Naruto lay on the ground and stared at the stars. He wasn't quite sure what to think, except that the day had been much too long for his taste. He grinned as he thought back to his first kiss – with Sakura! – although it hopefully wouldn't be their last.

A choking sound brought him back to the present. Tied up opposite him, Marsa was coughing and choking, and some sort of liquid was spilling out of her gag. She was frantically trying to reach her face with her hands, clawing in desperation, but the ropes were stopping her. Without thinking, Naruto moved towards her. Sasuke grabbed his shoulder, shaking his head.

"She might be faking it." Sasuke sounded dreadfully cold, but his eyes flicked back and forth between Marsa's gag and Sakura's bruised forehead. "If she isn't, we have some time to think first."

"She might be dying. Besides, she never hurt anyone. It was Riko who hurt Sakura." Naruto shook off Sasuke's grip and bent down to look at the gag more closely. Sasuke let him.

Marsa's eyes were rolling madly, and Naruto could see the whites all the way around the iris. There was definitely something strange about the gag. It glistened in the moonlight, covered with something that might be blood or might be vomit, and the ropes holding it in place were snarled. No wonder she can't breathe, Naruto thought. He loosened one side of Marsa's gag slightly just as Sakura called out a warning.

"It's an illusion!"

Marsa spat a mouthful of compressed air at Naruto's face just as he ducked. He felt a handful of cuts on his scalp, over his headband, but managed to roll back and out of the way as she launched more attacks. Her hands were contorted into a handseal despite the bindings, and he noticed in a detached way that she'd dislocated both her thumbs. Shreds of the gag that had been in her mouth drifted slowly to the ground.

Her last attack was directed at herself, tearing deep gashes through her flesh, her clothes – and her ropes. She staggered to her feet and popped her thumbs back into place, a savage grin on her face. Her lips were torn and bleeding from the wind chakra she'd channelled without using enough handseals. It looked absolutely terrifying.

A whisper of movement was all the warning Naruto had before he was bowled over from behind by Riko and Sasuke grappling each other. Riko was dripping more blood from his own fresh wounds and was using his former bindings to try and choke Sasuke.

Naruto struggled out from under the tangled mass of limbs, turning just in time to catch a kick to the face that sent him back to the floor. He had the presence of mind to grab onto Marsa's foot and kicked into the side of her standing leg. She stayed upright through sheer force of will, forming some quick and sloppy handseals then inhaling deeply.

Sakura shimmered into view, dropping an illusion that had let her get behind Marsa. As she breathed out, Sakura put her in a headlock, forcing the technique to the side where it bored a deep crater in the ground next to Naruto's head. A dust cloud blocked his vision for a moment.

Now that Sakura had stopped hiding in her genjutsu, Marsa elbowed her in the ribs and kicked her back into a tree. Blood running from his nose and hands shaking, Naruto growled. He made the seal for his only proper ninjutsu technique and surrounded both Marsa and Riko with dozens of shadow clones.

"You're going down," the mass rumbled with one voice. Each drew a kunai with one hand and three shuriken with the other. Sasuke grappled Riko into a full nelson and stomped on his injured foot until his leg gave way, then leapt away as a wave of Narutos surged forward. Marsa launched another wave of wind to clear a path to her teammate, and ran over and grabbed him. She dropped a smoke bomb before a dozen illusory copies of the two Suna ninja leapt out of the rapidly expanding cloud and scattered into the trees.

A huge volley of shuriken, courtesy of the horde of Narutos, dispelled over half of the simple clones, and Naruto set off after the nearest trail, intent on chasing them down. Three of his shadow clones followed him. He smelled blood, tasted it too, and he wanted more. With one last glance at Sakura, struggling into a sitting position and holding her ribs, he darted forwards.

By the time he caught up to the limping duo of ninja, the other three teams of hunters – as well as their prey – were out of sight and hearing range. He barrelled into Riko and Marsa with a full-body tackle and they dissolved into a cloud of chakra-laden smoke, leaving him to scream his fury at the night sky.

Naruto set off back to the clearing, hoping that the real enemies had been caught by some of his clones, but he realised that he could try to catch up to one of the other groups. He turned and went at a right angle to his previous path when he smelled fresh blood.

A small patch of bushes was rustling out of time with the breeze. Stealthily, he drew a pair of kunai and crept in closer. It was obvious in hindsight – the Suna ninja had sent out just clones, while they layered another technique to hide their real bodies. They'd almost made it out, too.

