At Any Cost

Chapter Three:

Chicks don't dig dangerous guys. Well, most of them don't.

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Haruno Sakura twitched in uncertain emotions once more, though a rosy pink stained her cheeks again. She considered telling the giggling individual to shut his infernal yap, but she was definitely afraid that he would devour her soul. This was a valid concern when the giggler in question was the host for a demon older than time and indulged in its power at most opportunities.

Besides it was nice having someone who made noises occasionally.

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Sasuke had arrived right on time, at six a.m. sharp, and Sakura had already been there for ten minutes, desperate to prove that she was a good and practical kunoichi. They had waited for an hour and a half before Kakashi arrived, followed only moments later by Naruto. When they were accused of being late, Naruto quickly made his own excuse, the process echoed by Kakashi, the former having been harassed by a vengeful ghost while the latter was blocked by a black cat that wouldn't let him pass. Naruto received a solid punch to the head that he grinned in answer to, sending Sakura hiding behind Sasuke with a terror-stricken face.

Sakura, Naruto had decided, was not over the idea that he had the Kyuubi sealed in him. This was of course ridiculous to Naruto who knew his own condition, the fox's condition, and the status of his teammates more or less, and had decided that there would be absolutely no point in harming them. But it wasn't really important to him whether she was afraid of him or not, so long as she didn't prove to make killing the enemy without losing teammates too challenging, he'd be alright.

It was about then that Kakashi decided to introduce them all to the test. He called them all towards himself and they quickly set out to obey, Naruto taking up station to Sasuke's right, Sakura on the aforementioned Uchiha's left side, and the brown-eyed duck-ass himself standing directly in front of the jounin.

"Now kids, its time for today's exercise. Today we're doing survival training-"

"But we did plenty of training during our time in the academy!" Sakura's outburst once again interrupted their new sensei. Kakashi took a deep calming breath before he answered the girl.

"Not like this you haven't. Your objective for this exercise is to steal one of these two bells from me." He held up a pair of unassuming bells, and then tied them into his belt. "Whoever gets a bell gets lunch, and can become a genin," again he was interrupted.

"WHAT! Then what was the point of the genin test?" Sakura asked once again.

This time Naruto answered her. "That was a test to show we had the skill to match beginning genin. Teachers give their students a second test to see if they are really ninja material, or if they need to be retrained in different fields." He paused letting out a sick laugh. "Statistically, only a third of the graduating students actually become genin!"

This revelation shocked Sakura into a mind-blanked silence, for which Kakashi was internally grateful. "Correct Naruto, whoever gets a bell can go on to become a genin, you have until noon to get one. You'll have to come at me with intent to kill though, otherwise you won't stand a chance. And don't worry that I might get injured, its lovely sentiment but you'd be overestimating yourself. Ready everyone? And… GO!"

Two of the genin bolted away instantly, hiding in the forest. Naruto wandered around his sensei and strolled into the training field proper, staring into the sky. Kakashi watched the blonde walk and raised his one visible eyebrow at him, he was trying to figure out why his student wasn't behaving as a proper ninja, like Kakashi had taught him. As the jounin drew out his copy of Icha Icha Paradise, he distinctly thought he heard a faint muttering.

Indeed, Naruto was quietly muttering to himself, considering things that he knew were truisms, and what he didn't know for fact. The process was expedited when a shadow clone manifested before him and the two began to actually talk, debating the subject to come to a more logical conclusion.

"Uzumaki Naruto is the strongest in the class yes?" The clone nodded, this was true, second strongest was Shino, followed distantly by Sasuke. "But Sensei is important, he can beat us easily, yes?" again another nod, "Even if there were three of Naruto, there wouldn't be a thing he could do about sensei, sensei would unleash god-awful smackdown on Naruto. Therefore, sensei does not expect us to win a straight-up fight…" The clone was nodding almost constantly and now picked up where his creator began to trail off.

"If we can't win a straight up fight then there is some other way we're supposed to beat him,"

"If two thirds fail then why will two succeed?" the original questioned.

"Unless no one passes if two succeed!" the pair concluded at the same time. The clone exploded into smoke and Naruto used the cover to bolt away into the trees, searching for his teammates.

Kakashi gave a small smirk under his mask, thinking to himself perhaps I trained him a bit too well in seeing beneath the underneath.

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Sasuke regarded the blonde as if he were offering homeowner's insurance to a turtle. No, that made slight sense, as if he were offering a summoning contract for slugs, come on, how could anyone want to summon slugs, that was just nasty.

Somewhere in fire country, a blonde woman sneezed and forced another loss to blow over into a solid win, netting her back all of her losses in a single blow.

