Konohagakure No sato :
Training Ground 3 :
The atmosphere at Training Ground 3 shattered with the suddenness of a lightning strike. As the word "Start!" hung in the humid morning air, the silence was replaced by the staccato rhythm of shinobi combat.
Sasuke Uchiha moved with the predatory grace inherent to his lineage. His hands were a blur as he reached into his tactical pouch, unleashing a volley of shuriken that whistled through the air, carving precise, intersecting arcs designed to pin Kakashi in place.
Simultaneously, Sakura Haruno acted on the fear, Naruto had drilled into her moments prior; she didn't charge blindly but broke into a diagonal sprint toward the dense undergrowth on the left, her kunai gripped tightly, her eyes wide with a mixture of terror and resolve.
Naruto Uzumaki, however, didn't just move; he transformed. Inside his mind, the MindHub interface flared to life, partitioning his consciousness into distinct, hyper-focused streams.
Naruto also activated his Combat skills
Dynamic Vision Lv. 6: The world decelerated. He could see the individual serrations on Sasuke's spinning shuriken and the slight ripple of Kakashi's jounin vest.
Keen Eyes Lv. 5 & Halo Eyes Lv. 4: Keen details and 4 meter all-around vision became visible, highlighting the tension in Kakashi's calf muscles—a tell-tale sign of an impending counter-leap.
Utilizing the Body Flicker technique, Naruto synchronized his movement with the shadow of Sasuke's shuriken. He became a golden blur, closing the gap before the projectiles even reached their target.
Kakashi's eye curved into an expression of mild appraisal. With the casualness of a man swatting a fly, he intercepted Sasuke's shuriken mid-flight, snatching them from the air with his bare fingers and whipping them back toward the incoming Naruto.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Naruto's kunai met the returning steel with sparks and sparks of high-frequency friction. He didn't lose momentum, parrying the blades into the dirt and stepping into Kakashi's guard.
Behind him, Sasuke, who had been charging to follow up his initial volley, was forced to abort his trajectory. Three of the shuriken Kakashi had deflected were aimed precisely at his shins;
the Uchiha heir was forced into a desperate, undignified roll through the dust, his path to the "Copy Ninja" momentarily severed.
The clearing became a theater for a high-speed Taijutsu ballet. Naruto and Kakashi collided in a blur of strikes and parries.
Naruto's Leaf Taijutsu Lv. 5 was clinical and aggressive, a blend of circular deflections and explosive thrusts.
But Every time Naruto's fist sought a weak point—the solar plexus, the jaw, the liver—Kakashi's hand was already there, his movements possessing a liquid economy of motion that spoke of decades on the front lines.
(Is this what a real fight looks like?) Sasuke thought, his teeth gritted as he watched from the perimeter. The speed was nauseating.
( i can't even see clearly ) To Sakura, the two figures were nothing more than a chaotic smudge of Red and Green , punctuated by the sharp thwack of bone hitting meat and the snapping of cloth.
Naruto felt the immense pressure of Kakashi's presence. It was like fighting a mountain that could move like the wind. Every strike Naruto landed felt like hitting a wall of iron wrapped in silk.
Seizing a micro-opening, Naruto dropped low, his leg whipping out in a sweeping shin-kick. Kakashi hovered an inch off the ground, his weightless hop perfectly timed, but in that instant, another shuriken hissed from the trees—Sasuke had recovered.
Kakashi caught the projectile between his index and middle finger, but instead of returning it to the Uchiha, he flicked it toward the bushes on the left.
Tink!
The projetile collided with a shuriken Sakura had just gathered the courage to throw, neutralizing both.
Naruto didn't waste the distraction.
Using the torque from his missed sweep, he spun his body like a top, driving his heel toward Kakashi's exposed face as the Jounin descended.
Kakashi crossed his forearms, absorbing the massive kinetic energy of the kick. He used Naruto's force as a springboard, performing a back-flip that put twenty feet of distance between them.
But he landed in a trap.
"Fire Release: Great Fireball Jutsu!"
Sasuke had anticipated the retreat. Standing at the edge of the clearing, his chest was swollen with air, his hands locked in the Tiger seal.
A massive sphere of roiling orange flame erupted from his mouth, the intense heat flash-drying the morning dew and scorching the grass black. The fireball engulfed Kakashi's position entirely, a roaring dome of destruction that seemed certain to end the test.
Sasuke stopped, his breath ragged, a smirk of triumph beginning to form. Sakura let out a strangled gasp. But Naruto's Kaguya's Mind's Eye screamed a warning.
"DON'T FALL FOR IT! MOVE!" Naruto's voice thundered.
