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Teamwork 3 chapter 1 : end of scene 2
... >O FAITO.
(okay, I feel like lots of it is filler. But ehh. There are a few scenes in here I rather like. >D)
The examiner started calling out teams by their leaders; when one of the guys protested the order, claiming it to be fixed, the examiner retorted that the Jounin-sensei had drawn lots for their teams; like they had so much time to waste standing around in lines just to get a number, when they were already going to stand around waiting for their turn to go in. Sakura noticed he wasn't actually giving numbers with the teams, and if you weren't counting them on your own and finding a way to determinate who was in the team before yours, you were likely to have to stand around in a permanent state of readiness. A subtle way to mess with their nerves, probably. Sakura was counting, though; they were the ninth team on the list. Not bad. There were about thirty teams after them; they could definitely have done worse.
"Let's find somewhere to sit down," Sasuke said. "There's no telling how far apart they'll let us go in."
Sakura watched the crowd as she followed him. There were some who had gotten the same idea, nonchalantly leaning against rocks or the cliffs themselves; but the rest were still eyeing each other, tense and unwilling to relax. It was the same kind of atmosphere it had been when they'd been kids, but now she could see how many of the participants were putting on airs, trying too hard to look dangerous to cover up their own nerves.
She got three other looks from people as they either caught her scent or, she didn't know, saw through her body or something similar. There might have been more, but in that case they concealed their information-gathering attempts better. It was hard to keep her hands relaxed at her side, to prevent them from covering her still-flat stomach defensively. Her tunic still looked okay, she knew that; but she couldn't help but want to check whether it was pulling too tight around her -- barely -- thickening waist.
"Do you see the other Konoha teams?" she asked Naruto.
"Nope. Maybe they're hiding their headbands, or looking the other way."
Sakura turned around, to check whether she could find them in the other half of the canyon; nothing. Sighing, she joined her teammates. Sasuke was busy bullying a Waterfall trio off of a prime piece of real estate, a nice little ledge in the sun that wasn't too far off from the mouth of the cave.
"There's no need to make so many enemies before this even starts, you know," she muttered at him; but she perched on the ledge anyway, and bumped him with her leg gently when he leaned against it casually, arms crossed.
It was over an hour before their turn came; she nudged a napping Naruto awake when she saw the previous team disappear inside the cave, and made her way to stand there, rolling her wrists and shaking her fingers to loosen them before she pulled on her gloves.
"About one hour for eight teams," Sasuke mused, "Either there's a time limit of seven to eight minutes, or they don't mind if we run into each other in there."
"Huh. Think we lose if we get passed?"
Sasuke's eyes narrowed threateningly. "We won't get passed."
Naruto bristled at the warning. "Don't look at me like that! Like I'm going to let them."
"So why are you even talking about it?"
"Guy, it's our turn." Sakura was almost relieved. Only until she stepped in, though; it went dark and too quiet at the first bend in the tunnel, and she almost knocked herself out on a jutting slice of rock. The ground didn't stay smooth and horizontal much farther in either.
Naruto tapped her on the shoulder. "I'm gonna take point. Just gotta track the other guys, right?"
Sasuke snorted. "Unless they all got lost and failed. Keep your eyes open."
Naruto muttered something uncomplimentary under his breath, but by some kind of miracle, didn't bother retorting. "Whatever. Uzumaki Naruto the Amazing Bloodhound, at your service!"
It was dim, but not enough to make her miss Naruto's reddening eyes and lengthening claws. He started to jog down the tunnel, movements loose and strangely fluid. Sakura followed, trying not to stare whenever he leaned down or to the sides to sniff things. His body language disturbed her a bit -- the sudden, swift movements over and around the rocks, the unselfconscious way he swerved and crouched when he caught a scent. She could have assumed he just felt his teammates wouldn't think him weird for acting like that, but the thought didn't even seem to enter his brain. He still acted humanlike enough -- he wasn't on all fours yet -- but there was still something slightly off, and she sincerely hoped she was just reading too much into it.
She'd asked Kakashi why they were training Naruto to be more of a fox, when he was still at a risk of being influenced by Kyuubi. Shouldn't he have worked on being able to repress all those things, to keep the demon safely locked up inside himself?
'It's going to come out regardless, Sakura. The seal is melding them, forcing Naruto to assimilate Kyuubi. He'll have to deal with the senses and the animal instincts sooner or later -- I'd rather they weren't still associated with Kyuubi no Youko's impulses and memories when that happens.'
