Survival Test

A week had passed and today was the they the new genin would learn what teams they would be placed in. This was a moment that would define their futures as they would create a bond with each other for life.

Hiroki had woken up a bit later than the time he usually does. Today he didn't have to be at the academy for classes and he only needed to go to know what team he would be placed into. 'I have no idea in what team I'll be placed in. Heck, I don't even know if I'll be in any team. There might be a chance that they'll place me in the same team with Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura since Kakashi is the "only" person that has a mature sharingan and would be able to "help" Sasuke and I with our own. But if I'm in a different team I won't be surprised. Let's see what the old man decided.' Hiroki thought as he walked towards the academy.

After ten minutes of walking, Hiroki arrived inside the class. There, he saw everyone of the rookie nine. He saw that Naruto and Sasuke were sitting in the same desk and there was a space between them. He walked towards them and sat right in the middle.

"Good morning you two." Hiroki said as he gave a smile.

"Good morning Hiroki. You took your time so I came by myself." Naruto said.

"Hn." Sasuke grumbled as he nodded.

Unlike the original show, Sakura and Ino walked normally inside the room. Ever since Hiroki arrived, Ino stopped competing with Sakura over Sasuke and they returned being friends. They walked up to a desk to the side that the boys were and gave them good morning. Also because of Hiroki, they started treating Naruto better. So it was not a surprise seeing them being polite to him.

After ten minutes or so, everyone arrived in class and Iruka did so just after the last genin.

"Alright everyone, as I told you last week, today will be the day you will find out who your teammates and jounin sensei will be. I'll first start with team ten. Shikamaru Nara, Choji Akimichi and Ino Yamanaka. Your Jounin sensei will be Asuma Sarutobi. Team eight: Shino Aburame, Kiba Inuzuka and Hinata Hyuga. Your Jounin sensei will be Kurenai Yuhi. Team seven: Sakura Haruno, Naruto Uzumaki, Sasuke Uchiha and Hiroki Uchiha. Your Jounin sensei will be Kakashi Hatake. The sensei of each team will be arriving in half an hour. I want to say that I'm honored to have met and taught you for these years. I wish you all the best." Iruka said as he grabbed his clip board and left the classroom.

After thirty minutes, the only ones left were the members of team seven. The other Jounin sensei for team eight and ten had already arrived and taken their teams.

"It's already been thirty minutes and no sign of our sensei. Could something have happened to him?" Sakura asked.

"I don't think so. He knew that he would get a new genin team today and should have prepared himself. The only reason he is late, should be because it is common for him to always be late to places." Hiroki said. He, better than anyone, knew how Kakashi was. Even though the Kakashi he "grew up" with was not the same as this Kakashi, he still had the same personality. The habit of being late is something he got from the "fallen" Obito.

Naruto and Sasuke didn't add anything to the conversation and everyone went back to silence.

As another hour went by, Naruto got up from his seat. He was extremely bored. Hiroki found it quite amazing seeing that he could stay still for this long. Naruto walked to the black board and grabbed the eraser. He then walked to the door and placed the eraser on top of it. The next person that opened it, would have the eraser fall on their head.

"Naruto, you know that our sensei won't fall for that, right. He isn't a Jounin for nothing." Sakura said as Naruto walked back to his seat.

As he sat down, a man with a third of his face covered, opened the door and... the eraser fell on his head and then to the ground. He looked at the eraser and then at the students in the class, observing them. Naruto was chuckling and Hiroki only had a smile on his face. Sakura had a surprised look since she never thought that a Jounin would fall for such a trick. Sasuke was just brooding.

'Ara ara. It seems that my expectation failed me.' Kakashi thought. He then looked at the four and said: "Well, how can I put this? My first impression of you is... I hate you."

The three had a downed look on their faces and only Hiroki chuckled in silence.

"Meet me in the rooftop in five minutes." Kakashi said as he shunshined.

"What? He takes almost two hours to get here and when he does, he doesn't even stay. Now he wants us to go to the rooftop?" Sakura said.

"Come on, let's go. If we are late, there is a chance that he won't be there." Hiroki said to them as he started leaving the classroom.

In less than five minutes, the four of them arrived at the roof top and Saw Kakashi sitting on the rail while reading an orange book.

"You can sit down for now." He said as he put the book in his kunai pouch.

"We'll do a little introduction of ourselves. You can say your names, likes, dislikes, dreams for the future and hobbies." Kakashi said.

"Sensei, can you go first? Just so we know what to say." Naruto asked.

