The difference she made

It was finally time.
For the first time ever, Naruto and Sasuke were going to be entering the same genin exam.
Over the last few months, Seikou had earned herself a position as an iryō-nin and ended up moving out of her parents house to live with Naruto. She had been concentrating almost solely on her T&I and iryō-nin skills, and was rapidly improving.
Of course her access to the hospital allowed her to stumble across some VERY sensitive information that she just could NOT keep from her lover.
Flashback
Naruto and Sasuke where sparring as usual when Seikou came running up to them, carrying a sheet of paper.
“Naruto-kun you NEED to see this,” was the first thing she said as she thrust the paper towards him. He quickly realised that it was a photocopy of a birth certificate, HIS birth certificate, and what was even more shocking was that it had his heritage on it. His breathing suddenly stopped for a few seconds before it started up again.
“I don’t believe it, my father was that man,” he said in pure shock.
Sasuke decided that if it could gain that kind of reaction from his best friend it must be important, and looked over his friends shoulder to see one name he didn’t expect, “Namikaze Minato”.
“Holy shit, the Yondaime’s your dad, so why the hell did he choose you?” Sasuke asked slightly dazed by the information he just discovered.
“Do not ask others to do what you will not, that was his belief, if he wouldn’t use his own child, then how could he possibly use anyone else’s?” Naruto answered for him.
“Do you hate him?” Seikou asked clearly concerned.
“No, after all, if the Kyūbi was never sealed in me, then I probably would of never met you,” Naruto said before giving her a passionate kiss, “thank you for this, I don’t know how I could possibly repay you.”
“You don’t need to repay me, I love you and that’s all that matters,” was all she said before kissing him.
Flashback Kai
Naruto had perfected his Doton enhancement technique, which he later discovered was archived in the Uchiha library as Doton: Domu no Jutsu, and thanks to getting the technique down, Naruto had managed to succeed in opening the first two of the Hachimon(1) without any negative effects. He had also learned the Doton: Shinjū Zanshu no Jutsu(2) and the Doton: Dochū Eigyo no Jutsu(3). He had also worked on his Fūinjutsu whenever he could and he had managed to get to a relatively high level in it.
Sasuke had managed to perfect his Katon and raiton techniques, and he also began to focus on his sharingan, especially the part that allowed him to cast genjutsu with mere eye contact.
All three of them though had started to work on shape manipulation, with Naruto having the most success and managing to create a combination of shape and nature manipulation to create his Kazekiri(4) technique. Sasuke was close to finishing his version, which used Katon chakra instead but he hadn’t quite finished it yet.
They had also all learned one of a ninja’s favourite jutsu, the Shunshin, of course both Naruto and Sasuke had used it a LOT and managed to get to a level where they could use the technique in a combat situation, even if Naruto’s was significantly faster and was capable of doing it without hand seals.
Naruto and Sasuke had even taken to sneaking out of the village to get some field experience from the large number of bandits that inhabited the area due to high trade. Because of this the two had become adapted to killing, which was one of the things they wanted to achieve in the first place.
-
Sakura had begun to distance herself from Sasuke after their conversation, it had made her realise just how little she actually knew about him, she had ended up deciding to take her ninja career seriously and started training, and as such she was no longer behind everyone else in the physical portion of the class, even if she wasn’t anywhere near the top. She also decided to try to repair her friendship with Ino, and had succeeded now that they were no longer at odds with each other.
Kiba on the other hand, was being a complete idiot, he allowed his anger to cloud his judgement concerning Naruto and never noticed that every time he came in smelling of sex it was always the same person. As such Kiba was no longer allowed to spar with Naruto, because of Iruka’s fear that Kiba would take it too far and seriously injure, if not kill his opponent.
-
Of course that would all end with this test, the class had already taken most of the test, and all that was left was the ninjutsu portion where one jutsu was selected and he had to perform it to a reasonable standard to pass.
“Uzumaki Naruto!” one of the instructors called out his name as the next on the list, meaning that he would finally get to pass.
“Alright Naruto I need you to perform a bunshin,” Iruka asked him kindly.
