chastising him for hitting on her in front of everyone in the class, or doing her best not to show that she was amused by his antics, or even when she eagerly awaited his next prank, Sakura spent just as much of her time paying attention to the things Naruto did as she does to the things that Sasuke does.

The last several months had been one the dullest times of her life. Naruto had buckled down and studied so hard to pass the Genin Exam that he stopped pranking all together. The annoying and entertaining things he usually did were brought down to a minimum and for the most part Sakura had enjoyed the peace and quiet, but a small part of her really had missed their bantering. That was the primary reason that Sakura had no complaints for having her number one pain in the butt be on her team and potentially ruin her chances of hooking up with Sasuke. She had hoped that once he no longer felt the need to spend all of his time studying, that things would go back to the way it used to be.

But no, Naruto had been killed and no matter how much she had been annoyed with his very presence in life, Sakura would miss him in death. She felt that it was her duty to kill the man who had killed her friend, and she had one shot. Her single explosive tag.

According to her textbooks, exploding tags were best used as stunning weapons because they have no shrapnel. Without flying bits of molten metal flying about at near supersonic speeds, an explosion is relatively easy to evade for a shinobi. The concussive force however, extended past the area of instant, fiery death. If she could get Naruto's murderer caught in the concussive wave, he would most likely be addled enough to sneak in a killing blow.

Ever since she had run away from Naruto's murderer, Sakura had been setting up her trap and it was just about ready. She had found not quite a clearing, but an area that was more lightly wooded than the rest of the forest. The Genin had made an extensive web out of the one thing that she had in abundance; razor wire. With wire webbing spread throughout the surrounding area, she would be able to herd Kakashi into the target zone, an area about five meters in diameter that was completely devoid of plant life. Surrounding this area, Sakura had set up a wide array of traps that, once triggered, would pepper the target area with the grand majority of her kunai and shuriken. In the largest tree nearby, the Genin had grouped all the triggers for her traps next to a substitution log. Attached to the log was her exploding tag.

Just as the girl was laying the finishing touches on the triggering mechanism for her traps, she heard someone emerge from the forest and land behind her. In an instant, she abandoned her work and lashed out with the kunai she had been to cut lengths of wire at who she assumed to be the evil proctor of this 'test.' Instead of seeing the standard Jounin uniform of Konoha as she heard the ring of steel on steel, she saw a familiar shade of orange that she thought she'd never see again.

"Naruto, don't bother me! Can't you see I'm busy?" Sakura instinctively snapped. She turned her attention back to her wires for a moment before twitching and turning to face the orange clad Genin.

Sakura blinked, and then she blinked again and stared as if she was seeing a ghost. That was Naruto on the other side of her perch in the tree. He looked muddy and soaked, but otherwise in tip top condition. "But I saw you get killed," she blurted out.

Naruto stared in incomprehension for a second before replying. "I got better." He said that as if it answered everything.

"But you drowned! I saw it with my own two eyes." The girl had yet to come to terms with the fact that the boy that she saw right before her eyes was in fact, alive and well.

"I walked it off." Naruto was wearing a full blown grin by this point.

It finally started to click for Sakura that she had fallen hook, line, and sinker for a simple Bunshin trick meant to distract Kakashi, whom she decided maybe wasn't such a complete monster after all. She fell to her knees and began to giggle hysterically.

Naruto chuckled, not only had he managed to evade Kakashi, but he had also made Sakura laugh in the process. The girl he liked thought he was funny! Maybe she would even consent to a date if they were successful in the Bell test.

Naruto was so absorbed in his own success, that he was totally unprepared for a fist to the face, courtesy of Sakura. She looked pissed, angrier than she had been in a long time. "You stupid idiot! I thought you had died! I worried about you! You don't ever fake your death like that ever again! You hear me?" She yelled at him, and for once in his life Naruto was smart enough to shut up and not suggest that the fact that she was concerned for his safety meant that she loved him after all.

After she was done yelling his ear off, Naruto Meekly muttered a 'Yes Ma'am," and asked Sakura about the trap that she was setting up.