As the flames dissipated, a charred log sat where Kakashi had been. Sasuke's heart plummeted.( Substitution )
"Sakura!" Naruto yelled, his feet already churning the earth as he sprinted toward her.
*Thwack*
"Kyaa!"
Kakashi had manifested behind the kneeling Sakura. He let his killing intent flare for a fraction of a second—just enough for her to know and turn—and then his foot connected with her midsection.
It wasn't a lethal strike, but the force was enough to send the pink-haired girl tumbling through the air like a ragdoll, directly into Naruto's path.
Naruto didn't slow down. As Sakura flew toward him, his fingers blurred through a sequence of seals.
"Water Release: Water Shots!"
Dozens of high-pressure orbs of water spit from Naruto's Mouth. The first orb struck Sakura mid-air, not with a piercing force, but as a gelatinous cushion that absorbed her momentum and stabilized her flight.
The remaining shots spiraled toward Kakashi, their trajectories curving slightly as Naruto manipulated their flight paths with his chakra.
Kakashi tilted his head, his eye wide. (Curving the shots? His shape transformation is already at this level?) He danced through the rain of water, his body twisting in impossible angles to avoid the pinpoint strikes.
Naruto caught Sakura by the hand using the momentum of her flight to spin her in a full circle. "Kunai, Sakura! " he hissed.
He threw her back toward Kakashi just as the Jounin finished his dodge. Sakura, fueled by a cocktail of panic , lashed out with a scream of desperation , totally forgetting anything naruto spoke just now.
Kakashi's eyes twitched.
( well this is also teamwork )
He stepped aside, caught Sakura by her ankle, and with a grunt of effort, heaved her toward Sasuke, who was closing in from the flank.
Sasuke's eyes widened as his teammate became a pink projectile. He tried to catch her, but his reflexes weren't the same as naruto or Kakashi ,
He caught her barely with his hands but under the weight of a flying human body. He was plowed over, the two of them skidding through the dirt in a tangled mess of limbs.
(Not again,) Sasuke thought bitterly, pinned under Sakura's dead weight.
Naruto was already on Kakashi again. He unleashed a frantic, high-speed combination—a straight lead, a left hook, a mid-level roundhouse, and a driving elbow.
Kakashi met every single move with a calm, rhythmic defense. Having sparred with Might Guy for years, Naruto's aggressive Taijutsu was familiar territory, yet the Jounin couldn't help but notice the boy's eyes.
( Such focus ) Kakashi
Naruto's blue eyes, normally wide and expressive, narrowed into crystalline slits of absolute concentration.
Through the multi-layered filter of MindHub and different skills , from his Eyes, he saw the world not as a blur of motion, but as a grid of anatomical vulnerabilities and surging chakra and details .
As Kakashi transitioned from a defensive parry to a counter-thrust, Naruto saw the micro-gap. Abandoning the brutal full body arcs of the Leaf style, he tightened his frame, his palms flattening into blades of concentrated force.
His strike was a surgical intrusion. His fists didn't just punch; they pierced. As his fingers lashed out toward Kakashi's leading hand, the Jonin's eye widened.
It was a stylistic shift so jarring it was like a poet suddenly speaking in code. One of Naruto's fingers—reinforced by a pinpoint of sharp, intrusive chakra—poked squarely into the crook of Kakashi's wrist.
The effect was instantaneous. A localized shockwave of disruptive energy rippled through Kakashi's tenketsu, deadening the nerves and causing a momentary stutter in his chakra flow.
The silver-haired man hissed, retreating three rapid paces as his hand went momentarily limp. With a sharp flare of his own massive reserves, Kakashi flushed his system, forcibly clearing the blockage and restoring the circuit, but his gaze was no longer lazy. It was incredulous.
(The Gentle Fist?) Kakashi thought, his mind racing through the Reports .
Yes , Naruto has been training with Hinata But—without a Byakugan, The effect is not good , Naruto only learned Gentle fist for Tenketsu and Immobilisation tactic
[Gentle Fist Taijutsu: Lv. 4 (19/100)]
Naruto didn't press the advantage. He knew that against a man like Kakashi, a single successful poke was a miracle, not a win.
He needed a tactical reset. As Sasuke and Sakura struggled to untangle themselves from the dirt ten feet away, Naruto's hands became a blur of seals. He took a deep, lung-expanding breath and leaned forward.
[ Soot Cloud Jutsu ] ( Max level )
Instead of a fireball, Naruto exhaled a dense, viscous cloud of charcoal-grey ash and choking soot. It wasn't just a visual obstruction; the ash was magically charged to cling to skin and irritate the membranes of the eyes , nose and breathing.