Giving a curt nod, Naruto began to channel the necessary level of chakra for the technique, before noticing a disruption in his coils, quickly releasing the Kaimon(5) to clear the disruption he performed the jutsu, resulting in two barely passable clones.
“Congratulations Naruto-kun you passed,” Iruka told him with a genuine smile on his face.
Though Naruto easily identified that Mizuki was inwardly seething that he passed, and decided to keep an eye on him.
He walked out of the room, his hitae-ate proudly tied to his forehead.
-
It was late at night and the villages was on full alert, it was common knowledge among the Chūnin and higher that Mizuki had stolen the forbidden scroll of sealing. Of course this resulted in all of them trying to find him, except for Seikou, when she heard the news she immediately went to tell Naruto and Sasuke.
When they heard about it, they immediately ran in separate directions, to try and help locate the criminal.
Eventually Naruto caught sight of Iruka and Mizuki locked in combat.
Mizuki appeared to have the upper hand even with the giant scroll strapped to his back, probably because Iruka didn’t want to risk damaging such a valuable source of information.
“Meh, Mizuki, you really should be more conscious of your surroundings,” Naruto stated as he calmly walked out into the clearing where the two were locked in combat.
“Well, well if it isn’t the demon brat, hey Iruka why don’t I tell him why the villagers hate him,” the silver haired Chūnin said sinisterly.
“NO!” the scarred man shouted before he was kicked in the stomach by his old friend.
“Now Naruto, do you want to know why everyone hates you?”
“I’m pretty sure they hate me because of the fox in my gut,” Naruto drawled out clearly bored and not wanting to get into a long monologue about his burden.
“…” the clearing was silent for several seconds before…
“WHAT!!! YOU ALREADY KNOW!!!” both Chūnin shouted in shock.
“No duh, what else could the containment to conversion seal on my stomach be for?” he asked clearly waiting for a good answer.
“Oh well it doesn’t matter, I’ll just kill you anyway!” the traitor shouted before a hand encased in Fūton chakra burst through his chest. The dying Chūnin looked on in horror as he saw the Naruto he had been talking to collapse into a pile of water.
“Idiot really should pay more attention to his surroundings,” Naruto muttered as he pulled his hand out of the dead man’s head.
“N-Naruto?” Iruka managed to stutter out, after all it’s not everyday a teacher see’s their student shove what could easily be considered an A rank assassination jutsu through another teachers chest and appear completely unaffected by such an act. Especially when the student happens to be the deadlast.
“Yo,” was the blondes Kakashi like response.
“H-how?”
“Meh, doesn’t matter anyway see ya tomorrow,” and with that Naruto left, leaving a stunned Iruka to return the forbidden scroll to the Hokage tower on his own.
-
The next day saw Naruto getting his photo for his ninja licence taken, meeting the Hokages grandson Konohamaru and his idiotic teacher, the tokubetsu Jōnin named Ebisu.
During that time, Konohamaru started to stalk Naruto (albeit not very well) until Naruto decided to give him something to do, primarily the tree climbing exercise.
After he had finally managed to ditch the kid, he found Sasuke and they spent the rest of the day training, with Seikou eventually joining them.
-
The following day, found Naruto and Sasuke sitting side by side in the academy classroom, but what surprised the other students, was what Naruto was wearing. He was wearing black ninja pants with black shinobi sandals, black fingerless gloves, a dark crimson short sleeved shirt and a pitch black waistcoat with the Uzumaki spiral adorned on the back. And with this his hitae-ate was tied around his waist, and for the first time the girls in the class were finding themselves drooling over someone other than Sasuke.
Sasuke was wearing his usual attire which consisted of a black shirt with the Uchiha fan on the back, beige shinobi pants, black fingerless gloves and black shinobi sandals. Today he was also wearing his sword diagonally on his back.
“Alright class, (insert boring speech), the teams are, (insert teams 1-6), team 7 will consist of Uzumaki Naruto, Haruno Sakura and Uchiha Sasuke,” when this was called out, there was the sound of flesh hitting flesh and everyone turned to see Naruto and Sasuke giving each other a high five.