She understood the theory, that Naruto needed to make the harmless parts of the fox his, so that they wouldn't be inextricably linked with murderous intent and a 'humans as prey' mindset. It still seemed somewhat counterintuitive to her -- making Naruto more like a beast so that the beast inside him would leave him alone.
Disturbing, too. Mostly because Naruto didn't even seem to realize how weird suddenly acting like an animal was, and she couldn't help but wonder how much this state altered his thought process, if he even realized there was anything different.
But then he'd always been socially clueless, so it was entirely possible that his failure to notice had nothing to do with insidiously losing his humanity.
She could keep her worry for later. For now there was the cave to deal with. There were some tripwires, suspicious-looking flat stones that looked like pressure plates, a few precariously balanced rocks and incongruous tree trunks, ready to fall on them. There were a few dead ends, a few strange forks in the path -- some of them overhead, that they had to jump into and climb, some cleverly hidden behind rocks, or in shadows. Sasuke's torch made the boulders seem to dance in rhythm with its flickers, which gave the setting a slightly surreal atmosphere; but the traps were so easy to avoid that the wavering light made very little difference, even for Sakura with her normal eyes.
They reached a series of caves, and spread out to check every corner for the inscription. As Sakura had thought, it was hidden in an awkward corner, but it was also engraved on the only boulder that didn't match -- the color was the same, dark gray, but in the middle of a cave full of granite, it was made of much finer-grained basalt.
The inscription they were supposed to learn by heart was only two paragraphs long; Sakura read it three times, Sasuke five -- Naruto didn't bother -- and they were ready to go. So far it was too easy, which meant the test wasn't finished.
Sakura was opening her mouth to remind them, but that was when the cave floor crumbled under their weight.
Sakura had been trained for this; she didn't stop to think. Chakra to her hands and feet -- but there was no wall to stick to; she grabbed a weight-tipped wire from her pouch, flung it up, hoping it would get tangled and stop her fall. The torch had gone out, flame snuffed by the sudden movement, and she didn't know how far down the bottom was.
Her feet glanced off a sharply inclined surface; she leaned her side into it, skidded down, but the stone was too slick to allow her to stop her momentum. When she hit the bottom, she had slowed down enough that the jarring stop only made her fall into a deep crouch, and not spill on the ground.
The deafening echoes of her own fall and the gravels skittering and rolling under her feet slowly died down, and she realized she couldn't hear her teammates at all. No swearing at having pebbles lodged in uncomfortable parts of their anatomy; no soft whisper of sandals on the rocks; no breathing -- save hers.
The hair on the back of her neck prickled up.
She moved, slowly, into a fighting stance, and gathered healing chakra into her hand -- the only one of her techniques that ever shifted into the visible spectrum. The green glow on the gray stones made things strange, made her wonder what kind of dark fluid stained the slide, just out of arm's reach.
It was only when she saw Sasuke's body, crumpled and still at the end of the trail, back and neck twisted at impossible angles, that she realized it was supposed to be blood. Just overhead, faintly twitching hand all but brushing her face, dangled Naruto, eyes open sightlessly, with a jutting spear of stone protruding from his mangled body.
She had to admit, their genjutsu specialist was good. She let the green glow dissipate, joined her hands. "Kai."
She was unsurprised to find the bodies and the blood trail had disappeared. Note to self, if she ever made such an ambush, find a way to add the cloying scent of warm blood to the scene -- adding scent to genjutsu would be horribly difficult, but there was no rule that said they couldn't hide a freshly sacrificed rabbit around the scene.
She wound the useless wire around her hand, craning her neck to take a better look at the slide through which she'd come. Of course, there was now a slab of stone blocking the way, awkwardly angled and high enough that she wouldn't get any good leverage to move or break it. Explosive tags on a kunai would bounce right off.
"I guess we're expected to just keep going and leave our teammates behind, hm," she mused, out loud, to hear her own voice and break the oppressive, sterile stillness of the cave. She started down the tunnel, a hand on the wall, the other still haloed in green. "This has Mist nin written all over it..."
Okay, so Sasuke had been on her right during the fall, Naruto on her left, she hadn't twisted around all that much... Presumably they all had to emerge at the same place...
Right on cue, the wall on her left started shaking. She flattened a hand against it -- the vibrations were sharp, short. She'd broken lots of rocks during her training with the Hokage. She hoped it meant what she thought it meant -- that the wall was thin -- cocked her fist, and shoved her whole body into the punch.