As the training ground vanished into a gritty, opaque fog, Naruto blurred toward his teammates. He didn't ask for permission. He grabbed Sakura by the collar—who was currently clinging to Sasuke's arm as if he were a life raft in a hurricane—and yanked her upright.
"Let's go!" Naruto commanded, his voice leaving no room for the usual bickering.
Sasuke, sensing the gravity in Naruto's tone and the tactical value of the cover, followed without a word.
They retreated into the deep forest periphery, Naruto's MindHub effortlessly mapping the terrain through the grey haze. He navigated them behind a dense cluster of moss-covered boulders and dropped a shivering, sodden Sakura onto the grass.
"Any ideas?" Naruto asked, his eyes scanning their rear
Sasuke leaned against a tree, his chest heaving, his pride bruised more than his body. Sakura was still trying to process the fact that Naruto had just stood toe-to-toe with a Jonin and lived. "He's... he's too fast," she whispered, her voice trembling. "Naruto, how did you even see him move?"
" By training , and Sakura he is letting me move and fight " Naruto replied. He closed his eyes for a fraction of a second, delegating five of his Shadow Clones—who had been sitting in reserve—to move in. "I'm sending a distraction....so any ideas"
Back in the heart of the soot cloud, Kakashi stood perfectly still, his ears twitching. The ash didn't bother him—he had already pulled his mask higher and closed his visible eye, relying on scent and sound. Suddenly, the temperature dropped. The scent of ozone and wet earth filled the air.
Five Naruto clones materialized from the gloom, surrounding Kakashi in a perfect pentagram at distance , They didn't engage . Instead, they performed synchronized seals with a fluidity that made them look like a single entity reflected in five mirrors.
"Water Release: Wild Water Waves!" X5
The sheer volume of water was staggering. It wasn't a stream; it was a flash flood. Five separate torrents converged on Kakashi's position with the force of a battering ram.
The ground turned into a muddy mire in seconds, uprooting saplings and shifting heavy stones. Kakashi flickered upward, landing on the thick branch of an ancient cedar tree, his clothes miraculously dry—but his expression was dead serious.
(From five different directions... identical jutsu ...... must be shadow clones .....and the main body ? )
The clones didn't give him a second to breathe. As the floodwater pooled at the base of the tree, the five Narutos hit the next sequence.
"Water Release: Water Prison Jutsu!" X5
The water beneath the tree surged upward in five coiling serpents, spiraling around the trunk and the branch Kakashi stood upon. They moved with a predatory intent, seeking to merge and encase the Jonin in a spherical tomb of pressurized liquid.
Kakashi felt the moisture on his skin, the pressure of the chakra-infused water beginning to crush the air out of the clearing.
Boom!
A flash of orange light ignited in the center of the trap. Kakashi had slapped an explosive tag against the trunk, using the shockwave to disrupt the surface tension of the water serpents for a micro-second.
In that window, he executed a Body Flicker that pushed his physical limits, appearing twenty foot away on the ground.
(That was close,) Kakashi thought, his heart hammering against his ribs. (He actually tried to drown me. No, he tried to trap me. )
He looked around to see the five clones already recalibrating, their blue eyes tracking him through the leaves.
(Let's deal with these decoys and find the main team. I need to see what the 'Uchiha genius' and the 'Top Student' can do when the blonde isn't doing the heavy lifting.)
Kakashi dropped his hand to his weapon pouch,
Just then two hands came from the ground and grabbed his legs , kakashi remembering the clones , in a split second picked a Kunai and slashed across the hands . The clone puffed out .
Kakashi looked back at the five clones in front , noticing one clone missing a shadow in water.
But Kakashi eye's twitched at the deception and obvious close call
( if that was a explosion tag or exploding clone )
"Alright " Kakashi muttered, a sharp, glint finally entering his eye. ( Let's see how you handle a Jonin who's actually trying to stay dry )
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In a clinical exhibition of speed and spatial awareness, Kakashi Hatake dismantled the remaining shadow clones. He moved like a phantom through the settling soot, his kunai carving through the chakra-constructs with the practiced ease of a man pruning a hedge.
Each poof of dispersing smoke was a testament to his efficiency, but as the air cleared, the silver-haired Jonin didn't find a fleeing team. Instead, he found the three of them—Sasuke, Sakura, and the original Naruto—advancing in a synchronized arrowhead formation.
(Head-on?) Kakashi mused, his single visible eye tracking their geometry. (Are they desperate, or just incredibly overconfident? A direct frontal assault on a Jonin is usually a short path to the Memorial stone )
The team split with rehearsed precision. Sasuke veered to the left, his eyes cold and calculating; Sakura broke to the right, her hands already darting toward her weapon pouch. Naruto maintained the center line, his gaze locked onto Kakashi's masked face.
