Ibiki actually had to wake Haruka the next day. She was usually a light sleeper and tended to wake up with the first birds, but she'd gotten, at best, three hours of sleep last night. Thankfully her quasi guardian had decided to be a nice man that morning and got her out of bed with breakfast instead of cold water.
Still, she was so bleary that it took her five minutes to notice what was wrong with her bedroom after she entered her own flat. She kept a mission ready bag right next to the futon she slept on. The bag was there, just like it should be. The futon, however, wasn't. She blinked at the empty spot stupidly for a while before she remembered the joke she and Pakkun had played on Kakashi yesterday. That asshole had actually stolen her bed.
***
Haruka reached the training ground ten minutes early, but both Naruto and Sasuke were already there, and glaring at each other.
"I miss anything important?" She asked them, which prompted Sasuke to glare at her as well.
"How do you know my brother?" He demanded instead of answering her. Haruka sighed. He probably wouldn't let this go so she might as well tell him. If she was honest she had expected this to happen yesterday, after Kakashi left them all on the roof, but maybe Sasuke had still been too shaken at that point.
"We're friends. He used to help me learn for the Academy graduation exam."
Sasuke's eyes widened, incredulous and a little shocked. He stared at her for a moment before letting himself fall to the ground with a heavy thump.
"I've never even heard of you before yesterday," he whispered.
"Well, he wouldn't have been allowed to talk about it. Just about two thirds of my life are classified."
"Like… you can't tell anyone anything about you?" Naruto piped in, voice unusually quiet.
"More or less. For example, I can tell you that Haruka isn't my original name and that I have no idea who my parents are and whether they are still alive, but I can't tell you why," she explained and then added for Sasuke's benefit: "Itachi used to talk about you. Those were the only times I've ever seen him actually happy. I mean he would laugh or joke with me, but there was always this sense of sadness coloring everything he did. I have no idea why he suddenly murdered your clan though and I get why you want him dead, but don't expect me to help."
"As if I'd need your help," he scoffed. Haruka didn't tell him that he would need all the help he could possibly get. People might call Sasuke the Rookie of the Year, a prodigy even, but he couldn't hold a candle to someone like Itachi. The older Uchiha brother had been ANBU by the time he was ten years old. Sasuke was barely even a genin at twelve. He'd need years to catch up to his brother and that was assuming Itachi didn't improve during that time.
***
The mood hadn't gotten much better by the time Kakashi showed up. Two hours and forty-three minutes late. The three of them had mostly just sat around on the ground, staring into space and not talking to each other.
"Hey guys, good morning!" Their sensei called cheerfully, completely ignoring Naruto's outrage at his lateness and the glares Sasuke shot in Haruka's direction every few minutes. Instead he placed an old alarm clock on one of the three wooden posts to one side of the training ground. Then he held up two bells and explained that their job would be to take them from him. Whoever didn't have a bell at noon wouldn't get lunch and be tied to a post. And then he added—as if it was an unimportant afterthought—that, since there were just two bells, one of them would definitely fail and be sent back to the Academy.
Naruto looked more nervous than anything else, but Sasuke was clearly determined to pass this test no matter what. Kakashi advised them to come at him with the intent to kill if they wanted to have any chance at all. Haruka didn't think it would help. Just like Itachi, Kakashi was so far out of their league it wasn't even worth making the comparison. If he didn't want them to get one of those bells they wouldn't get a bell. Which meant he had either already decided which two would pass or getting the bells wasn't actually the purpose of the test.
Haruka's musings were interrupted by Naruto, who was spouting something about accidentally killing Kakashi if they were allowed to use weapons. It sounded like empty posturing to her and she wasn't the only one.
"In my experience those with no talent often bark the loudest," Kakashi said before telling them to start on his mark. Naruto didn't wait that long however. He pulled a kunai and moved into a position to throw it—with terrible form Haruka noted. The blond never actually got to complete the attack either. Kakashi suddenly appeared behind him, left hand on the blond's head and right hand gripping his wrist, so that Naruto's kunai pointed at his own neck.