The blonde had described an impossibly unlikely, although altogether fitting concept of how the genin test was actually structured under Kakashi. The only thing Naruto couldn't answer was why Kakashi would make such a deliberately obtuse test, for once in his life Naruto had no idea, and he admitted such to a derisive look from Sasuke. The look prompted the Uzumaki to quickly take stock of some thoughts he had, such as, was it really such a bad thing if he beat the crap out of Sasuke, probably killed him? Well… it would be frowned upon by Kakashi, so maybe that wasn't good, definitely ojiisan wouldn't like it so he decided not to. Although the thought was tempting and he had to fight it with all his willpower.

Totally oblivious to his very near demise, Sasuke had given Naruto a confident smirk and told him not to worry about the test after that, charging off on his own to fight Kakashi head on. Or as head on as a rookie in the art of assassination can manage… meaning that Sasuke began by launching a flurry of shuriken from an impossible angle.

The flying four-pointed stars arced around a tree and sharply turned in towards the grey headed jounin, all three sank into the flesh and drew minute spurts of blood while they continued forward with their momentum. In a flash of smoke the man was suddenly not there, a log having received the three stars in his place.

Rapidly spouting language that was definitely not fitting of an heir to a prestigious clan and sending the blonde scattering away (Naruto had the presence of mind to not get caught by their sensei without the whole team), Sasuke launched himself forward, eyes scanning through the trees for the man in question, they locked onto a blur of dark and green with a silvery top, and a kunai flew off in the direction indicated by its presence.

Sasuke didn't even have time to understand that it was a bunshin before he felt the approach of the jounin behind him, making the genin candidate spin on the spot to face him and block a low kick with his forearm.

Sasuke pushed against the stronger nin's leg, leveraging more strength into his own kick as the inverted snap kick shot towards the jounin's skull, only to be intercepted easily by Kakashi's elbow. The other leg shot out, angling from Sasuke's current position to hit the jounin in the chin, but that foot too was caught easily by the jounin. Sasuke smirked, triumphantly as his hand shot towards the two bells. Kakashi realized what would've been a moment too late, but his combat-honed skills allowed him to bring up his leg faster, and nail the genin squarely in the gut, sending him flying well away, winded by the hit.

Undeterred, the genin candidate drew in a shuddering breath while his hands flashed through familiar seals. He flipped in the air, landing on his feet facing away, he shifted, sensing Kakashi already moving forward, and brought his right hand to his lips, an internal chant of Katon: Goukyakuu no jutsu and a solid blast of chakra-charged air from his lungs blasted flames towards the approaching ninja. Under the expert guidance of Sasuke's high-level control, the fireball expanded and consumed the oxygen in a three meter diameter sphere beginning where Kakashi had stood only moments ago.

The jutsu carried on for moments longer, 'til Sasuke was almost certain the jounin would've been fried. He dropped his hand and took a deep breath again, refilling his lungs with the smoke and cinders, and just a pinch of fresh air that rushed in to the fill the void burned out by his technique. In the crater of his attack there was nothing left, no trace of Kakashi or a burnt log or anything, frantically the genin began to look around, unsure where the jounin might've got to, but his concerns were gracelessly ended when the ground beneath him pulled him into it, much against his strangled cries of protest. When it ended he was merely a head above the earth, while his sensei leaned down over him, his eye curved into a bizarrely happy expression.

"Ninjutsu, always know the proper technique for the situation. Like Doton: Shinjuu Zanshin," that said, the jounin meandered away to find his wayward pink-haired student. She had a genjutsu lesson coming up.

Itachi didn't have to put up with this shit. Was Sasuke's only thought.

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While Kakashi was pursuing a kage bunshin under henge, Naruto with a very scared-looking Sakura in tow trudged onto the scene and stood in front of Sasuke. He glared down at him with a sickening grin and painful anticipation shining in his eyes. Sasuke glared back, doing his damnedest to ignore the practically dripping killing joy from Naruto.

"Sasuke, you're ruining my chance at being a genin!" He stated in a whiny voice. "If you keep being so stupid, I'll forget that I'm supposed to work with you and start enjoying myself, you remember my hobbies right?" He continued in his vilely childish voice, but as he did he adopted a steadily increasing pressure as his chakra built up around and in him. He noticed Sasuke try to conceal a nervous tic, and a faint swallow. The scattered drops of sweat on his forehead were the last bit towards convincing Naruto that he had gotten Sasuke really frightened, likely for the first time since his brother slaughtered his clan. "Now Sakura, dig the little man out and we can tackle sensei head-on, we won't be able to beat him, but attacking him together is the only thing that matters." The pink haired girl nodded quickly and bolted to obey, moving faster than normal and digging with her kunai to loosen the dirt around Sasuke enough.