"Surprise!" his own voice shouted from his left. One of his clones had apparently lost its patience and threw a fistful of shuriken at the bush, cackling as it did so. Marsa dragged a half-dead looking Riko out, although he still somehow managed to keep his genjutsu active. Naruto wouldn't have even noticed them move if it weren't for Riko's ragged breathing and the tracks they left in the dirt; there were furrows from their shoes and splashes of blood from their wounds.

For some reason, they were still trying to run. Marsa spat another wind technique at his clone, dispelling it, then swayed and almost fell. Naruto and the two remaining duplicates moved in to surround her. He stepped forward. "Just surrender, and I promise we won't hurt you."

Naruto saw 'Riko' shimmer out of existence at the same time as he felt a knife cut into his back. He looked down and saw the tip of a kunai coming out of his stomach, to the right of the Kyubi's seal. A roar of anger and pain came out as more of a whimper through teeth that felt too long and sharp to be his own. He fell to the ground, but it seemed so very far away...

-O-

Sasuke dispatched the last clone with a frenzied stab and growled at the lack of blood on his kunai. He followed the two Naruto clones with him back to the clearing when they both disappeared in a puff of smoke around a hundred feet away. He stopped, listening hard, but couldn't hear anything other than the wind in the treetops and the call of an owl. Whatever had dispelled them hadn't been near him, which meant it must have been Naruto ending the technique.

Sasuke raced towards the clearing, nose twitching. He wasn't a particularly good tracker, but enhanced senses were part and parcel of being a ninja, so he could pick out strong smells, like blood, over a long distance. And right now, he smelled a lot of it. He veered off to the left and charged through some thick brush, stopping in front of Naruto's unmoving body. There was a kunai still stuck through his guts, and cuts on his hands and chest, but he was breathing, if barely.

The two Suna ninja were definitely dead. Sasuke froze as he saw them, so similar to parts of – no, now wasn't the time to think of that. The two Suna ninja weren't a threat anymore, and now he had to help Naruto. He didn't have any medical supplies on him, as he was still wearing the disguise he'd needed that morning.

He ripped strips of cloth off his shirt and used the few mouthfuls left in his waterskin to clean and bandage Naruto's face. The wounds weren't deep, and the bandages didn't soak through with blood after he put them on, so he took that as a good sign. The cuts in Naruto's chest were deeper, but Sasuke bound them tightly so that they'd stop bleeding as well. After a few minutes' work, he realised he'd have to look at the last and worst injury.

Sasuke had no idea what to do. The kunai was in the wound, and it had cut through clothes, so there were fibres trapped in there that would need to be cleaned out to avoid infection. However, he vaguely remembered that Naruto could bleed to death if he removed the knife, as right now it was blocking a lot of the severed blood vessels. As he dithered, not sure of what to do, Kakashi landed beside him.

"What happened?" he asked as he quickly and efficiently removed the kunai, washed the wound out with a water technique, smeared some antiseptic cream into it, and bandaged it tightly.

"The prisoners used a genjutsu to fake an injury. Once the female had her mouth free she used a wind technique to break the male's bindings. I attempted to subdue him and was partially successful, but she freed herself and neutralised Sakura. As they were very heavily injured, they attempted to flee by using clones as decoys. We split up to pursue them, using Naruto's shadow clones to follow every trail, and Naruto must have caught up to the real ones. They were already heavily injured at that point, but I don't know what happened next. Obviously," Sasuke carefully avoided looking at the bodies as Kakashi covered them with black sheets of cloth, "we can tell from the scene that Naruto successfully overpowered them but was injured."

Kurenai caught up to them, followed by Sakura and three other genin. Sasuke assumed they were the Konoha ninja Kakashi had gone to find. Shino seemed unaffected by the scene in front of him, but Kiba looked queasy and Hinata was almost in tears. Sakura had clenched fists swinging at her sides, a knot of worry at her brow, and clear lines of tension in her jaw.

"Does anyone have training in medical ninjutsu?" Sasuke asked. Nobody replied, but he noticed that Hinata had her Byakugan active. "What about you? Can you see what's wrong?"

She shook her head and turned away without speaking.

Naruto groaned and shifted, and Sakura dashed over to him. His eyes opened and for a moment he looked so vulnerable that Sasuke looked away. When he turned back, Sakura cradled Naruto's head in her arms, uncaring of the half-congealed blood clinging to him. Kakashi was gently probing some of Naruto's injuries.