"Calm down, I haven't said start yet," their sensei told him. Naruto looked terribly surprised and even Sasuke seemed a lot less confident than before. Haruka had barely caught the start of Kakashi's Body Flicker and even that only because she recognized the change in his chakra, to her teammates it would have been completely invisible. She didn't know why his speed surprised them though. It wasn't like he hadn't used the same technique the day before. Twice.
When Kakashi decided it was time to actually start the test both Haruka and Sasuke took cover in the trees. Naruto had a different idea however. He actually stayed right in front of Kakashi and demanded they fight. The blond ran straight at their sensei, only hesitating when Kakashi stuck a hand into his hip pouch. He was clearly expecting a weapon, so the orange book the jonin pulled out instead confused him so much he stopped dead in his tracks.
While Kakashi read, seemingly not paying attention to his surroundings at all, Naruto got his thoughts back in order and then jumped at him, shouting something about kicking ass. He was generally rather loud and all of his kicks and swings were telegraphed so obviously that Kakashi had several seconds to dodge them. Their sensei had quite a bit of fun mocking Naruto, to the point that the blond actually knocked himself into the river that cut through the training ground.
He didn't spend much time in the water and immediately threw a pair of shuriken when he emerged. Kakashi seemed rather happy with that. Of course he also caught each with one finger and didn't even glance up while he did it, so maybe he'd just read a paragraph he liked.
After Naruto, half a dozen clones jumped out of the water. Haruka might have dismissed them as simple illusions, but the amount of chakra they carried was massive and Naruto claimed they were Shadow Clones. Could he really make that many solid clones? She'd noticed that his chakra reserves were uncommonly large of course, but this was just silly. In fact his reserves didn't seem to have shrunk at all, which made absolutely no sense. It was like letting water flow out of a bottle, only the bottle never emptied. How was that even possible? Was something interfering with her ability to sense chakra or was he somehow not using his own reserves to perform jutsu?
"What?" Kakashi suddenly exclaimed, effectively distracting Haruka. One of the Naruto's hung off his back while the others ran at him—with no formation whatsoever. Naruto might be creative and have enough chakra for three people, but he had no sense of tactics whatsoever and his techniques were sloppy at best.
"Nice plan," Sasuke said with a smirk just as Naruto was about to hit their sensei. The blond ended up hitting one of his own clones instead and then an all out brawl broke out between Naruto and his clones. All accusing each other of being a transformed Kakashi. It took him almost comically long to check by simply releasing the Shadow Clone jutsu, only to find out that he was all alone. Apparently the idea that Kakashi had used the Replacement Technique had never even occurred to him.
Shortly after that little fiasco Naruto managed to fall for an incredibly obvious trap and ended up hanging ass over teakettle from a tree. At which point Kakashi lectured him on thinking before using a jutsu. Sasuke used their sensei's apparent distraction to attack by throwing a volley of kunai and shuriken at him. Kakashi didn't twitch a finger before he was gone and the projectiles impacted with a log.
"You're distracted today," he admonished Haruka, suddenly right behind her. She shrugged at him, not even trying to get into a defensive position.
"Somebody stole my futon."
"Which might have been a valid excuse had you actually slept in your flat," he told her, visible eye narrowed. She didn't ask how he knew. Kakashi probably wouldn't admit it until the day he died, but he regularly sent his dogs to look in on her, or even did it himself some nights. It had started back in T&I because she used to have terrible nightmares and then it just became habit.
"Fine, I'm distracted," she sighed and then changed the topic in a rather obvious manner. "The test is about teamwork isn't it? It doesn't matter at all whether or not we get a bell as long as we do it together."