"Well, Sensei said that we're supposed to fight him as if we're going to kill him right?" Naruto nodded in response. "What I got here is a wire web that will keep him corralled so that he has to go to that central area over there." Sakura gestured to the target area. "Once he's there, I'll engage him in Taijutsu, but then I'll substitute with this log." She held up the log, making sure that Naruto saw the exploding tag attached. "This will explode in his face and then I'll trigger the traps and he'll be riddled with kunai and shuriken." She grinned, obviously proud of her plan.

Naruto whistled. "Wow, I didn't know you could be so vicious, considering how you usually are about using weapons on people."

Sakura made a point of turning away from the boy to hide the fact that she was blushing in mortification. She had absolutely no intention of ever letting Naruto know that she had been planning on avenging his death.

"I don't know why you're using a wire web here, though. It's too wide open to really be effective. I know that I'm smaller than Kakashi, but I could slip through there pretty easily." Naruto commented on the design of the trap.

Sakura bristled in annoyance, she was proud of her setup, damn it! She argued in defense of her design, "But don't the textbooks say that wire webs are good for area denial? This place is wide enough that I can maneuver, but I don't think that an adult could slip through this kind of web."

Naruto shrugged, "I guess, but I think that you're underestimating sensei. He's really fast, and it wouldn't surprise me to see him just jump over you webs. Besides, wire webs are better for making tight spaces inaccessible if you ask me."

The pinkette sighed. "This isn't getting anywhere. I know that I can't beat Kakashi by myself, and you've already tried, and Sasuke's done who knows what. You don't think that he'll really send us all back to the Academy if none of us manage to swipe a bell off of him, do you? I think that all three of us-"

Naruto interrupted her spiel. "Yeah, we need to work together if we want to get a bell at all. Times ticking, and I don't think that the two of us are going to be enough. We need to go find Sasuke before he does something stupid like trying to fight Sensei one on one."

Sakura giggled. "You mean like you did?"

"Shut up." This weak rebuke did nothing to sour the girl's mood, as the sense of normality that she had feared would be gone forever had finally begun to return.

Hidden in the brush not even five meters away, Kakashi smiled in approval. Not that anyone would've noticed even if they had seen him.

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Sasuke was up to his neck in trouble, or dirt actually. His observations from watching Naruto fight Kakashi had been correct. The Jounin was tougher than anyone he had fought to date, and was swift to an almost absurd degree. Also, it was clear that he hadn't really even been trying; only using the most minimal amount of effort to deal with his assault. Overcoming Kakashi would be an excellent milestone in the process of becoming strong enough to eventually kill That Man for his sins.

Sasuke had had time to prepare traps and his battle strategy had been sound. The first thing that he had done when Kakashi had just casually walked into the arena he had prepared and begun testing him was to throw a few shuriken in a seemingly straightforward manner that would cut a trip wire so that it would release a hail of throwing knives. Kakashi had unknowingly dodged the shuriken straight into the line of fire of the knives and was forced to leap out of the way again. This had allowed the boy to throw a roundhouse kick at the masked Jounin from an awkward angle. However, Kakashi's guard had been as impeccable as Sasuke had suspected so he had blocked the Genin's next few attacks in such a way that left Sasuke in the perfect position to snatch a bell.

Sasuke had initially suspected Kakashi's speed to be some sort of Shunshin, but that was not the case. The masked man was just that ridiculously fast. In the time it took Sasuke to touch on of the bells, the Jounin disengaged and moved half a dozen meters in an instant.

The boy came to the conclusion that his main error in that skirmish was in his use of the Goukakyuu no Jutsu, the Grand Fireball Technique. Not having a Plan B after failing to obtain a bell, Sasuke had spat a large stream of fire at Kakashi without considering the consequences. The Jounin had used the fire as a smokescreen to cover his use of whatever digging jutsu he had used to bury the Genin up to his neck. After having lectured the boy on the careless use of jutsu, Kakashi had left Sasuke to rot.