Sasuke took in the scene – one wounded and bandaged teammate, another covered in blood and holding him, and hovering over them the teacher who'd once more failed to be there when it mattered. He swore to himself, there and then, that no matter what he'd make sure it didn't happen again.

"Alright, Naruto, you should be fine," Kakashi said, smiling through his mask – and when had he put it back on again? "The stomach wound wasn't as bad as it looked, and after a bit of rest we'll be able to join Team Eight for some team training."

Naruto grinned, and for the first time that evening, Sasuke was really and truly glad. Naruto had regained some colour while Kakashi patched him up, and now he looked a long way from the almost-corpse he'd been a few scant minutes earlier.

His attitude was back to normal, as well, Sasuke realised as Naruto started talking. "Hell yeah! We're gonna get so strong that when we get back to Konoha, everyone will be amazed." Naruto fiddled with his bandages, peeking under those on his chest and then ripping them off. Sasuke moved to stop him but the cuts were completely healed, without leaving any scars or paler patches of new skin.

Naruto looked guilty when he noticed Sasuke's concern and curiosity, but took Kakashi's offered T-shirt and quickly changed into cleaner clothes, despite the blood still liberally caked on him.

"Sorry, show's over for tonight," Kakashi said, shepherding Kurenai's team away. She still hadn't said a word, but Sasuke had noticed her and Kakashi using silent hand motions to communicate. Jonin were a strange bunch, but as quirks went, not talking much was quite harmless. "Team Seven will set up camp north of here, and rendezvous with you in the morning for some team training. Let's get some sleep after all this excitement."

-O-

"Naruto!" Sakura hissed. Kakashi had put her on watch while he slept for a few hours before dawn, and she'd completely run out of patience now he wasn't watching any more. You didn't just kiss a girl and then almost get yourself killed before talking to her! She needed to have a serious, grown-up conversation with him.

"What is it?" Naruto mumbled, rolling over to face her in his sleeping bag. "Sakura! What are you doing in here? This isn't your tent, it's–"

"Yeah, but listen, I wanted to talk to you." Sakura knew that if Kakashi caught her leaving Naruto's tent in the morning he'd tease her to death, but she couldn't wait that long. Naruto quickly tried to sort his hair out as she talked, but the best he managed was a slightly less scruffy bedhead. He'd washed before sleeping, she realised, because he'd still been so bloody. "So I was thinking–"

"Could you keep it down?" Sasuke said from the other side of Naruto, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Sakura most certainly did not squeak – hardened ninja who'd successfully fought a chunin the day before didn't ever squeak – but she was definitely surprised.

There went any hope of privacy until they got back to Konoha, she supposed.

"I just wanted to let you know I'll be making breakfast soon. I have to get back to my post outside, I'm supposed to be keeping watch. See you later." Face scarlet, she backed out of the open tent flap and quickly dashed back to the tree stump she'd been holding a lookout from earlier.

By the time that she'd finished cooking breakfast – Kakashi had caught some rabbits the night before, and she'd gutted them and put them on makeshift skewers – Naruto and Sasuke had both dressed themselves. Kakashi stuck his head out of his tent just as she moved the last of the meat skewers off the fire, nose twitching appreciatively.

"Right," he said, all business. Sakura noticed that he'd changed into his jonin gear, but he still looked almost as non-threatening as his civilian cover identity had. He moved as though he was still half-asleep, and the way he yawned and rubbed at his messy hair reminded her of a ten-year-old. Despite knowing what he was capable of, she found it hard to take him seriously, but she supposed that was the point. "Today I'm going to be teaching you and Kurenai's lot how to climb trees. It's important, so you should... actually, I'm going to have to repeat myself for Team Eight anyway, so I'll just wait until then to explain it."

Sakura paid close attention, but Kakashi was still able to eat without showing either his face or any effort made to conceal it. She was never the most patient person at the best of times, and it seemed he was deliberately trying to rile her up.

"What actually happened last night?" Sakura asked when she grew bored of the silence. "I know that Naruto must have tracked them down, but how did he kill them and why was he so injured? And how did you find us?"

Kakashi tossed the last empty skewer away. "Naruto did something very dangerous and stupid. He tried to chase after a pair of chunin alone."

"But they were injured–" Naruto interrupted.

"Yes, but it was still a bad idea, clearly. Look at how badly you could have been hurt. If that stab had been a bit higher, it could have gone through your heart. Or, since you don't seem to care about injuries to yourself, imagine if one of your teammates had taken those wounds instead! There was no need to hurry – I could, and did, track them down without any issues. Team Eight is also a tracking team, and in fact, Hinata spotted the two Suna ninja before even I did.