"My name is Kakashi Hatake. Things I like and things I hate... I don't feel like telling you that. My dreams for the future, I haven't really thought about it. As for the hobbies, I have lots of hobbies."

Sakura looked at Naruto and Hiroki.

"That was totally useless. All he told us was his name." Naruto nodded and Hiroki only chuckled lightly.

"Alright, let's start with you." Kakashi said as he pointed to Naruto.

"My name is Naruto Uzumaki. I like ramen, specially if it's from Ichiraku's. What I dislike most are people who judge someone for the actions of another. My hobbies are comparing the flavors of ramen and also practicing techniques with Hiroki. My dream is to become the greatest Hokage." Naruto said.

Kakashi then turned his gaze at Sakura.

"My name is Sakura Haruno. I like..." she said as she blushed while looking at Sasuke.

"I dislike annoying people. My dream is to..." she blushed again looking at Sasuke.

'Her interests are more in boys than actually becoming a kunoichi.' Kakashi thought.

He then looked at Sasuke.

"My name is Sasuke Uchiha. I hate a lot of things and don't particularly like anything. What I have is not a dream because I'm going to make it a reality. I'm going to restore my clan and kill a certain someone." Sasuke said with a serious look on his face.

'Just as I thought.' Kakashi said to himself.

He then looked at Hiroki and said: "Alright. Last one."

"My name is Hiroki Uchiha, but just Hiroki is fine. I like a lot of things. What I dislike are people that use others for their advantage. My hobby is to train my skills and learn new things. My dream..." Hiroki thought of his family. His dream was to be together with them once again.

"Let's just say it is something far from happening." He finished.

"Good. You are each unique and have your own personalities. Meet me tomorrow at training ground seven at five in the morning. We will do a survival test. Don't be late. Oh. Before I forget. Don't eat anything for breakfast or you are going to throw it all up when I'm done with you." Kakashi said as he shunshined.

Sasuke and Sakura got up to leave, but Hiroki stopped them.

"Hold up a second. He wants us to get there at five, but he was quite late today to meet us. I say that he has a bad habit of being late for things. And regarding the breakfast, he is saying that only to get to us. There's no way someone can run in an empty stomach. I say that we can arrive at the training ground around eight and we can eat a reinforced breakfast. Do you all agree?" Hiroki asked.

The others only now stopped to think about what Hiroki said. After thinking for some seconds, Sasuke and Sakura agreed with him. Naruto just went with the flow.

———

In the next morning, the four genin of team seven arrived at training ground seven at eight in the morning. Sakura and Sasuke had arrived a little bit earlier than Naruto and Hiroki.

Hiroki looked at Sasuke and then at Sakura. When he saw the pink haired girl was sitting down while her arms were around He stomach region, he knew she didn't eat anything.

"Sakura, what did we agree on yesterday? Why didn't you have any break fast?" Hiroki asked.

"I... I'm on a diet." She replied.

Hiroki facepalmed himself in disappointment.

"Sakura, no matter if you eat for ten people, you will not get fat. You are a kunoichi and you will waste all these calories in shinobi activity. So eat well." Hiroki said as he took out a scroll and unsealed a pot filled with hot meat buns. He gave Sakura a few and then offered Sasuke and Naruto some as well. Everyone was now eating together. They kept eating from hour to hour until Kakashi arrived.

"Didn't I tell you not to have any breakfast?" He asked as he saw Hiroki munching on a half eaten meat bun while the tray was on the ground in the middle of the four.

"You... also said... that the exercise... would start at five... and... you got here at... eleven." Hiroki said in between chews as he finished the meat bun.

"And you really didn't expect us to go through a survival exercise with empty stomach, right?" Hiroki asked as he smirked at Kakashi.

The cyclops only stared at him.

Kakashi then took out a timer and placed it on top of a log in the training ground and set it to ring at twelve o'clock.

"Alright. You're going to be tested to see if you will be real genins. And no, you graduating from the academy doesn't make you a genin. It just sets you aside from those that don't have prospect in becoming shinobi." He said. The three genin looked at Kakashi seriously now. Hiroki was just having fun. Kakashi then took out three bells and held them in front of the four.

"A normal team only consists of three genin and one Jounin. Since there are four, one of you will return to the academy. If none of you can get a bell from me, then you all will return to the academy. Right now I will be your enemy, and your mission is to retrieve these bells. And don't forget. Come at me with the intent to kill, otherwise you won't even scratch me." As soon as Kakashi said that, Sasuke, Sakura and Hiroki ran to the forest surrounding the training ground to hide. Only Naruto stayed behind.