“Um, anyway, team 8 will consist of Hyūga Hinata, Aburame Shino and Inuzuka Kiba, team 9 is still in circulation from last year, team 10 shall consist of Yamanaka Ino, Akimichi Chōji and Nara Shikamaru. You have half an hour for lunch and then you are to wait for your Jōnin-sensei’s to show up, now do Konoha proud.” Iruka finished with a smile.
As the students filed out of the room Iruka pulled Naruto to the side, expecting to catch Naruto alone, only to find that Sasuke was leaning on the wall inside the classroom.
“Uh Sasuke I need to speak to Naruto alone so can you please leave?” the Chūnin asked politely.
“If it’s about what Naruto did to Mizuki last night then no,” came the raven haired boy’s reply.
“W-what! How did you know?” the scarred adult asked in shock, after all, he had only told the Hokage, so how did Sasuke know.
“Simple, Naruto told me.”
“That’s it! What the hell is going on, you two seemed to hate each other in class, and now you’re acting like best friends? I don’t get it,” Iruka said.
“Isn’t it obvious, we are best friends, I even failed the genin exam twice and played the deadlast idiot so we’d be on the same team,” Naruto informed the Chūnin.
“Wait, if you failed on purpose then, what sort of level are you actually at?” the instructor asked.
“That’s… a secret,” the blonde decided to answer, “Anyway, can we go now?” he asked hoping that they could get something to eat soon.
“Uh oh, yeah sure.”
-
It was two hours after lunch had ended and the classroom was deserted with the exception of team 7 who were still waiting for their new sensei.
Sakura was pacing up and down mumbling about tardy sensei’s while Sasuke had taken to sleeping until sensei arrived, and Naruto was reading a little orange book that Seikou had convinced him to read, stating that it could make their sex life even better if they got inspiration.
Eventually the door opened revealing a tall man with gravity defying silver hair, wearing a typical konoha Jōnin uniform with the exception of his hitae-ate which slanted over his left eye.
The man gave a quick look over the genin before setting his eye on the book the blonde was reading.
“Don’t you think you’re a little young for that book?” the strange man asked.
“My girlfriend doesn’t think so,” came his curt reply.
“Hold on, are you telling me that your girlfriend encourages you to read porn?” at this statement Sakura turned a hard glare to the blonde.
“No, she ordered me to,” Naruto explained.
“Damn, you’re one lucky bastard, most women would kill their boyfriend for that,” the Cyclops told him.
“So I’ve been told.”
“Anyway, Meet me up on the roof,” and with that the Jōnin disappeared via Shunshin, quickly followed by the two boys leaving Sakura to walk up the stairs on her own.
-
“Now that we’re all here, let’s start with some introductions, I don’t trust any of you to start so I will so that you have an Idea of what is and is not necessary. My name is Hatake Kakashi, I have many likes and many dislikes, I have lots of hobbies and no real dream for the future, alright your turn pinky.”
“My name is Haruno Sakura, I like my friend Ino and I’m not really sure about anything else, I hate what I used to be like, my hobby is training and my dream for the future is to bring honour to my family by becoming a strong konoichi,” Sakura told the others.
“So she isn’t a hopeless case,” Kakashi thought, “alright you next duckbutt.”
“My name is Uchiha Sasuke, I like my best friend, learning new things and good food, I dislike most of the civilians in Konoha for reasons I won’t divulge, and I HATE my brother, my hobbies are training and cooking, my dreams for the future, are to become strong enough to protect my friends and revive my clan,” Sasuke stated.
“Well this is a surprise, to think that he isn’t a revenge obsessed emo like his file states he is, I can easily work with this,” “Okay last but not least Pornoboy.”
“My name is Uzumaki Naruto, I like my best friend, my girlfriend, good food, the Yondaime Hokage and learning new things, I dislike those who hurt my friends and the sort of trash that abandon their friends, my hobbies include reading and gardening, and my dreams for the future are to become strong enough to protect my friends and to start a family with my girlfriend.”