"And you all learned a valuable lesson about taking prisoners. Some of them, for whatever reason – pride, anger, fear, or plain idiocy – do stupid things and then die for them. If you're ever captured, stay calm, try to conceal your identity, and Konoha will ransom you back."

Sakura nodded to herself. She'd learned a little about the prisoner system the hidden villages used, but after seeing it break down the night before she'd been unsure about how effective it was in the field.

"We still have three days before we need to head back to Konoha, as we're not travelling back with a caravan, so Kurenai and I will be teaching you lot some important techniques. And before you ask, the reason we're doing it here is because technically you're still on mission pay until we get back to the village."

Kakashi piled some more wood on the fire, then covered it with earth, to keep it alive for later. Naruto and Sasuke finished grabbing their gear, while Sakura refilled her waterskin, and then all four of them set off for the meeting point with Team Eight.

They were late, as expected of any team led by Kakashi, but Kiba wasn't visibly angry yet so Sakura estimated that it couldn't have been by more than five minutes.

"Alright! Now that we're all here, let me explain the training," Kurenai began, glancing at Kakashi. "There's a technique for clinging to flat surfaces using your chakra. You can use it to, for example, climb trees without your hands."

She walked up one of the taller trees nearby to demonstrate, continuing until she was hanging upside down from one of the branches. Sakura noticed that her dress didn't seem to be affected by gravity, and idly wondered how to replicate the effect. Kiba had seemed quite disappointed.

Kakashi continued the lecture from where Kurenai had left off. "Now, what you have to do is push chakra out of your feet and cling to the tree with it. If you use a steady amount, it will anchor you, but too much at once will launch you away and too little will make you fall off. Most genin learn this at some point, but I want you lot to be able to do it in your sleep. It's incredibly versatile, and you can use it for anything from catching big, bulky items to grappling with enemies. If you can stick to anything you touch, then a single finger on the flat of a blade can be enough to disarm someone. Likewise, you can stick your hands to your own weapons to stop anyone from doing the same to you."

He tossed a kunai in front of every genin. "Ask Kurenai for more advice if you need it. I'm going to catch up on some sleep." And with that, Kakashi sprawled out in the shade and folded his hands behind his head. It took less than five seconds for him to start snoring.

Sakura walked over to a nice tall tree with a straight, smooth trunk. She pressed her hand against it, cycling chakra through until she felt a weak grip form. As she slowly increased the chakra level, she found that the bond strengthened until she couldn't pull her hand away. A loud thump drew her attention to the tree next to her, where Naruto had tried to immediately run straight up his tree. He was rubbing his head and grumbling from where he'd fallen. Sasuke tried not to laugh, but Sakura could see the mirth in his eyes.

"Is... is this normal for you?" Kurenai asked. Sakura turned around and saw that Team Eight were all staring in disbelief. "Does he just give you a task and then leave you to it?"

"Not all the time! It's because he thinks we can do it on our own, that's why," Naruto said. Sakura had also felt an immediate urge to jump to Kakashi's defence, but on reflection, he really did just leave them to it most of the time.

Kurenai marched over to where Kakashi lay, and Sasuke shrugged and turned back to his tree. He'd already made it several steps up the first time, and was getting ready for another attempt.

The snoring stopped, and Sakura watched Kakashi and Kurenai argue quietly. Despite straining her ears she couldn't hear anything, but trying to listen in on jonin was a fool's errand anyway. She saw the way Kurenai reacted as though she'd been slapped, and then storm off, muttering a parting shot that Kakashi so obviously didn't react to that it was clear he'd been completely blindsided.

After a few seconds of staring into space, he leapt to his feet and walked over to the genin, calling out instructions.

"Right. Here's what we'll do. Sakura, make a run at the tree. See if you can get to the top. Sasuke, try to attach your hand first. Naruto, you're going to make me a dozen clones and then try a preliminary chakra control exercise first. Hinata, same as Sakura. Shino, Kiba, same as Sasuke."

Sakura was in motion before she consciously decided to obey. With every step she took, her foot latched onto the tree smoothly, and then disengaged easily when she moved on. Before she knew it she was in the tree's crown, staring down at the small faces of the other genin. Hinata had made it halfway up before falling, but was picking herself up and ready to go again.

