Time slipped by, little by little, in the middle of training.
By late morning, Sakura lay under the shade of a tree like a dead fish, unable to understand it—she truly couldn't understand it at all.
How could those two have that much stamina?
It had been the entire morning. Did they not know how to take a break?
"Yo—good morning, Sakura!"
Hearing that flippant greeting, Sakura's temper instantly flared. She sprang up, shooting her teacher a glare sharp enough to bite.
"Kakashi-sensei, could you maybe learn to tell time? Do you know what hour it is?!"
"Sorry," Kakashi said with an apologetic smile. "This morning when I looked in the mirror, I accidentally got lost in myself."
Sakura clicked her tongue. It was the first time she'd realized her teacher could be this shameless.
"Hey! You two—hurry up and rest!" Kakashi called out, his eyes curving into crescents as he waved at the two boys in the distance. "The exercise starts in one hour!"
Naruto's movement paused. The right hand supporting his entire body nearly gave out.
"…497, 498, 499… 500!"
He pushed himself up with force. Glancing at Sasuke, who was still training beside him, Naruto advised,
"Too much of anything backfires. Your training volume should match your condition."
With that, he walked toward the river nearby.
Sasuke flicked a glance at him.
He wasn't stupid—he knew Naruto was right.
But for the first time… for the first time in his life, he was furious at his own laziness.
What had he been doing all these years?
It was training—yet he couldn't even endure half of what someone else did!
Every time he thought of it, a wave of disgust rose up—disgust at the powerless rage he'd felt whenever he lost at the Academy.
Thud!
"Sasuke!" Sakura cried out, rushing over to help him up.
"So much fighting spirit." Kakashi nodded with satisfaction. "But if you don't have enough stamina for the next exercise, that won't do. The consequences of failing this exercise are… very serious…"
He even paused dramatically at the key point.
Unfortunately…
Naruto was off near the river doing who-knew-what.
Sasuke was too exhausted to speak.
And Sakura—well, between Kakashi-sensei and Sasuke, Sasuke was obviously more important.
"Ahem." Kakashi coughed. "If you fail this exercise… you'll be sent back to the Ninja Academy for remedial training."
Sasuke: "..."
"Huh?!!" Sakura yelped.
Looking at Sakura's stunned face, Kakashi finally felt a little comforted. His wounded teacher's pride had been soothed.
---
An hour later.
"Your task is to take the bells from me. Understood?" Kakashi said with a smile, holding up two small bells.
"Why are there only two bells?" Sakura's honor-student instincts kicked in. She spotted the issue immediately.
'Bells, huh… I wonder if that temple's protective bell is still around.'
Naruto's thoughts drifted.
He still didn't understand how the temple's Buddha statue had brought him back three years—but there was no denying it: Kuro's bell and Owl's bell had shown him many things he'd never forget.
"...Understood?" Kakashi asked again.
"Y-Yes… understood." Sakura swallowed nervously.
"Then… begin!"
Kakashi swept his hand out—and in an instant, all three of his students vanished from where they stood.
Kakashi nodded with satisfaction.
Their fundamentals are solid. This should be easier than I expected.
"Grass… behind tree trunks…" His gaze swept across the area. "Interesting."
With a single scan, he could only locate two of them.
Naruto, watching his teammates' hiding spots—with plenty of openings—still nodded to himself.
Without real life-or-death pressure, their stealth was already quite good for their level. He couldn't demand too much.
In his previous life, the core of hiding came down to two things:
controlling your breath and eliminating sound.
That carried over into this life just fine.
"He's moving. Target is… Sakura."
Kakashi headed straight toward Sakura's position.
Naruto gripped his scabbard with his left hand, waiting for the right moment.
When Kakashi drew close, Naruto saw it—
A faint red point lighting up on Kakashi's back.
Naruto's blade slid out, slow and silent.
A Shinobi Execution mark—his old craft from last time.
In his understanding, once that red point appeared on an enemy…
He could end them.
Whoosh—whoosh!
Two shuriken flew from Sakura's hand—one openly, one from Kakashi's blind spot.
Sakura wasn't a top fighter at school, but she wasn't at the bottom either.
Kakashi twisted aside and dodged the first—
But the second followed immediately and struck home, squarely in a vital spot.
"I-I did it?!" Sakura stared, dumbfounded.
"Nope."
Kakashi's voice suddenly sounded behind her.
The Kakashi who'd been hit exploded into smoke—and became a wooden log.
"One of the three essentials of a ninja—ninjutsu!"
Kakashi formed a knife-hand and chopped toward the back of Sakura's neck.
In that instant, a shadow dropped from the tree above—
Both hands gripping the hilt, a blade flashing with cold light—
It drove precisely into the red point on Kakashi's back.
"Guh—" Kakashi's lips moved as he caught the figure in his peripheral vision—
Then, as if his life simply vanished, he collapsed to the ground.
"Ah!!!" Sakura screamed, horror flooding her face.
This was an exercise—wasn't it?
So why—why was someone dying?!
Naruto pulled his blade free, ignoring the girl frozen in place.
Instead, he scanned the surroundings carefully.
No one understood the sensation of steel sinking into flesh better than he did.
That strange feeling just now—like stabbing into something thick and viscous—
That wasn't the familiar resistance of a body.
"Left, right, front, back… above… below!"
Naruto sprang backward.
A pair of hands burst up from the ground where he'd been standing.
"Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu!"
Sasuke seized the opening. His hands flew through seals, and a massive fireball—nearly a meter across—slammed down onto the hands.
Naruto surged from the right in a quick thrust, hoisting the collapsed Sakura and pulling her away.
BOOM!
Sparks erupted.
A scorched crater formed in the earth, glaringly obvious in front of them.
Sasuke landed firmly on a thick branch and leaned forward to examine the ground—
But suddenly, from the dense leaves above his head, a pair of hands reached down, grabbed him, and yanked him into darkness.
"AAH!"
Sasuke's scream sent birds exploding out of the forest.
Then Sasuke's head was tossed out of the trees.
Sound. Shape. Reality—everything was there.
Sakura, who had just barely steadied herself, rolled her eyes back and passed out on the spot.
Naruto narrowed his eyes. He didn't even look at the severed head.
Genjutsu wasn't new to him.
One of his teachers—Lady Butterfly—was exceptionally skilled at it.
Unfortunately, Naruto himself had poor talent in illusion arts. He never grasped the true essence.
But he did have some experience in seeing through them.
"One of the three essentials of a ninja—genjutsu!"
Kakashi's figure slowly surfaced from the earth.
As he appeared, the bleeding head on the ground transformed into a stone of equal size.
Naruto snapped his wrist and threw a shuriken—then dashed after it.
Clang!
Kakashi's kunai deflected the shuriken away—
And a heavy sword strike followed instantly.
The impact made Kakashi's body sway.
Naruto seized the moment, stepping in like an arrow, slipping behind him—
Left hand gripping the blade in reverse, right hand braced on the hilt—
He stabbed viciously toward Kakashi's spine.
'Shadowfall…'
POOF!
That same unnatural "stabbed into sludge" sensation came again through the blade.
'What is it this time?'
As the smoke cleared, a wooden log stood planted on his sword again.
Once again, Kakashi's Substitution Technique—a blend of the Clone Jutsu and Transformation Jutsu—made Naruto feel sick.
The Substitution Technique was one of the basic academy skills; Naruto could do it too.
But he couldn't use it as smoothly as Kakashi did.