❈—11:: Three Babes and A Kunai

"Oh, and a word of advice," he adds, and suddenly, despite his attire, who stands before us is no longer a silly man child but an incredibly dangerous ninja, "you'd better come at me with the intent to kill."

…

"Or at least, maim. Whichever floats your boat."

"Yaaaaaaahhhhh!"

With a loud, drawn-out war cry, Naruto charges at Kakashi, fist already drawn back for a punch.

It takes every iota of self-control I have to not faceplam.

This idiot!

Naruto reaches Kakashi and, for his efforts, receives a sandaled foot to the face that sends him flying farther back than where he started.

"Yah?" Kakashi asks, the eyebrow of his visible eye raised. "Seriously?"

On the floor, Naruto's painful groans as he struggles to sit up are the boy's only response.

"You deserve it," Sakura says, walking over to the boy. "What were you thinking? He's an S-rank jōnin, Naruto. Did you seriously think you could beat him by yourself? He's probably the most powerful ninja in the village."

Kakashi coughs.

"Please, don't let Gai hear you saying that," he says.

If Gai's counterpart in the story is anything like the man in real life, then that's completely understandable.

"I don't care if he's the most powerful ninja in the world, I'm still gonna kick his ass," Naruto says, finally managing to pull himself to his feet.

The boy's nose looks like one would expect it to after taking a kick to the face at full force.

That has to be broken.

"Is that right?" Sakura asks, giving Naruto a look that clearly expresses all the unflattering opinions she has of him. "Naruto, not even the three of us working together can beat Kakashi-sensei, and Sasuke's ten times the ninja you'll ever be."

"So what?" Naruto asks angrily. "We're ninja; we don't give up because things get hard. That's what cowards do."

"He's right," I say, and both genin turn to me.

I walk over to them and, without missing a beat, reach forward casually and reset Naruto's bloody nose with a solid crunch.

Sakura winces. Naruto yelps.

Before the boy can pull back though, I activate the Mystical Palm Technique, and the immediate soothing warmth of my chakra entering his system causes Naruto to relax in my touch, a sigh of relief escaping him.

Naruto's nose takes only a few seconds to heal, and when it's done, I pull back my hand.

"Thanks," he begins to say, right up until I wipe off my now bloody digits on his bright orange jacket.

"Hey!" Naruto screams, pulling back as though his recently healed nose hasn't already left several bloodstains on him already.

Continuing like I never stopped, I say; "We can't give up simply because our opponent is S-rank."

"But, how are we going to beat him, Sasuke?" Sakura asks. "He's stronger than us."

Shooting me one final, irate glance, Naruto gets back on topic.

"He didn't really say we needed to beat him though, he just said we needed to get the bell."

Sakura stares at the boy in surprise.

"What?" Naruto asks.

"You're right," the girl says.

"Hey, don't sound so surprised." Naruto pouts.

A perverted, little giggle comes from behind us in that moment and we turn to see our jōnin sensei back on his beach chair with a red book in hand.

The cover of the book features a bronze, shirtless Adonis with a kunai in one hand and three scantily clad women practically trying to glue themselves to his tastefully scarred torso.

"Three babes and a kunai?" Sakura asks, reading out loud the title of the book.

At the bottom of the cover is the name of the author, an obvious pseudonym; The Sage.

"Hey, that's written by the same shitty author who writes those smutty books that Gramps likes," Naruto says.

"Wait, what?" Sakura asks.

Wow, Naruto. Good job announcing to the world that the leader of your village likes trashy bodice rippers.

"How dare you," Kakashi says, sounding affronted at Naruto's words. "The Sage is an artist; an unrivaled master of literary expression."

"He writes smut."

"He writes art!"

"Art?" Naruto asks. "His fight scenes are terrible, his plots never make any sense, and even his sex scenes are confusing because they always have too many people in them."

"Wait, what?" Sakura asks, and she, Kakashi, and even I all stare at Naruto.

"What?" The boy asks defensively. "I was curious."

Kakashi lets out a particularly aggravating giggle.

"Don't worry, Naruto. We understand. You were curious." The jōnin giggles again.

Naruto goes red.

"That's it, guys," he screams. "Let's kick his ass and get that stupid bell."

Sakura grabs the boy before he can run off.

"Stop it, Naruto. We need a plan."

"Plans are good," Kakashi says. "But don't take too long. You haven't got all day."

And with a taunting jingle of the bell, he settles back into his book.

"We need to think of this as a recovery mission," I say. "The bell is the target, and that—" I point at Kakashi "—is what we need to get through to get it."

"I'd like to get my fist through his face," Naruto mutters, but Sakura and I both ignore him.

"We're not exactly equipped for any kind of mission, Sasuke," Sakura says. "Much less an S-rank one."

She's not wrong.

"Sensei," I call, and the man replies with a saccharine sweet "Yeeeesss."

"Can we get some gear?"

He puts his book down, looking genuinely pleased with my request.

"Well, I did say 'with intent to kill'," he says happily.

Good.

"Come," I tell my teammates, leading them away.

My clan may be gone, but that doesn't mean that their power is.

Not completely at least.