"Right! Sakura, come stand halfway down the tree and wait there." The rest of Kakashi's speech was too indistinct to hear, and Sakura decided to try to find out how to enhance her hearing with chakra. The small advantages that all ninja had were nice, of course, but she quietly admitted to herself that she had a huge nosy streak, and for that, 'small advantage' wasn't enough.

She picked her way back down the tree, trying to walk instead of run this time. It wasn't any harder and soon she stood near where she guessed the midpoint of the trunk was. A pinecone bounced off her forehead and she almost fell, slipping a few steps down the tree before she re-established a firm grip with her feet. A row of kunai smacked into the wood above and below her, and Kakashi called up to her again.

"You need to stay between the two sections I've marked, and Naruto's clones will throw things at you. Dodge them or let them hit you, but don't fall."

Why did Kurenai have to stick her bloody nose into our business, Sakura thought bitterly. Motivated Kakashi was interesting for all of half a minute, then he turned into a slavedriver. With ten or so clones all bombarding her with clods of earth and pieces of wood, she soon lost control and landed on the ground again. Kakashi ordered her back up and made her do twenty press-ups while attached to the tree, promising to double them every time she fell.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sasuke and Shino race each other. While neither quite made it even halfway, Sasuke was doing slightly better. Kiba was left in the dust, and Naruto was still doing an exercise she'd completed for fun a few weeks ago. It had been incredibly easy for her – weave a thread through her fingers, only using her chakra – but he had a frown on his face and as she watched, the thread caught fire.

Another impact on her legs as one of Naruto's clones hit her with a small rock brought her attention back to her current situation. Sakura caught the next stone and hurled it back down, neatly puncturing one of the clones. Kakashi smiled and waved, then talked to Naruto for a few seconds. Two new clones replaced the fallen one. Kakashi gave her another thumbs up, his message clear.

She didn't last more than half an hour before she was too exhausted to even stick to the tree, let alone dodge anything or do exercise, and Kakashi sent her over to Kurenai, who was watching in bemusement from an old log that lay along an edge of the clearing.

"Kakashi suggested that I ask you for advice on genjutsu techniques, as your students are currently all occupied," Sakura said politely. Kurenai patted the patch of bark next to her, smiling kindly.

"Kakashi sometimes needs someone to give him a little motivation," she replied. "And I'm sure I don't want to know what he actually told you."

Sakura nodded. She was surprised at how obvious the two jonin were being in their little disagreement. In the Academy, the teachers had gone to a lot of effort to put up a united front.

Kurenai started to lecture, and Sakura could see the real enthusiasm she had for the topic. "Now, the important thing to remember when casting an illusion is that lies are contagious. When you make the target believe that there is a barrier, then you must also explain why there is a barrier. If you show them their comrades' corpses, there should be a reason why the corpses are specifically in that place, and why they have – or don't have – particular injuries. Furthermore, the comrades being there must also be explained – and then you must move on to why the victim wasn't aware of this beforehand. From this, we can see that to craft a perfect illusion, you must create an entire world at once..."

Sakura let the voice wash over her as her scrapes and cuts faded from her awareness.

-O-

Naruto slashed the tree, marking his position as he flipped away from the trunk. There was a footprint left in the bark where he'd accidentally added an extra chunk of chakra to one foot, but in just a few hours he'd gone from the dead last, below even Kiba, to challenging Shino for fourth place. Sakura had come back from wherever she'd gone off to, and now she and Hinata were sparring on the side of one of the trees.

It was really funny to watch, actually – Hinata was a much better hand-to-hand fighter, but struggled to stay on the tree, while Sakura slid and hopped and swung around like a monkey but couldn't afford to take a single hit from Hinata. The way they moved together and apart again in strange, fluid sweeps that kept both feet on the ground, or in this case tree, reminded him of some dancers he'd seen at a fair. The slaps, weak punches and occasional leg sweeps, on the other hand, looked like children squabbling over the last biscuit.

Sakura looked particularly fetching with her sweaty hair plastered to her head and a fierce scowl on her face. A rock bounced off the back of Naruto's head and Kakashi shouted at him. "No gawking, focus on the training!" He sighed and made another run at the tree.

At lunchtime, Naruto quickly swallowed the rice and pickled vegetables that Kakashi had made, and walked over to where the jonin lay, reading his ever-present book. Kakashi raised an eyebrow, and Naruto sat next to him.

"What actually happened last night? I remember getting stabbed and then I woke up and I was mostly fine and the Suna ninja were dead," he asked.