After less than a minute of digging Sasuke was out, brushing the remaining dirt from himself so that he didn't have to look at Naruto. The blonde beamed, quite content that his teammates understood the situation, he was in charge because he was stronger, simple as that. "Now if you're both ready, I'll call Kakashi sensei to us and try to beat him down with Taijutsu, Sasuke uses what techniques he knows to attack him while I'm keeping him down. Sakura, you see if you can't hem him in with some throwing weapons or something. Traps if you can, and don't either of you worry about hitting me in any of your attacks, if it gets Kakashi in the process that's all that matters." He ordered them about with an absolutely resolute voice, and they didn't dispute the matter any. He'd probably kill them if they did, and neither was ready to face that distinctly real and frightening possibility.

The Naruto-clone disguised as Sakura exploded into chakra-laden smoke, surprising Kakashi mildly, before he heard a cry of pain that sounded like Sasuke and felt a subtle spike of demonic chakra. No, it couldn't be Naruto doing something to them, I have to see… He raced back towards the clearing with all of his jounin speed, finding a broken, bleeding Sasuke on the ground and a red-glowing Naruto. "Naruto… You… " He didn't get to finish whatever statement he might've made before the blonde launched himself forward, moving faster (if only a bit) than he had two days previous.

Kakashi backpedaled, suddenly put on the defensive by Naruto's unanticipated attack. He deflected a sloppy punch and shoved the arm aside, spinning the chakra-levitated genin like a top. As before, he hadn't completely anticipated Naruto and was sent flying by a flailing tendril of red chakra that clocked him solidly in the face, before he could even right himself in the air, Kakashi caught sight of Sasuke once again flipping through seals before shooting out a searing blast of orange and red flames.

The fire caught a suddenly surprised Naruto, while Sakura launched what must have been the majority of her kunai, shuriken, and explosive tags in a wild, undirected volley at her sensei's sudden appearance. Before Kakashi could react to the barrage, the fast step's technique already launching chakra into his feet on instinct, was intercepted when a burning blob of debatable humanity hurled itself at him and landed a punch into his thigh, a pulse of blood-red chakra disrupting the jutsu's execution, and holding Kakashi firmly in place when the massed explosives went off, scattering turf and wood and metal with equal disregard.

When the smoke cleared, a charred and tattered Kakashi stood facing a torn-apart Naruto. Kakashi wore armor in the form of his flak vest, his hand guards and other secreted about pieces of more durable material. Thus while Kakashi was in bad shape, it didn't much compare to Naruto, who was literally torn apart by the blast, one leg was missing from about half of the thigh down, there was a gaping hole in his abdomen and half the flesh of his face was torn away, not to mention that his orange jumpsuit was ripped half off of his upper body, and the arm that was uncovered was bent at an unhealthy angle more commonly associated with pretzels. Sakura gasped and stared, horrified at herself for having done it, and secretly relieved that the scary boy was dead, though she would never admit the latter to herself.

However, this assumption was immediately disproved, as the blonde remained standing, making a gurgling, laughing sound while blood foamed and ran down the fleshless side of his face, which wasn't really so fleshless anymore, already there was a thin covering of cellulose, cartilage and tendon reforming with blood vessels and muscle.

His voice came out raw, distorted, like how jell-o moves, only in sound. "Hehe… ehehehe… Th-the adrenaline and… and the endorphins, wow… ERherk… if I had both my kidneys I'd probably move faster than ever right now," the hole that had been his side was quickly reforming, leaving tan skin over powerful but graceless muscles. He kept on laughing in that disturbed, gurgling way, while his leg re-grew, and sickening pops and stretching sounds came from his badly mauled arm.

The laughter grew louder and then became hollow, gasping as he finished returning to his previous state. Well, close to it at least. His eyes had a vacant look in them while he salivated uncontrollably from the clean side of his face, blood still dripped from the other side, and his pupils were intensely dilated, as if he was still hungry for any kind of sensory input, and perhaps he was, Naruto was clearly a… something… junkie.

Kakashi winced uncomfortably and watched as the other two genin of his cell came forth from their ambush positions, as if drawn out by Naruto's sudden impressive regeneration. Sakura was shaking visibly while Sasuke was slightly paler than normal, Kakashi himself felt sick at the display, but was damned if he'd show it. A gentle chiming caught their attention, the blonde snapping out of his daze with a visible shudder of irrepressible pleasure. Brought thusly back, Naruto looked to Sakura who froze immediately having the object of her fears looking at her after she just pretty much killed him, surely she thought that she would die now, in a violent and gory display, Sasuke and Kakashi couldn't find a reason why Naruto wouldn't do such a thing.

However, Naruto was deciding exactly what to do, the high after regenerating that much of his body was impossible to describe, and the workout in general had been fantastic, he was in fact feeling better than he could even conceive of.

After a moment of intense, awkward silence, he came to a decision and stepped towards the pink haired kunoichi, Kakashi preparing to halt his apprentice from the slaughter in spite of his own exhaustion, while Sakura prepared, in her own way, to die.