The boy snapped out of his musings at the sound of a familiar obnoxious laughter. Naruto had just arrived and was very clearly physically holding himself back from rolling around on the ground at the hilarity he found in Sasuke's predicament.

Moments later, Sakura emerged from the same place in the tree line as Naruto had. She looked like she was about to berate the orange clad Genin for running ahead of her, but then she spotted Sasuke and froze, obviously disturbed and slightly unsure of what exactly she was seeing.

Naruto finally managed to pull himself together somewhat and walked over to Sasuke. Letting loose a few more snickers, Naruto began making jokes at the buried boy's expense. "You look like a little shrub, Sasuke. Hey Sakura, do you think he'll grow back into a normal sized Sasuke if we water him?"

Thankfully the girl put a premature end to the boy's jokes with a slap to the back of the head, and demands for him to be nicer to Sasuke. Once they had settled down, it didn't take long for them to dig Sasuke out of his hole.

Once the Uchiha was freed, he waved Sakura off of him. He didn't have any wounds that needed attended to, and even if he did, Sasuke was well enough that he could bandage himself. As he stood up to head off, Sasuke noticed that Naruto was standing in his way with a confrontational, though not battle ready stance.

"Where are ya going, Sasuke? You gonna go get your butt kicked by sensei again?" How unusual. Naruto doesn't typically taunt like that. Not unless he's leading into something.

Sasuke gave his trademark smirk, "No, I going to get a bell this time. I've already touched one once; it won't take too much more work to take one for real."

Sakura looked impressed, but Naruto just snorted, "Almost isn't good enough. It just means that sensei will be even more on guard next time." He pointed at Sasuke, "I don't think you're good enough to take a bell. You'll just get planted again."

Sasuke bristled in anger. How dare that dobe dismiss his achievements! It's not like he had done any better! "Oh yeah, and what's that opposed to having to run away like some cowardly, drowned, little street rat?"

Naruto twitched. Sasuke had just pressed on several nerves and he wasn't gonna let that go! "Bastard! I bet you've already used up your whole bag of tricks, too!" He glanced around the battleground and saw the knives, shuriken, wires, and the scorched crater where shot his fireball.

By this point, both boys were just about nose to nose and looked just about ready to start slugging each other. "Dobe! You didn't even-"

"SHUT UP!" Sakura screamed. She had been trying to break up the argument this entire time, but the boys had overridden her to the point of not even noticing her protests, but now she had their attention. And now she was keenly aware of the fact that if a fight broke out between the two boys, it was highly unlikely that Sakura would actually be able to stop them. The girl felt increasingly awkward as Naruto and Sasuke continued to stare at her as if she had grown a second head.

"Um, hi." Sakura murmured timidly. She hadn't ever broken up an argument between Naruto and Sasuke before; in fact nobody other than the Academy instructors had ever managed it before. She had always sided with her beloved in the past, not even if she felt that Naruto was in the right. The pinkette wasn't used to being the center of attention, at least not like this. "Erm, don't we have a test to be doing?"

Naruto and Sasuke blinked and then turned to face each other as if to confirm that they were seeing what they thought they were seeing. Neither of them had ever seen Sakura be anything less than completely demure regarding Sasuke.

With the ice broken and the tensions settled, the three Genin began to discuss the prospects of working together to obtain a bell. Sasuke wasn't happy with admitting that he wasn't skilled enough to obtain a bell on his own, but time was running out fast and now wasn't the time to be prideful when their careers were on the line. Pooling together all of their remaining resources they concocted a plan that they were sure would net them the bells.

And then the alarm went off.

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Kakashi stood in front of the memorial stone, across from the Genin, each of which was seated at the base of one of the training posts. Each of the Genin looked dejected as he began to pick apart their performance.

The Jounin gave his best disappointed look, "You three ate before the test despite my express order not to. As punishment, none of you will be having lunch today." Only Sakura flinched at this. She felt the hunger pains more keenly than the others due to having skipped multiple meals prior to the test.