"Let's discuss this somewhere in private." Kakashi gestured over to Kiba. "He's listening in right now and thinks I don't know."

The tips of Kiba's ears turned red . He pulled his hood up and turned away from them, making a big show of talking to his dog. Naruto followed Kakashi a short way into the woods, and they sat down on a fallen log.

"I'm not an expert when it comes to seals. In fact, I only know of one person who could talk to you about that particular seal and be really sure that he's telling the truth. However, I can make a pretty good guess as to what happened. You were stabbed in the stomach, and then fell unconscious after you bled out, right? Your seal lets enough chakra through to heal you, and when you're heavily injured that means that your... tenant, let's call him, probably has a relatively large amount of influence."

"So the Kyubi killed them?" Naruto remembered Riko teaching him how to play dice, and then promptly losing three times in a row. Marsa had had a boyfriend who would never see her again.

"Yes, but they would have lived if you hadn't chased them. I was nearby and there's no way two injured chunin could escape me, and also no way they could force me to kill them. There's also no way they could have escaped Team Eight, but you didn't know at the time that they were nearby, so you get a pass on that." Kakashi's voice was matter-of-fact but not particularly cold. He might as well have been discussing the weather.

"Why did they fight? Why didn't they just surrender?" Naruto whispered. The pointlessness of it all was what shocked him, rather than the brutality.

"Take a deep breath and relax. Don't forget that they didn't just try to escape, they also tried to kill you. Maybe it was pride, that they didn't want to be captured by genin. Maybe it was fear, that we'd torture them for information. Or maybe it was just arrogance and stupidity where they thought they could get away. No matter the cause, it led to them being in here." Kakashi pointed to a pair of small scrolls in a pocket of his vest. "Normally, you won't have to fight, let alone kill, someone who you got to know beforehand. Fighting against other ninja is also quite uncommon even for chunin. You're really ahead of the curve, and Sasuke and Sakura too."

Kakashi put his book away and leant forward, beckoning Naruto close. "You're struggling with the tree climbing, but there's something that might help you. Do you want to hear a secret?"

Naruto nodded. This was what he'd imagined a jonin teacher to be like when he'd first graduated, and the lack of earth-shattering secrets and mystical lore had left him a little bit disappointed.

"So you know that meditation improves chakra capacity, as does physical exercise. Chakra is a combination of two energies, after all, and if you improve one of them then the end result is better. Physical energy increases pretty steadily as you train your body, but when it comes to mental energy, some experiences 'train' it much better than others.

"Meditation is one example, but fighting – especially against other ninja – is the single best way to improve your chakra capacity. In general, more mental energy also makes the chakra easier to control. Right now Team Seven has improved the most out of any team that graduated this year. I know for a fact that none of the other teams have taken any C-ranks that involved enemies or potential enemies, and you guys have had two fights with enemy ninja and a prisoner escort besides.

"And that's one of the secrets of chakra. You can see why we don't tell everyone – if Sasuke, for example, knew how much his strength could go up if he picked fights all the time he'd do some really stupid things. But I know I can trust you with this because you'll put the information to good use.

"Now go and get back to training. I want to see you at the top of that tree by the time I finish my nap, and then we'll do some sparring." Kakashi summoned a bedroll out of a scroll and lay down on it. His one visible eye closed. Naruto crept away, determined now to prove to him that he was worth the time and effort of teaching. The last, and only, previous person to give him personal attention and teaching had been Iruka.

By the time Kakashi wandered back into the clearing, Naruto was upside down and hanging from underneath the highest branch that would bear his weight. His clones were hurling anything they could grab at him, but he clumsily dodged or blocked almost all of it. His feet left shallow prints in the bark as he strode from side to side.

Where Sakura and Hinata were graceful, and Sasuke was efficient, Naruto had the subtlety and control of a bull, but he what he lacked in appearance he made up for in endurance. All the other genin were resting, and Naruto felt a stab of pride at how he knew he must look. Kakashi would see Sasuke, the talented one, and Sakura, the clever one, sitting at the bottom while he, Naruto, the awesome one, was at the top.

-O-

A/N: Uni is taking up a lot of my time, so my next chapter will be delayed - expect it sometime around the end of October/start of November. I'm also kinda tempted to redo the first six chapters, but I'd prefer to put that off until I've written more.

I had a rant here about some stories and how they create a massive issue over 'oh no, it's [a ninja]'s first kill' and write pages and pages of wangst. However, it was quite long and not very interesting, so this summary should suffice to express my feelings on the matter.