Sasuke-kun, please remember me… I really did l-mmmpf! Her train of thought was suddenly interrupted by the Uzumaki boy who had calmly wrapped his hand around the back of her head, turned her face towards his and found her lips, taking her into his best approximation of a 'kiss', something he knew the concept of from Kakashi's books, it seemed appropriate for the situation. Kakashi froze in place, watching the moment stretch on as Sakura's initial protests subsided into muted sounds that he was fairly certain Jiraiya had written about. Sasuke on the other hand had no fucking clue.

Seriously, Sasuke did not understand what the devil was going on, asshole, arrogant bastard, and overall prick though he may have been, he was remarkably innocent. After a long moment it clicked in his mind, and he flew backwards with a deep blush and a nosebleed much like a typical male reaction to the oroike no jutsu. He managed to focus on the pair once again when Naruto pulled back from the confused girl, and walked away from her slowly. He leaned against one of the training logs, slid down it and fell asleep, his body reminding him that he had just regenerated a goodly portion of body mass from being blown up.

Sakura however, remained standing with her mouth hanging open and her eyes shut, a deep blush making her face an hair match while she swayed with the breeze. A little while later she let her eyes flutter open and her mouth changed to a dim smile, her eyes weren't quite focusing on anything just then. Kakashi turned a concerned, lecherous eye towards her.

"Sakura? Are you alright?" For his trouble, Kakashi received an 'mmm' which might've meant yes and might've meant yum, perhaps both. He paused for a long moment, struggling to find the right thing to say, or at least to find something that mattered to say. "Well… ah, alright then. Sasuke, when they come around would you tell them that you all pass? The purpose of this exercise was teamwork, a shinobi who fails their mission is trash but- Hey, Sasuke? Saaaaassukeeee…" Sasuke too, was unconscious, this was… troublesome. Very unyouthful. Well… there was always an alternative.

Moments later, Kakashi hopped away to find sanctuary to read until he was sufficiently late for the jounin meeting.

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Kurenai glared harshly at the tardy jounin as he stepped up on her left, Asuma standing on her other side as they stood before the hokage, a number of other jounin instructors flanking them, and the academy teachers standing behind (along with a few interested ninja or other officials). Sarutobi, the old man, cleared his throat and drew Kurenai's attention back to him.

Upon noticing that his eyes landed on her for a brief moment, she had the grace to look apologetic.

"Now that everyone is here… time for this years jounin instructors to tell us about their new students." The old man had a brief, formal urge to glare at Kakashi, but repressed it, knowing it'd do no good and only encourage Kurenai. He ran down the team lists, each instructor in turn reporting failures of their teams, he looked up to Asuma upon deciding that he would screw with the order.

Asuma stepped forward, shoulders rigid with unusual formality, even the cigarette hanging from his lips was unlit. "Team eight, Akimichi Chouji, Nara Shikamaru, and Yamanaka Ino, pass," his voice held a bit of easy pride, as if it were expected, but still something to be proud of. He stepped back into the line, this time Kurenai stepped forward.

She cleared her throat. "Team ten, Aburame Shino, Hyuuga Hinata, and Inuzuka Kiba, pass," she seemed quite proud of her own team, for unknowable reasons, and stepped back into the line, there was a momentary pause before she nudged Kakashi to get up and give his team report.

Almost everyone expected the team to fail, Uchiha or no, after all this was the copy ninja, who had never had students, and one of them was the Kyuubi after all. "Team seven, Haruno Sakura, Uchiha Sasuke and Uzumaki Naruto, in need of real and serious counseling and probably medical attention, but pass nonetheless." There was a round of slow blinks before people came to grips with what was just said.

Kakashi accepted a genin team.

Across Konoha, Gai looked through his wardrobe, and laid out his best black fatigues for tomorrow, after all, one could only handle so much green spandex.(1)

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It was dark when Naruto woke up, and much to his dismay he discovered that he couldn't see and something was sitting on his face. He tried to brush it away but it nicked his finger, drawing an angry growl from him before he swiped at it and pulled the note from his face. His pupils dilated once more as he adjusted to the lack of light.

What he held was a simple post-it note reading 'pass, meet again at eight tomorrow. Really.'

Ah. Thought Naruto. Well that's good to know. He went back to sleep, and entertained notions of sexy women able to keep pace with him in a fight, Naruto slept with a tremendous grin on his face.

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End Chapter 3 At Any Cost

Author Note: Hmm… I meant this chapter to go more… but I like it ending here. Am I approaching things too episodically? Review, please, or the bees will explode in my head. Quiet, it's late, and I'm tired.

(1): For those who didn't get it, I view the day Gai refuses to wear spandex as the day the world ends. It's like a unified political party in a democracy, its impossible.