"How come you're sitting here and twiddling your thumbs if you figured that out? Deciding being a shinobi is too hard after all?" He mocked, clearly trying to get a reaction out of her. Haruka merely raised an eyebrow at him.
"They needed to see that they don't stand a chance on their own first. Neither of them knows or trusts me, Sasuke actually actively dislikes me."
"So to gain that trust you decided to what? Not even try to persuade them and instead go straight for underhanded T&I tactics?" He interrupted her halfhearted explanation. His stare was hard, but he wasn't nearly as angry as he looked. Haruka sighed again, letting her shoulders slump.
"Okay, whatever, we can play your way. Now shoo," she told him waving one hand at the treeline. Of course he didn't let her get away that easily. Kakashi moved as if to put a hand on her shoulder and then threw her across the training field and straight at Sasuke.
The Uchiha grunted when she collided with his chest, but caught her anyway—out of reflex she assumed and was proven right a second later.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" He demanded, as if she had launched herself at him like one of his brain dead fangirls. Haruka ignored him, instead grabbing his left wrist and strengthening her own muscles with chakra so he wouldn't have any choice but to follow. She pulled him out of the woods and towards Naruto.
The blond had just managed to cut the rope around his ankle and land on his feet when they arrived. Only to hit another snare and end up right where he'd started.
"Idiot," Sasuke scoffed.
"You are in the middle of enemy territory, in fact there is an enemy shinobi close by. So unless you plan to use your teammate as a distraction to be tortured and killed in your place, I suggest you cut him down and come up with a plan!" Haruka snapped at him, letting killing intent leak out and hit him. This probably wasn't how Kakashi had imagined the day would go, but she was too distracted by the monsters that lurked in Konoha's shadows to play nice. Sasuke would just have to deal.
And he did, surprisingly enough. He reacted to the cold steel in her voice as if someone had slapped him across the face, as if a completely different person was in her place, yelling at him. It only took him a second to clear his head and get Naruto down, after which he turned to her, waiting.
"The enemy is stronger, faster and more experienced than any of us. He is also a tracker so hiding and running are out of the question," she told both boys. They were a little wary of her demeanor, but listened all the same. "We don't stand a chance in a straight up fight, but we do have the numbers advantage. You're a prankster," she nodded at Naruto. "And they call you Rookie of the Year," another nod in Sasuke's direction. "So give me a plan that involves all the traps and dirty tactics you can come up with."
"Uhm," Naruto started hesitantly, but then continued more confidently when she gave him a small smile. "You know Ka—I mean the enemy, right?" Sasuke looked surprised at the question, and so was she, but she nodded anyway. It wasn't a secret. She just hadn't thought the boys would pick up on it that fast and judging by Sasuke's expression, he hadn't. Apparently Naruto was good at reading people. Interesting.
"Could we like… blackmail him or something?" The blond continued. Sasuke looked intrigued by the idea, but Haruka was skeptical.
"I guess, but," she started and then stopped herself. Actually, that might work. Kakashi was close by though, so they couldn't discuss tactics out loud. She kept her back to where she sensed Kakashi and then began signing her plan to the boys, only for two very confused faces to stare back at her.
"Is that some sort of super secret jutsu? What's it do?" Naruto asked, excitement coloring his voice. There was a cackle from the treeline that made Sasuke flinch back. All Haruka felt was the need to slap her hand against her head. Did the Academy seriously not teach Konoha Standard? The most basic of all codes? It couldn't be something they had never talked about at all. Haruka remembered reading about ciphers in the Academy textbooks and while Sasuke had no idea what she was trying to tell him he clearly recognized the attempt. The Uchiha pulled out pen and paper and handed it over to her, to more laughter from the woods.
"Shut it," Haruka called over her shoulder and threw a kunai in Kakashi's general direction. It came flying back a moment later. She barely managed to catch it. There was a Henohenomoheji carved into the blade.
