21 Chapter no.21 Pass or Not?

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[Hokage Tower – Hokage's Office]

A knock came at the door of the Hokage's office, "Enter."

Hiruzen said, placing some paperwork to the side to pay attention to his guest.

The door opened to reveal Kakashi poking his head in, "Ah, Kakashi, I was actually expecting you to come here at some point, but don't tell me you finished your test this early?"

Kakashi gave the man an eye-smile, "No Hokage-sama, I decided I would wait until tomorrow, let them sweat it out a bit… also it seemed like more fun to let them dangle than to get it over with."

Hiruzen shook his head at the masked man's relaxed attitude, "Are you actually going to pass your team this year Kakashi? You have a lot you could actually pass down to the youngsters if you ever actually chose to."

Kakashi made a noise of neutrality, "Maybe. It's up to them whether or not they pass so who knows. Speaking of my team, I thought I was supposed to get Naruto Uzumaki to even out the team with Sasuke and Sakura."

Hiruzen nodded, "You were, until Asuma personally requested him yesterday. He hadn't made a request and you didn't really ask for Naruto, he was to be placed there to balance things out. I know you didn't bother to ask for him since he was placed here, but you could have asked for him yourself to keep him. Hell, Sasuke was already guaranteed to be on your team regardless so you could have reserved Naruto."

A smirk then crossed the grizzled old warrior's face, "You could have even shown up today before teams were being announced like all of the others and probably would have ended up with Naruto when you found out he was on Asuma's squad."

Kakashi face-faulted on the ground, damn habit of showing up late. He quickly picked himself up and cleared his throat, "Well I don't really have issues with my squad. And as long as he's with Asuma, Naruto should be just fine as long as he passes."

"Oh he'll pass Kakashi." Hiruzen assured his masked jounin, "Of that I have no doubts, so you shouldn't even worry about that."

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[Training Ground 24]

'Okay, time to break some genin.' Asuma thought to himself upon entering the training field. He looked around and saw all three of the kids sitting under the tree he had left them at. He walked over to them and crossed his arms once he got close enough for the three to take notice of him, "So have you come to a decision on which of you are going to be my apprentice civilly, or will I have to fail all three of you and be done with it?"

Naruto stood up and dusted off his pants, "You're not going to be failing any of us at all. We're not going to let a jerk like you just tell us he doesn't feel like being a sensei and kill our dreams like that."

"So we're going to give you a choice." Ino said, backing her teammate up as she got up to stand beside Naruto.

Shikamaru stood up with a groan, "As troublesome as it's going to be; you either pass us, or we'll make you pass us. And you really don't want us to do that."

Asuma let out a derisive snort, "And how exactly is a group of green-as-grass genin going to pull that off? You'd be better off hedging your bets and fighting between yourselves for the one guaranteed spot. You know that you all have a snowball's chance in hell of actually beating me right?"

Naruto grinned, "Just pass us, and you don't have to find out."

Asuma smirked, "Well that's fun! Because I was needing a workout anyway. You brats can try, by all means feel free to."

Naruto smirked, "That's just what we wanted to hear. Let's do this!" As he said that, Shikamaru placed his hands in the rat seal, "Kagemane no Jutsu (Shadow Possesion Jutsu)!"

Asuma smirked and jumped back away from the shadow the tree was casting over the field, "I know about the Nara clan's signature jutsu. I'm not taking students I don't know anything about!" He said before finding himself frozen in place, "What?" He looked at the ground and there was no shadow stretching from the tree, "What happened?"

Naruto smirked as did all of the others as they transformed in puffs of smoke to all take on the appearance of Naruto, "What's the matter sensei? I thought you knew about your students?" With that the extra Naruto's disappeared leaving only one original Naruto in place, "It worked Shikamaru!"

"Yeah I can see that Naruto." Shikamaru said as he walked out of some brush from behind Asuma. Asuma turned his head when Shikamaru allowed him the motion to do so, "Ino if you would be so kind as to finish this."

Ino sauntered out in front of Asuma in a showy fashion, prompting the man to speak, "You all set this up? What was the plan?"

Shikamaru elaborated. "Naruto was to distract you with his Kage Bunshin henged into us… that was good by the way, you even had our mannerisms down perfectly."

Naruto shrugged and rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, "Basics kill."

Ino smiled over at him, "Yeah, solid clones Naruto? I don't even know where you would learn something like that." Prompting Naruto to blush more under the praise.

"Anyway." Shikamaru picked up where he left off, "After Naruto distracted you and feigned my jutsu I would catch you with the real one from your blind spot. You would be dodging what you thought was the real one so you would be on alert… just at the wrong one." A mischievous smirk crossed Shikamaru's face, "And finally we were going to have Ino hit you with her jutsu and walk you right to Hokage-sama's office to pass us so you couldn't screw us over." Ino waved from her place in front of Asuma before making the hand-seal needed for the jutsu she intended to use.

Naruto chuckled after that, drawing attention back to him, "And then for all of the crap you put us through today, we're going to do something humiliating that you'll never live down in your body. Something like make you look like an idiot in front of that Kurenai lady. Shikamaru said you were standing awfully close to her for anything less than just a passing work relationship or something which kind of brought up our second way to beat you… but somebody didn't want me to use that way."

Ino glared at Naruto, "You're damn right I don't want you using that way. You'd better never use that… that jutsu, around me or else, got it?" Ino said to Naruto threateningly before turning back to Asuma with a victorious look, "Get ready to get used to us sensei. We're not going anywhere." Asuma had a look of terror on his face before he started laughing raucously, "What's so funny? Fine, Shintenshin no Jut-!"

Before Ino could complete her jutsu, Asuma disappeared suddenly. The genin all looked around, Naruto felt familiar seeing Asuma just disappear like that, "No way, he knows that too? How could he have-?"

"It's a high level skill kid, but I'm a high level ninja." Asuma said as he walked into the clearing. He looked at all three in a pleased manner, "That was good. I liked that." His face turned grave, "But seriously, if you ever try pulling any crap around Kurenai I'm going to make you all pay dearly, don't even think about it. Ever." He then noticed that they all were still ready to fight, "Oh, by the way you pass."