Kakashi saw Naruto standing in front of him and he had only one thought. 'How stupid.'

"Aren't you going to hide, Naruto?" He asked.

"Hehe. I'm going to beat you and get the bells." Naruto said as he pointed at Kakashi.

Sasuke and Sakura were hidden and saw Naruto was still there and they also heard what he said to Kakashi. They could only think of him being stupid to try and fight a Jounin head on.

"Get ready." Naruto said as he dashed towards Kakashi and readied a punch. Kakashi duck and Naruto then kicked at him. Kakashi grabbed Naruto's kick and threw him towards a tree. As Naruto made contact with the tree a popping sound was heard as he transformed into smoke.

"Shadow clone." Kakashi said in surprise. He then dodged a kunai that was coming his way by jumping in the air. He then felt a sting on his arm and looked to see a small cut. He then looked at the kunai and saw that it was coated with lightning chakra. He was impressed and surprised. He didn't expect the genin to have control of elemental chakra, even at the simplest of levels like this one attack. Just as Kakashi landed, the ground cracked and a trap hole appeared under him. As Kakashi fell down, he substituted himself with a wooden log.

"Could they have set this trap hole before I arrived? But it's not just a trap. Either that or it was a jutsu. If it was a jutsu, it was forethought since I couldn't feel the chakra move through the ground because I was airborne." Kakashi said to himself as he was hiding behind a tree while looking at the spot he was.

"Thud thud thud thud."

Four thud sounds rang as three senbon hit Kakashi's right arm while one hit the tree Kakashi was hiding behind. His right arm limped as he grabbed it and ran from where he was.

After getting a good distance from where he was, he looked at his right arm and saw that the senbons weren't normal ones. They were made out of lightning chakra and it had paralyzed his whole right arm.

'Another jutsu with lightning element. Who could have done this. It takes a good amount of chakra control to shape chakra like this. This is something that a recently graduated genin shouldn't be able to do. Sigh. I'll go after the weakest link of their team and see how they react after that.' Kakashi thought as he left his spot.

On the other side of the training ground, Hiroki saw Kakashi leave his spot. Right next to him was Naruto.

"Hiroki, when are you going to teach me that lightning jutsu? That one was pretty cool. And your plan really worked." Naruto said.

"We have to find out with what other element you have an affinity with, Naruto. Either way, Kakashi has left his hiding spot and is probably going after Sakura. You go to her and I'll go to Sasuke. If you find yourself in a tight spot, throw this at Kakashi as strong as you can, but make sure he dodges it or just miss it on purpose." Hiroki said as he handed a shuriken to Naruto. The blonde looked at the shuriken for a few seconds, not understanding what Hiroki wanted to accomplish with it.

"Just trust me, Naruto." Hiroki said as he shunshined and Naruto did the same.

———

"Aaaaaaaaaa"

The loud scream of a girl sounded out at the training ground. Just like Hiroki said, Kakashi had gone after Sakura. Naruto then arrived at the scene and threw some kunai, making Kakashi take some distance between them. He had also thrown the shuriken Hiroki gave him in between the kunai knives. As the shuriken landed behind Kakashi, Naruto didn't understand the reason why Hiroki insisted in making him throw it at Kakashi, but one second later, Hiroki's words rang on his mind as the shuriken exploded. The explosion was big enough to leave a small crater were it landed and also fall some small trees nearby with the air pressure caused by it.

Sasuke and Hiroki appeared next to Sakura and Naruto. Hiroki threw some kunai at Kakashi while Sasuke grabbed Sakura and fled. "Let's regroup, Naruto." Hiroki said as the two followed Sasuke.

"Hiroki, what was that shuriken? How did it explode like that when it hit the ground? There weren't any bomb tags on it." Naruto asked.

"It's a jutsu I created by combining two techniques together. I'll teach it to you some time, but you have to promise me you will only use it when most needed. It is very dangerous depending on the numbers." Hiroki said. Naruto remembered the size of the explosion and the power it had just from one shuriken. He imagined that if there were tens or hundreds of those, then it would be very dangerous indeed.

As Hiroki and Naruto arrived behind Sasuke, Sakura finally woke up. She told them that she had seen Sasuke being pierced by many shuriken and kunai and it was Kakashi that killed him. Hiroki told her that it was just a simple genjutsu and that she should have been able to release herself from it.