The timing of her release of chakra was slightly off; her knuckles screamed in pain. Just a contusion, thankfully, no break, no crushed ruin of cartilage and bone slivers. Gritting her teeth, she kicked at the hole in the wall of the cave until it was wide enough to squirm through. She didn't need her green chakra to see; the tunnel was awash in red-orange light.
"Naruto!"
He was still at the bottom of the slide, standing there with his eyes scrunched closed, flickering tongues of red chakra licking up his legs and arms. He was mumbling something under his breath -- "Not true, not true, I know it's not true--" but his hands wouldn't complete the release seal. She ran to him, caught his wrist and his shoulder firmly. "Kai!"
The next second, it was dark again, and she was being enveloped in a bear hug that might have broken a few bones if she'd had the misfortune of being a civilian.
"... You're alright."
Sakura hugged back. "Yes."
"... I knew it. From the start! Heh."
"Of course."
"... I'm fine, too."
"Mm-hm."
"So..."
Sakura still didn't let go. She wasn't going to let go first.
Naruto sighed in her ear. "I know better, too. It smelled all wrong and stuff, but even when I raised my chakra I couldn't shake it off. And all I could think about was how the guy said there was no rule about no killing off people in the exam now..."
She nodded, trying to seem casual. The last thing she needed was him feeling down right now, which would happen if she made a big deal out of it. "To keep a genjutsu on three people at the same time, the caster is probably very good, yes."
"Heh. ... I suck. Even with Kakashi's training against genjutsu, I keep falling for it."
Sakura tried not to remember in too many details the last time Naruto had fallen for a serious genjutsu. He'd been taken in hook, line and sinker, yes -- and then the pain and despair from believing the illusion had made him go feral on the caster. They'd had to identify the man by his toe prints. "Hey, none of that. You have a natural weakness -- just like I have a natural advantage. It happens; you did a good job compensating for it. You would have shaken off a more normal-level genjutsu. That guy was good, really. Besides, with Sasuke and I breaking it, he had more power to throw into yours."
Naruto gave a little laugh, a bit unconvinced, and slowly relaxed his hold. "Uh huh. Just gonna go with 'Kakashi's training is lame', I think."
"That works, too," she allowed.
Naruto straightened up. "Hey, where's Sasuke?"
"The other tunnel, I guess. We should go get him." She just hoped he was still waiting.
Sakura and Naruto disentangled, and she went to kick more chips of stone off the hole she'd made. Even then, Naruto barely managed to wriggle through. They started knocking against the other side, trying to find a place where the rock was thin enough.
"I hear him! He's knocking too. 'O... K... question mark?' Yeah!" Naruto knocked back a yes. "Huh. 'S... O... S... L... O... W' -- Hey, fuck you. F, U... Sakura, how'd you make a K again?"
Sakura showed him. On his skull.
"Oww!"
"Like we have time to waste with that! Move aside."
She gathered her chakra. Her hand was healed by now; she tried not to tense in anticipation of the same kind of pain. Tsunade-shishou would get annoyed with her if Sakura let something so silly make her hesitate. She tapped the wall with her fist, lightly, to judge the distance, and then took a step back, and swung forward, targeting what she hoped was the weakest point.
The timing was perfect; the whole tunnel shook, dust and gravel raining down on them. Sasuke was standing in the rubble a second later, and running down the middle tunnel the next second. "Ceiling! Run!"
They ran, listening to the echo of what seemed like a hundred rocks crashing in the passage behind them.
"Shit," Naruto laughed, panting. "I think we just ruined the test for everyone that was left."
Sasuke rolled his eyes, still Sharingan-red, and strange-looking in the light of the torch in his hand. "They've got Stone jutsu users. How do you think the trap appeared, and the ride down was so smooth? They'll fix it."
"Huh, maybe. Still, if the test was whether we'd be able to keep going while leaving our teammates behind, then I'm gonna kick some asses."
"I doubt it, like the Hokage would ever want to encourage -- snuff out the torch! I think I see--" Sakura squinted past the glow of the flames. At first she didn't see anything, but then Sasuke moved the torch behind him, and there it was, the light of the outside world.
"Woohoo!"
Sakura shook her head, amused, as the two boys started to race to the exit. "Slow down! It would be just like them to put traps just before the exit."