“Okay yet another good personality, it seems as though the academy reports were wrong,””Alright then, tomorrow you three will be participating in the final stage of the genin exam,” Kakashi said as he looked at the shocked face of Sakura and the bored faces of his other students.
“But I thought we already did the genin exam,” the pink haired girl asked in confusion.
“Sakura, do you really think they wouldn’t set an extra test when the first one was so easy?” Naruto asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Anyway, meet me tomorrow morning at seven at training ground seven, oh and don’t eat breakfast, you’ll just throw it right back up, ya ne,” and with that the Jōnin disappeared via Shunshin.
“Alright, Sakura arrive at the training ground at approximately nine o’clock, and make sure you eat breakfast,” Naruto ordered his pink haired teammate.
“Huh? Why are you saying that? Sensei said to arrive at seven and not to eat breakfast,” the pink haired girl asked cautiously.
“This is Hatake Kakashi we’re talking about, he is famous within Konoha for always being at least two hours late for an appointment, hence the reason he has no healthcare. As for telling us not to eat, I think that he wants to be able to use our hunger to his advantage during the test, we shouldn’t willingly give him that advantage,” the blonde explained to his weaker teammate.
And after getting a nod of confirmation from the pink haired konoichi, he and Sasuke quickly used a Shunshin to get to their regular training grounds.
-
The next morning when Kakashi arrived at training ground seven, he was expecting to see three hungry, tired and irritated genin, but what he got was three alert and calm genin.
“Good morning,” he said expecting to be deafened by shouts of ‘YOU’RE LATE’.
“Morning,” was the reply he actually got from all three of them.
“Okay,” the Jōnin quickly got an alarm clock out of his flak jacket before placing it on a wooden stump, “this alarm is set for noon, that gives you three hours to get…” he started before pulling out two bells from his jacket, “these bells from me, whoever fails to get a bell will be tied to a stump and have to watch as whoever succeeds in getting a bell and me, eat one of these bento’s, before being returned to the academy or removed from the ninja program all together,” at that last part Sakura visibly tensed.
“But Kakashi-sensei, there are only two bells,” Sakura stated, hoping that the Jōnin had just missed one when bringing them out.
“That just means that one of you will definitely fail. Anyway, come at me with the intent to kill, otherwise you’ll never get the bells, begin!” and with that Kakashi found himself ducking on reflex, barely avoiding a horizontal sword strike that went through the area his neck once occupied, only to find a left hook striking his face.
As soon as he had recovered from the shock of what just happened, he quickly performed a kawarimi in order to put some distance between him and his potential students.
“Okay, those two definitely are NOT genin level,” were the Cyclops’ thoughts, on his students.
“Sasuke,” the blonde genin, said communicating a unspoken command.
“On it,” as the raven haired boy blinked his eyes changed from their usual pitch black, to red with three comma like tomoe in each. Sasuke began looking around the area, quickly picking out their pink haired teammate, who he motioned towards so that the blonde knew in case it was necessary. Eventually he managed to pick out their sensei’s chakra signature.
When Sasuke discovered the location of their hidden sensei, Naruto immediately drew a pair of kunai, before charging one with Futon chakra and throwing it straight at the tree Kakashi was hidden behind.
Kakashi for his part was thanking Kami for his reflexes built during the third shinobi war, otherwise the kunai his blonde student had thrown would have sliced straight through his spinal cord and destroyed his ninja career. However with his reflexes, he only got a large cut along the right half his back. Looking to see where the kunai had ended up, his eyes widened when he realised it had gone straight through three trees before getting stuck handle deep in a large rock.
“Shit, these two really are trying to kill me, and given what I’ve seen of them so far, they actually might succeed,” the one eyed Jōnin thought while berating himself for his ‘come with the intent to kill’ speech.
-
Not far away a certain pink haired teammate couldn’t believe her eyes. Not only were Naruto and Sasuke too fast for her to see, they also seemed completely serious about attacking with the intent to kill. She was at first amazed when her teammates managed to land a direct hit on their sensei, but when Naruto threw that kunai at a tree, she thought he was stupid, until it passed straight through the tree, sliced Kakashi pretty bad and then carried on through three trees before getting lodged in a rock, A ROCK!