(Not enough ) Kakashi thought
But Naruto didn't lunge for a punch. His hands woven through a rapid sequence of seals that blurred into a singular motion.
"Fire Release: Fire Stream!"
A concentrated, lance-like jet of white-hot flame erupted from Naruto's mouth, aimed directly at Kakashi's front like a flamethrower. Simultaneously, from the left flank, Sasuke's chest heaved.
"Fire Release: Great Fireball!"
A massive sphere of roiling orange fire cut off Kakashi's lateral retreat, while from the right, a veritable curtain of steel—shuriken and kunai unleashed by Sakura—whistled through the air, aimed at the gaps in the firestorm.
(Frontal distraction, Sasuke at the blind spot, and Sakura providing suppressive fire,) Kakashi analyzed. Instead of leaping backward into a potential trap, he chose the path of highest resistance. He dived forward, directly into the rain of steel.
Clang-clang-clang-clang!
His kunai parried five projectiles in a second as Kakashi shredded the distance. He bypassed the fire streams , and FIreball from behind and emerged directly in front of Sakura.
He drove a palm toward her midsection to end her participation, but as his hand connected, the "fragile" girl didn't fly back. She gasped, her face pale, but she gritted her teeth and wrapped her arms around Kakashi's extended limb with a death-grip fueled by sheer, frantic desperation.
"Now!" she shrieked.
Kakashi went to pull away, but the ground beneath him had turned to treacherous slurry.
"Earth Release: Earth Flow River!"
The solid earth liquefied into a churning torrent of mud that dragged at his ankles. Before he could recalibrate his balance, Naruto was back in his face, exhaling a barrage of high-velocity mud shots.
Kakashi didn't panic. With his free hand, he formed a singular seal. "Wind Release: Breakthrough!"
A localized gale erupted from his lungs, a miniature hurricane that swatted the mud shots aside and cleared the air. Kakashi felt Sasuke's presence closing in from behind like a shadow.
Deciding he had humored them long enough, Kakashi triggered a micro-burst of chakra from his mouth to blew the mud away from his feet. He maintained his hold on Sakura—now a literal human anchor—and prepared to deal with the pincer attack.
Naruto closed the final few feet, his skin suddenly humming with a terrifying, high-frequency vibration.
"Lightning Release: Body Sparks!"
Violent arcs of blue electricity exploded from Naruto's form, intended to travel through Sakura and flash-fry the Jonin holding her. The clearing was blinded by a strobing white light, a crackling dome of thunder that should have ended the fight.
Sasuke moved just as the jutsu ended , his target the bells but
Poof.
When the light faded, Naruto and Sasuke were standing over a charred log. Sakura and Kakashi were gone.
"Impossible," Sasuke hissed, his breath coming in ragged gasps. "She was holding him. She was a physical lock. How can you use a Substitution with a secondary weight attached?"
Naruto's eyes twitched, his sensory net frantically scanning the 360-degree perimeter. "He's a Jonin, Sasuke. His displacement speed is high enough to swap two objects in the time it takes for a synapse to fire. He didn't just substitute; he abducted her during the transition."
"But she was supposed to restrict him!" Sasuke growled, his pride stung by the failure of the gambit. "That was her only job in the sequence. To be the weight that held him "
Naruto looked at the empty space where their teammate had been. "Well... she is Sakura, after all."
"....Damn it!" Sasuke kicked at the dirt.
"She was also hungry and well she ran the whole day yesterday in searching for you around the village ..... That's why I told you to give her some encouragement, " Naruto said, his voice maddeningly calm as he began to move toward the treeline.
"A 'do a good job' or a 'you can do it' from you is worth more than a month of training to her. She held on long enough with those conditions ....ofcourse for Sasuke-kun."
Sasuke facepalmed, the sheer 'nuisance' of the situation causing a vein to throb in his temple. "Don't lecture me on her delusions. Let's just find them."
"He likely took her to the center clearing," Naruto noted, his Kaguya's Mind's Eye locking onto a specific, jagged signature. "He could have left her here, but taking her away must serves a purpose. "
They moved through the undergrowth with silent, Shinobi-like efficiency until they reached a small opening. There, tied securely to the center training post with thick hemp rope, was Haruno Sakura. She looked bedraggled, her pink hair full of leaves, her expression a mix of shame and terror.
And sitting right beside her, leaning back against the post with his nose buried in the infamous orange pages of Icha Icha Paradise, was Kakashi. He looked like a man enjoying a quiet afternoon at the park, completely unbothered by the fact that he was in the middle of a combat test.