There was only one trap, but it was a doozy -- a huge boulder fell off a hole in the ceiling and started rolling toward them.
Naruto didn't even slow down, just popped out a clone and kept rushing to meet it, Rasengan in hand.
Sasuke didn't even slow down, because with the sharingan he could tell it was an illusion.
Naruto burst out of the cave ready to fight; Sasuke followed more sedately, but from the way she saw him move to keep his back to the cliff, he wasn't ready to stand down just yet. She was outside with them a couple of seconds later, squinting in the daylight. They were in another canyon, with a trio of chuunins in face masks and Mist getups waiting around. One of them was sitting at the edge of a seal pattern, and glared at them briefly as they passed him by to join the main examiner, who was crooking his finger at them.
"The message?"
Sakura recited it, quietly enough to keep from being overheard, clearly enough to make it obvious that she remembered it to the comma. The man grunted, made a note on his clipboard. "Go left."
Exchanging long looks, and wondering when the other shoe would drop, Sasuke, Naruto and Sakura went left. The canyon veered sharply; beyond, a few dozens of jounin-teachers waited for their pupils. It wasn't until she saw Kakashi-sensei waiting there with a smile that she breathed out and accepted that they had passed the first test.
"Good job, good job. I'd treat you, but we might miss the curfew."
Sakura eyed the white, cloudy sky. It wasn't even noon yet. "Liar."
Kakashi continued blithely, undisturbed. "Besides, you might want to use the free time to train more. Tomorrow the risks will be a lot more real."
"A lot more? They were real enough today! Did you hear what that guy said? It doesn't matter if some of us get killed--"
"It's always been that way for the second stage, Naruto. The only change is that now you can still advance to the tournament even if you leave your teammates behind." Kakashi's voice was bland, casually uninterested. But then, they already knew what he thought about people who abandoned their comrades. "The first test has always been for weeding out people who aren't suitable yet -- or at all -- and shouldn't even think of taking the risk."
Sakura stared at her teacher, mystified. "But the examiner said... Oh!"
Sasuke made a face. "I see. He said people who lose their team members can still go from stage two to stage three. He never said it was the same for stage one."
"... What an asshole."
Sakura winced, and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. "Well... It's part of the test, I guess."
"Still an asshole." Naruto would probably have kept muttering, but the sound of his stomach groaning its hunger distracted him. "And I still think you should treat us, sensei."
He slanted a suspicious glare at Kakashi, who grinned, unconcerned. "Ah, it would be my pleasure! Sadly, I don't have any Water Country money."
"Liar!" Sakura and Naruto yelled at the same time, by reflex.
"He's not lying," Sasuke countered, hands in his pockets; and when they blinked at him, he reminded them, "Water Country money doesn't exist. It's the same we use back home."
When Sakura whirled around to yell at Kakashi some more, of course, he had disappeared.
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I really liked that test. It wasn't what you usually see for the first part, very cool. The morse code was fabulous. Good way to cut the tension, which you built quite beautifully with Naruto's reaction to the genjutsu. Also, this line?: Naruto didn't even slow down, just popped out a clone and kept rushing to meet it, Rasengan in hand.
Sasuke didn't even slow down, because with the sharingan he could tell it was an illusion.
Completely made my night. *grin*
Right. I'm off to sleep now, since I have go go to class tomorrow. XP Not that I don't usually have class on Mondays, but still!
Adi
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*huggleloves* thank you, i'm glad you liked it ^^
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uh, that came out wrong.
Anyway, keep writing, you, or you'll fall behind, can't fall behind on nanowrimo, IT ISN'T ALLOWED DAMN YOU.
....maybe I just want more teamwork....
Whatever!
-Rahedion Woif
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/But then he'd always been socially clueless, so it was entirely possible that his failure to notice had nothing to do with insidiously losing his humanity./
-Rahedion Woif
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Now I gotta start Naruto's scene and ... I don't really know how. ~__~
I do know how it ends. MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
Ahem.
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"I hear him! He's knocking too. 'O... K... question mark?' Yeah!" Naruto knocked back a yes. "Huh. 'S... O... S... L... O... W' -- Hey, fuck you. F, U... Sakura, how'd you make a K again?"
i smiled so hard at this part LOL i love how jerky they are to each other.
i always stare longer than necessary at the sakura butt icon kekek
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Thank youuuu~ ^.^
*uses it again*
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Sad to say, I fell for that Water Country money line too.