It was at this moment that she realised just how much weaker than her teammates she truly was, and it stung her deeper than any of Sasuke’s rejections did in the past.
-
Kakashi was about to move from the area to patch up his wound before his arm suddenly shot up to block a kick from his blonde aggressor and as he was about to launch a counterattack, he found himself jumping back to keep himself from being decapitated courtesy of the Uchiha’s sword. As he was escaping his raven haired student’s strike he noticed his opponents eyes, the red pigmentation and three tomoe that symbolises a fully developed sharingan.
“Wait Sasuke has awakened his sharingan! And it’s fully developed as well! That means that, they’re hunting me by my chakra!” was the mental analysis of the Jōnin.
He was quickly forced to lean away from a kunai wielding jinchūriki only to find that the child was using his friend Asuma’s Hien(6) technique to increase his range, leaving the Jōnin with a large cut on the side of his face.
As he was distracted by this turn of events he nearly didn’t notice his raven haired student attempting to impale him, with nearly being the operative word. Realising that he wouldn’t escape the stab by a normal dodge, the silver haired man did the only thing he could, he used kawarimi again.
“Shit these two are REALLY good, I guess I have to take them seriously huh,” Kakashi thought as he reached up to his headband with his left hand, uncovering his most prized possession before tending to his injuries.
The confrontation carried on for approximately two hours, with the pattern being, Kakashi hides, Sasuke finds Kakashi, Naruto and Sasuke try to kill Kakashi, Kakashi escapes and starts hiding again.
By the end of the first two hours, Sasuke and Naruto where both breathing heavily, while the Jōnin was clearly exhausted since, as he would admit, stamina wasn’t his strongest area and having to keep up with two clearly Jōnin level nin with perfect teamwork was a tiring task for any normal shinobi, let alone one who has had an active doujutsu most of the time. Combined with the blood loss he has managed to suffer at the hands of his two students and you can’t blame him for being tired.
“Hey Sasuke, I think it’s time to pull out the big guns,” came a call from the blonde.
“Alright then,” and with that they both brought their hands up to their mouths, before simultaneously shouting, "Fūton: Atsugai,” “ Katon: Karyū Endan”, and with those calls a large blast of wind enhanced flames blanketed the area Kakashi had been hiding in.
-
“HOLY SHIT! JUST HOW MUCH CHAKRA DO THOSE TWO HAVE?” Sakura practically screamed in her mind, after all her teammates had just been fighting a Jōnin for over two hours, constantly using chakra in their strikes, and now they both use what she could tell were easily Jōnin level techniques.
-
“Below!” the raven haired boy shouted and with that call both jumped away to evade a pair of hands that shot up out of the ground to grab where their legs would have been.
As the two genin where in the air, Kakashi emerged from the ground only to be met with another combination jutsu, “Suiton: Suiryūdan no Jutsu!” “Raiton: Gian!”
Looking up he sees a large serpentine dragon formed from electrified water pulled from a nearby stream charging straight at him. Of course he wasn’t a Jōnin for nothing and he managed to kawarimi away from the attack before throwing a kunai straight towards where his raven haired student was about to land. Just as he thought his attack was about to hit the last loyal Uchiha, it was deflected by a well aimed kunai courtesy of Naruto.
“I think we need more speed to beat this guy,” came the blondes deduction.
“Agreed,” and with that said the two started to channel large quantities of elemental chakra through their bodies, raiton through Sasuke’s and doton through Naruto’s. Just as Naruto finished priming his body with doton chakra he whispered something that caused the Jōnin to go wide eyed, “Kaimon kaihou, Kyūmon kaihou,” and with that both teens disappeared.
Before he had a chance to react Kakashi found himself receiving a right hook to the gut and a raiton enhanced sword strike slicing his chest. The flurry of strikes kept raining on him and no matter how hard he tried he simply couldn’t escape as they pushed him further and further back until he heard the sound of bells, not the alarm clock.
As he collapsed from the beating he received he turned his head to see his final student looking on with concern written on her face, and a pair of bells in her hand.