"Anyways, I have a plan for us to be able to take those bells from Kakashi." Hiroki told them as he started explaining the plan to them.

After ten more minutes, Sasuke stood in the middle of an opening in the training camp. Kakashi saw him there and went to test him in a one on one. He had a paralyzed right arm, but he wasn't a Jounin for nothing.

Sasuke started punching and kicking Kakashi as he had a smirk on his face, but every time he was about to make a clean hit, Kakashi would just dodge it at the very last second, frustrating Sasuke more each time he did it. Sasuke leapt away from Kakashi as he made a few hand seals.

"Fenix flower jutsu." Sasuke said as he breathed seven small fire balls at Kakashi. At first, Kakashi wanted to dodge, but then he saw that there were shuriken in each of those small fire balls. He didn't know if those shuriken would explode like the others and didn't want to pay to see it. He slammed his left palm at the ground and a small earth wall rose in front of him. The small fire balls struck the wall and after a few seconds, three of them exploded, destroying the small earth wall completely. Kakashi felt that defending using the earth wall was the right move and his intuition proved right, but then he saw a huge fire ball sped towards him as the area turned orange. Naruto jumped from his spot and made a few hand seals and blew a stream of wind chakra into the fire ball, increasing it to twice it's original size and it doubled it's speed as it went towards Kakashi.

'What is going on here. These genin shouldn't have the chakra to use these jutsu. And those exploding shuriken. Where did they get it and how many more of those do they have?' Kakashi thought as he leapt away from the huge fire ball. As he was airborne, he heard the cry of an eagle and saw that two small ones were heading his way. One struck on his chest and the other didn't touch him.

'Another lightning jutsu. Whoever it is, they have a good control and shape manipulation of their chakra.' Kakashi thought. As he got ready to continue fighting his genin, the timer rang.

"Well. That is quite unfortunate for you guys. The time is up and the survival exercise is over. You weren't able to defeat me and neither retrieve the b...." Kakashi started saying, but stopped as he went to grab the bells and didn't feel them on him.

"Are you looking for these?" Hiroki said as he threw the bells to Kakashi. Naruto was just grinning with a happy face and Sakura had a smile. Sasuke just kept his stoic face.

"When did you get it?" Kakashi asked.

"Right when the first eagle hit your chest. The second one didn't hit you as well because it was sent to take the bells from you when you were distracted by the first one." Hiroki said.

'So he was the one with the lightning chakra. He has very good talent.' Kakashi thought. He then cleared his throat. He could feel that the paralysis on his right arm was almost completely gone and he could move it around again with a little bit of difficulty.

"Ahem. As I said, only three of you can become genin. Who will you give the other two bells to?" Kakashi said as he looked at Hiroki, studying him.

"They can have it. We are a team, so what is mine is theirs. I didn't get the bells by myself. Each one of us had a part in it." Hiroki said.

"Well, I only have one thing to say to you. You pass." Kakashi said as he eye smiled at them.

"I had prepared lunch for you four, so let's eat."

After they all ate, Kakashi told them that they were dismissed and that they should meet tomorrow at seven at the mission center, which was right next to the ninja academy.

Sasuke and Sakura left just after Kakashi, but Naruto and Hiroki stayed behind. Hiroki wanted to work with Naruto on a few other things in fuinjutsu.

———

On the other side of Konoha, Kakashi arrived in front of the Hokage building while reading his orange book. As he was entering Hiruzen's office, the other two Jounin sensei that were in charge of the other teams were leaving. They were looking at him, trying to guess if Kakashi failed another team or not.

"Kakashi, how was your evaluation on your genin team?" Hiruzen asked.

"They passed." Kakashi said as he closed his book and put it away. Hiruzen was very interested in this and he asked Kakashi to tell him about what happened. Kakashi told him every step of their exercise and his thoughts about their teamwork and also how impressed he was for them to plan things ahead and take the bells away from him. He also told them about the exploding shuriken. Hiruzen was very intrigued about this and he asked Kakashi if he knew if it was a jutsu or a new type of tag that was so small that it fit a shuriken. Kakashi told him that he didn't know. He continued telling Hiruzen how they were able to grab the bells from him.

"Kakashi, you have a very good team. From what you told me, they still need some teamwork, but that last part of the exercise, they worked really well together with that plan. I'm impressed. They will one day become very good shinobi. Congratulations Kakashi. I'm sure Minato would be proud of you taking the roll of a sensei." Hiruzen said.

After Kakashi was done with the report, he left the Hokage building.