Good thing Sasuke's here to remind everyone! :B
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i love pulling things out of my ass like that. >Dno subject
When Sakura whirled around to yell at Kakashi some more, of course, he had disappeared.
Hee! Great way to to end this, and you can really tell that the kids have grown up a little. I love seeing them work as a team. Because they are. And Sakura totally kicks ass now, just like you wanted her to all those months ago.
NaNo is AWESOME.
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I loved this first test!^^
It was so sweet that Sakura helped out Naruto.
Looking forward to the next installment!
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<3<3<3 Nice first test, I can't wait for more ^___^
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And the Water Country money line was classic Kakashi. XD
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I loved this, it was just perfect. Yay for teamwork!
Favorite line
"Sakura showed him. On his skull."
lolol. So perfectly them.
And i loved this sentence for purely grammatical, syntex and diction reasons.
"But then he'd always been socially clueless, so it was entirely possible that his failure to notice had nothing to do with insidiously losing his humanity."
It was such a yummy sentence to read. Such pretty words. But that's my nerdy English major side coming out. Lol.
You are inspiring!
Loved it, can't wait for more.
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>.<
I had the craziest weekend and then I come home to this! I feel so lucky. *HAPPY*
I'm going to edit [only caught a few things on this first read, so I promise you annoyingly in depth stuff (not that there are any major errors or anything, I'm just a meticulous grammar Nazi >.< )] and fan girl later on, so be on the look out! ^^
Unlurking
(Anonymous) 2007-11-05 07:54 pm (UTC)(link)Anyways, now that I've declared myself a loyal fan-girl, just a couple constructive constructive comments (please don't hurt me, you seem to like when people point out grammatical errors and typos so I hope I am not offending you, that is not my goal).
"Guy, it's our turn." Sakura was almost relieved.
I think you meant "Guys, it's our turn."
"She'd asked Kakashi why they were training Naruto to be more of a fox, when he was still at a risk of being influenced by Kyuubi."
Just "at risk" not "at a risk"
"Sakura tried not to remember in too many details the last time Naruto had fallen for a serious genjutsu."
I'm not completely sure on this one but I think it should be "too much detail" not "too many details"
"They'd had to identify the man by his toe prints."
"They'd" means "They had," thus you have written "they had had," which could probably be shortened to "they had" and still carry the same meaning
""Still an asshole." Naruto would probably have kept muttering"
Naruto probably would have
On phrases:
(You may not want to change this, I'm just letting you know as a reader, your phrasing at this point threw me for a loop.)
"Huh. Think we lose if we get passed?"
Sasuke's eyes narrowed threateningly. "We won't get passed."
Maybe "if we get passed over?" "If we get passed" leaves me with the image of them "passing" the first exam. Which I don't think was what you are trying to convey with that sentence.
By the way, I loved the morse code, the Not-Quite-Boulder-of-Doom, and Kakashi's "Water money" joke. So clever!
Re: Unlurking
(Anonymous) 2007-11-05 07:56 pm (UTC)(link)--oops forgot to answer again. bad asuka, bad.
nurgh. *flops* sleeeeep. T__T
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'Guy' should be guys--the only error I noticed.
Oh wow. Incredibly cute'n'fluffy. Except for the kinda-gorey parts, but even those are more funny than anything. I mean, come on! Sakura wasn't panicking, so why would we think it anything but a genjustu. But still, funny. <3
And the morse code! Gah, muchlove for you from this little geek. And the way they interact--there's no awkwardness, because they know and are comfortably with each other.
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I have one style nitpick. In the part with the boulder (lol Temple of Doom), where you've got, "Naruto didn't even slow down..." and "Sasuke didn't even slow down...", I see what you were going for there but it reads awkwardly to me. I don't think that's a phrase structure that's really repeatable for effect in English--it's the 'even' that does it. I personally would change it to "Sasuke didn't slow down either" or try to drop the word 'even' from both phrases.
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... will fix later coz yey lazy XD
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This confused me for a bit - for some reason, I read that as space between team members being allowed to go in, rather than between teams.
I love Sakura's worry about her pregnancy and her determination not to show it - and Sasuke laying claim on prime real estate despite prior occupation. Sasuke, you are not helping my mental association of you with "feline"...
The ground didn't stay smooth and horizontal much farther in either.