"Naruto!" The boy snapped to attention, "You allowed me to manipulate your emotions and then you carelessly attacked me. Had I been an enemy nin, it would not have been so easy for you to have escaped downstream." The boy glared in defiance. He already knew that his first assault had been a mistake.

"Sakura! You watched Naruto battle and lose against a superior opponent and did nothing to support him even though you were right there. Then you carelessly revealed yourself to me! Had I been an enemy, there would have been nothing that could have stopped me from pursuing you." The girl gave Kakashi a cold look. She already felt guilty enough about not helping Naruto, there's no reason to rub it in!

"Sasuke! You were in an even better position to support Naruto and you just let him fight me all by himself just to test the waters. Then you ran off to go do your own thing even though you knew there was a good chance that I would target Sakura for revealing herself." The boy winced. He really had done those things, and he hadn't regretted either. At least not until he had it shoved in his face like this.

"I have decided that none of you will be getting sent back to the Academy. I have decided that you all pass." Kakashi really did have a knack for mood whiplash.

A chorus of 'What?' resounded throughout the training ground. None of the Genin could believe it; they had passed, even though none of them had managed to obtain a bell.

"But why? I mean, I don't want to complain, but none of us got a bell. How did we pass? You just said that we all did terrible!" Sakura struggled to find a way to word her question without shooting herself in the foot.

"The test was never about the bells." Sakura appeared confused, and Sasuke seemed surprised, but Naruto grinned. He piped up after Kakashi nodded to him to speak his mind.

"It was about working together wasn't it? About cooperating to do things that no one person could do by themselves, and not taking you at face value. If all we had thought about was the bells, then we would've failed even if one of us did take one, somehow."

The Jounin paused for a moment, surprised that the class clown had grasped the purpose of the Bell test so thoroughly. He supposed that he shouldn't be too astonished, though. The test had been designed with Obito's, values regarding teamwork in mind. His friend had always been a kindhearted fool, just like Naruto seemed to be.

Kakashi nodded. "That's correct. Shinobi are sent out to do missions in squads. That why individual skills are secondary to teamwork. The Bell test is set up with only two bells to create infighting. Only those who can put the team above themselves deserve to be Genin. Because you have managed that much, you all are better than all the other idiots I have failed. They mindlessly followed my orders and fell into my every trap."

He kneeled before the memorial stone. "A ninja must see through deception and look underneath the underneath. Today, you all have shown the capacity for teamwork and the ability to think for yourselves and that's why you pass." Kakashi stood up to face his team and gave a thumbs up. He shifted into a stance that would later become known as the 'Good Guy Pose.' "Squad Seven starts its first mission tomorrow."

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Author's Note:

Whew, I feel like I wrote this really quickly, and this one is my longest chapter by far. I promised I would finish the bell test this chapter and I did it. I hope my version of the bell test was different enough for you all. I put a lot of effort into it, and I'm pretty happy with it.

Reader Review Corner:

InARealPickle: Yeah, I could prioritize better, but I feel the need to point out that my chapters are fairly short, only 2000 words each save for this one. This is an experiment in my ability to write perspectives; I will be putting a lot of stuff in my stories that I probably don't have to put in there because people think, they examine things, and they notice things that they don't have to notice.

Unsigned reviewer LSM: I think that you're missing the point. In canon, Kage Bunshin really did save Naruto's life dozens of times over. However, I think that because he spent so much of his time focusing on improving his KB tactics, Naruto missed out on a lot. It isn't that canon Naruto wasn't skillful or creative; it's that KB is so ridiculously good at the beginning of the series that Naruto has absolutely no reason to learn anything else. Really, the only reason Naruto needed the Rasengan at all was so that he could have something that could match the Chidori. It is the perfect jutsu for him and I think that getting KB so early weakened Naruto as a shinobi.

Unsigned reviewer CB: Thank you, good to have you! It's nice to have the main purpose of my fic written out like that. "make Naruto weaker. but in the long run, stronger" indeed.

Flameof a Friend94: Aha, thank you for reviewing again!

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Ebony Moon Blade