"Funny," she muttered when she saw it, but he stayed quiet after that, so Haruka used the time to write down her idea on the piece of paper and hand it back to Sasuke. Both the Uchiha and Naruto added a few things, passing it back and forth, but in the end they had a plan that might actually work.
"Come on then, let's play," Haruka called when they were done.
"Took you long enough, time's almost up," Kakashi informed them, left hand holding his favorite book and right in his pocket. He looked as bored as ever, but she could tell he was actually paying attention this time.
Sasuke moved to face their sensei.
"Ah yes, the Uchiha, the village's most powerful clan. This could be interesting," Kakashi chuckled. Sasuke didn't react to the taunt. Instead he hauled a barrage of shuriken at Kakashi, who mocked the obviousness of the attack. Meanwhile Naruto created a clone to stand at Haruka's side and slunk off into the trees. Sasuke's job was to distract their sensei, and he was doing it marvelously.
The boy didn't pull any punches. Flipping around mid-air half the time, like a leaf on the wind. He wouldn't be able to keep that speed up for long, but it didn't matter. He'd gotten Kakashi to put his book away and actually concentrate on the fight, and that was all they wanted. Sasuke was driven, she'd give him that. He even managed to touch one of the bells, but Kakashi threw him across the field before he could do anything more than make it chime.
"My turn," Haruka declared, throwing a few shuriken of her own and following right behind them. Sasuke should have gotten a feeling for how Kakashi fought by now, and Naruto had almost completed circling their battle field.
Haruka was more reckless than Sasuke, perfectly willing to rely on her accelerated healing and the fact that Kakashi didn't actually want her dead. Any bruises, cuts and chakra burns she sustained during this would heal within a day or two. They were certainly more than worth the look of surprise on Kakashi's face when she ripped his sleeve open with claws made of solid chakra.
"Finally managed to get that to work then," he commented, pulling out a kunai. Kakashi rarely ever sparred with her and this wasn't even close to a real fight. Both of their styles were far too lethal for an all out match, not to mention that she couldn't actually keep up with him. Still, being able to leave a mark of her own was nice, even if he would probably make her pay for a new shirt. Kakashi was cheap like that.
They both got distracted when a bunch of Naruto's stormed out of the woods, surrounding them in a wide circle. They were all yelling profanities of some kind before jumping into the air at the same time. A dozen kunai followed in the wake of each Naruto.
Haruka had been waiting for this of course and used the Replacement Technique to switch with one of the clones. Kakashi did the same, raising an eyebrow at her, but she just grinned and pointed at the clones.
"Harem jutsu!" The Naruto's bellowed and then Kakashi was surrounded by busty, blond girls, covered by nothing but wisps of chakra smoke. The distraction worked like a charm. Their sensei seemed completely stumped for three seconds or so, before he started systematically dispelling the clones.
"Come on, I'm not that easy," he complained, batting away a blond girl trying to get at the bells.
"So you don't want this back then?" Sasuke said from behind him, holding up a little orange book in triumph. When his last clone was gone Naruto transformed back into himself, laughing hysterically.
"Oh my god! Oh my god, I can't believe that worked! You pervert!" He shouted half-indignant, half-delighted. Kakashi let them bathe in their win for a moment. Then he body flickered behind Sasuke, took his book back before the Uchiha could even register what had happened, and kicked him straight at Naruto. The boys collided with a dull thump and then went down in a heap of limbs.
"You're a really sore loser, you know that?" Haruka asked, but she was grinning from ear to ear. It didn't last long. Kakashi's chakra disappeared underground and then something yanked at her ankle. Suddenly her head was the only thing not buried in damp earth and Kakashi was crouching in front of her, happily reading his book.
"I wouldn't say I lost," he told her. "You're a bunch of insolent little punks, but you might actually make a half decent team at some point."
"Half-decent?" Sasuke grumbled annoyed, followed by Naruto's indignant bellow of: "Punks! I'm not a punk! I'm gonna be Hokage!"