Mmm, slightly confusing phrasing. Flat-out "much farther in" actually makes me think that she's looking at a point deeper in, rather than a span. I'd say rephrase it to "for much farther" (or even "much farther"), or better yet, go with "for very long." And I think you need a comma before the "either."
Torch? Hm. You'd think that ninja would have come up with a steadier light source. Torches have uncertain lighting, they tend to smoke, and they're likely to give you away...
she leaned her side into it, skidded down, but the stone was too slick to allow her to stop her momentum. When she hit the bottom, she had slowed down enough that the jarring stop only made her fall into a deep crouch, and not spill on the ground.
This was a little confusing. You just said "she tried to stop, but was unsuccessful. When she hit the bottom, she'd slowed down." They're not contradictory, but it is confusing. I would preface the second line with a "but" or "however," to make it clear that although she wasn't able to stop, she was able to slow down.
And just as an aside, I love the sense of "amateurs" that runs as an undercurrent through all this (as I'm sure Inner Sakura is cackling). The observation of the "incongruous trees," the way the rocks and traps stand out, and above all, her reaction to the genjutsu - immediately thinking, "they should have done this if they wanted it to be realistic." Plus the "supposed to be blood" line - showing that she was never taken in from the first, followed by the explanation with aforementioned criticism. Not only was that just Sakura being bad-ass, but the whole thing underscored just how much they've all, but particularly Sakura, grown up. Particularly when you consider that one of our earliest images of Sakura was her fainting at Kakashi's genjutsu of a dying Sasuke. The sheer contrast between then and now is brilliant. ^_^
And then we have poor Naruto, who at least has grown enough to see that it's fake even if he can't break out. And Sakura refusing to let go first (awww) and the brief reminiscence into the last time Naruto got suckered. Although I'm a little hesitant on that one. On the one hand, if whoever it is hasn't read your Teamwork drabbles, it's probably a necessary explanation, but it feels extraneous if you already read the actual event, and it has a tint of "information dump" to it.
Sasuke not seeming the least rattled - probably because he had Sharingan activated from the moment the floor gave out? Although - why didn't he break the wall down himself? Why wait for the other two?
(Although, I had to laugh at Naruto's "how do you do a K?" Poor kid. Can't even spell cuss words correctly!)
Had to laugh at the guy with the seal pattern glaring at them. Obviously wounded pride - and also potentially a headache from repairing the damage or getting his genjutsu broken! And then we have the team together with Kakashi again, and snark and criticism and "oh, didn't you know he was pulling your leg?" Very, very nice. ^_^ And not much in the way of grammatical errors that I noticed, which means either you're doing better, or I was too caught up in reading to pay attention. :-P
And don't worry about filler. The only thing that seemed potentially 'filler-ish' was Sakura's thinking about Naruto acting more and more like a fox. If she were to think that, I'd expect to see it in the event of, oh, Naruto trying to eat Sasuke's shoe, or something of the sort. Not in the middle of a mission. But, of course, the Shoe Incident was from Sasuke's point of view...
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the way you wrote sakuras thoughts when she saw naruto go foxy was pretty good. i liked it that she had doubts but faith at the same time!
it's time for her to fight on her own - to show them that she's not the little fragile girl anymore. she doesn't develope "fast" but steady.
the ending with kakashi was cute ^^
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I also laughed at the way Sasuke didn't bother slowing down for the illusory stone, and apparently didn't bother to tell Naruto that it was an illusion. They're still one-upping each other, and they probably will forever. :-)
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SO MUCH LOVE for this BTW. They're more comfortable with each other, and it just makes it so much more fun, even when the situations themselves might not be. ♥ Looking forward to more! :3
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Definitely an interesting exam idea you have here! I do like the genjutsu idea and how Sakura immediately saw through it rather than freaking out. It's a far cry from back when she took Kakashi's first "test" - of course she's come a long way since then but she's currently in a state where she couldn't afford to lose Naruto or Sasuke so i wouldn't have been surprised if she had a moment of panic. Either would have worked, I like what you did with it though.
Like everyone else seems to, I love the morse code bit.
Heh, there's always a trick to the first test... melikes.
Oh, Kakashi... so clever. But Sasuke's immediate realization takes the cake.
I adored this so much! I really am enjoying teamwork - I already want to go back and reread from the very beginning, sidestories and all but i have no time! I actually have class in 4 and a half hours, i don't even know why i'm still awake but i'm having fun reading your lovely writings. So, i'll finish and go to bed :)
~Sara