"It's obviously a bait," Sasuke whispered from the safety of a bush, his eyes narrowing at the bells still jingling at Kakashi's hip.
"That's right," Naruto agreed.
"That's right," a third voice whispered directly into their ears.
Naruto's chakra sense flared in a sudden, violent alarm. His heart skipped a beat. He was a sensor—a high-level one. His net had been active. His MindHub was processing every leaf's rustle. And yet, the voice had come from inches away.
(How?) Naruto's mind screamed. (I didn't sense a ripple. No scent, no sound, no chakra leak...)
Slowly, both boys turned their heads to find a second Kakashi crouching between them, his hand resting casually on their shoulders, his eye crinkling into that same, maddeningly lazy smile.
"Lesson number one," the Kakashi behind them said softly. "Shinobi Tactics: Never let the target dictate where you look."
Both the boys rolled aside but Kakashi followed with a Kick to the blonde , Naruto crossed his arms but this time Kakashi was obviously serious.
The impact of Kakashi's kick was unlike anything Naruto had felt during their initial skirmish. It wasn't just physical strength; it was the perfect application of weight and momentum.
Naruto's forearms throbbed as he was propelled backward flying .
Sasuke, recovering from his roll, found himself staring into the void of Kakashi's singular, bored eye.
The Uchiha's fingers twitched toward his weapon pouch, a reflexive move honed by thousands of repetitions, but the Jonin was faster—terrifyingly so.
Kakashi's hand clamped onto Sasuke's wrist like a shackle of cold iron. Before the boy could even process the grip, a heavy fist buried itself into his solar plexus. The air left Sasuke's lungs in a pained wheeze, and he crumpled to his knees, the world spinning in shades of grey.
As Kakashi reached down to finalize the neutralization of the Uchiha, a cold, metallic hum cut through the air.
Naruto knew that continuing a purely physical brawl was a losing game. His Taijutsu was elite for a Chunin and technique wise even Jonin, but Kakashi was a man who traded blows with the Eight Gates.
And Now Kakashi seems serious , so If he wanted to stop the "Copy Ninja" from hurting his 'teammates' , he had to change the fundamental nature of the engagement.
With a flick of his wrist, Naruto unsealed his sword from a storage array on his forearm.
[Skill: Kenjutsu (Sword Mastery) Lv. 4 (10/100)]
[Chakra Blade : Wind Sword ]
A shimmering, jagged edge of pressurized wind enveloped the steel, extending the reach of the blade and giving it the power to shear through solid stone.
Naruto didn't just run; he used a Burst Body Flicker, a high-octane variant of the movement technique that consumed more chakra but offered instantaneous acceleration.
He was a golden streak of wind and steel, aiming to sever the space between Kakashi and the downed Sasuke.
*CLANG!*
The vibration traveled up Naruto's arm, rattling his teeth. He hadn't hit the Jonin. He had been intercepted by a second Kakashi who had materialized from the foliage with a kunai.
( so it was pure speed , not my senses problem )
Naruto's Eyes caught the faint, lethal chirping of blue electricity dancing along the edge of the Jonin's kunai—a localized Lightning Cutter reinforcement to keep the blade from being snapped by Naruto's wind-enhanced Blade.
Naruto disengaged with a backflip, landing softly. He looked at the field:
Sakura was tied to the post, sobbing in frustration while looking at Sasuke-kun; Sasuke was gasping for air on the ground; and two Kakashis stood before him, both looking as if they were waiting for a bus.
Surprisingly, a small, genuine sigh of relief escaped Naruto's lips. Kakashi's brow rose above his mask.
"Hoh? You seem relieved that your teammates are down," the clone in front of him noted, spinning his lightning-charged kunai. "Most would call that cold-hearted."
"Relieved? Yeah," Naruto replied, his smirk widening as he straightened his back. "Now I don't have to worry about collateral damage. Now that they're out of the line of fire, I can actually get to work."
Before the Kakashis could respond, the very ground beneath them began to vibrate. The rhythmic thudding of dozens of feet echoed from the treeline, a synchronized march that signaled the end of the "probing" phase of the test.
Twenty Naruto clones emerged from the shadows of the forest. They didn't come in screaming like a mob; they moved in a disciplined, diamond-lattice formation, their eyes glowing with a reflected blue light as they channeled chakra in unison.
Naruto pointed his wind-wrapped sword at the Jonin, his voice dropping into a tone of pure tactical confidence.
" I know the Shadow Clone Jutsu too , dattebayo "
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Author's notes :
Somehow the fight dragged , so i let it be and decided to end it in next chapter .
If you have any idea for it then tell me
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