“Those two pushed me towards her, while attracting my full attention, I guess I should pass ‘em,” and with that in mind the elite Jōnin fell into blissful unconsciousness.
-
Inside the Hokages office a meeting was called for, this time it was for the Jōnin instructors to give their assessment on their teams.
There was an edge of impatience in the air, but then again the meeting was supposed to start over two and a half hours ago, but they had all been waiting for the final Jōnin to arrive, Kakashi.
“Um excuse me Hokage-sama,” came the apology of a young med-nin who had been working at the hospital at the time, “I’m sorry for disturbing you but I would like to inform you that Hatake Kakashi will not be attending this meeting as he is currently in the hospital with a large number of injuries and a severe case of chakra exhaustion.”
This information caused several reactions, mainly questions concerning his genin team and what had happened to them.
“I’m grateful of this information Seikou-chan but do you know anything concerning the fate of his genin team?” the aged leader asked the young woman.
“Heh, they were the ones who did it to him,” came her reply causing several eyes to widen at the idea that a single genin cell could possibly bring down the villages top Jōnin.
“Seikou this is no time for jokes!” shouted the god of shinobi.
“And I’m not joking, both Sasuke and Naruto-kun were holding back significantly in the academy so that they would be placed on the same team, in reality they’re both closer to Jōnin level than genin level, combined with their flawless teamwork and it’s no surprise that they almost killed their sensei,” she stated to a disbelieving crowd. Seeing the look on the Jōnin’s faces she decided to just give up, “fine then, just ask Kakashi-sempai when he wakes up. And if you want to find Naruto-kun and Sasuke then just look at Ichiraku’s, they’ll probably be there,” and with her piece said she left the room.
As soon as the Chūnin had left the room the Hokage brought out his crystal ball that allowed him to see anywhere inside Konoha. He quickly looked at Ichiraku’s ramen and just as predicted team 7 was seated there over a few bowls of ramen.
-
“I wonder if we passed?” Sakura asked the boys seated next to her as she began to eat her first bowl of vegetable ramen.
“Meh, even if he tries to fail us, I’ve got some ransom,” Naruto said as he pulled out a small orange book titled Icha Icha paradise, complete with the authors signature on the cover, “if he doesn’t cooperate then we can easily just burn this thing.”
“Hold on a minute, did you just say that you would destroy a Jōnin’s property?” the pink haired girl asked with a look of disbelief.
“Yep, you’re forgetting that we’re ninja, it is our job to lie, cheat, steal, torture and kill, all we’re doing right now is cheating the test, stealing our sensei’s most precious possession and IF he decides to fail us, torture him by destroying it,” the blonde replied with a happy tone to his voice.
“Who’s to say I won’t burn it anyway?” the raven haired boy sitting between the two suddenly asked.
“Sasuke-kun that isn’t nice!” reprimanded the girl of the group, “besides don’t ya think hospitalising him is bad enough? I mean seriously you guys nearly killed him, even if he had that weird eye thing.”
“Hey! He told us to go at him with the intent to kill, so we did, just because he couldn’t handle us doesn’t mean it isn’t his fault for giving us stupid orders,” Sasuke claimed.
“That’s not the point,” the pink haired member of the group started only to get cut off.
“Meh, can’t we leave this discussion for later, I wanna eat,” Naruto said before digging into his bowl, with a sweatdrop from Sakura the other members of team 7 deciding to do the same before their food went cold.
-
There was stunned silence in the Hokages office.
“That was Kakashi’s autographed Icha Icha paradise, if they have it then, they really did put him in the hospital,” came the disbelieving voice of the chain smoker in charge of team 10, Sarutobi Asuma.
“And if they really do plan on using it as blackmail then we can be certain that Kakashi will pass this team, even if only to save his porn,” the Jōnin-sensei of team 8 added.
“I agree, so taking this into account I believe it is safe to state which teams passed,” came the conclusion of the Hokage.
(1) the eight gates,
(2) Earth Release: Double Suicide Decapitation Technique
(3) Earth Release: Underground Projection Fish Technique
(4) Wind drill
(5) gate of release, or the first gate
(6) flying swallow