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I looked up; Naruto was alone again and Kakashi was gone. Hopefully he hadn't gotten to Ino yet. I hastily scratched out my message and kicked dust over the remains with the heel of my sandal so that no one else could read it, then let go of Ino's shadow so I could sneak over to Naruto and cut him free.

Of course, Naruto was ecstatic to no longer be upside-down, and when Naruto was ecstatic he was also very exuberant. And loud. Very loud.

"Shhh!"

"Okay!"

"I have a plan!"

"'Kay, what is it?"

"There's two parts to it. Can you make another solid clone? Quietly?"

Naruto nodded, and a second one puffed into existence.

"Right," I nodded at original Naruto. "Kakashi is going after Ino now. She'll be distracting him, but she won't be able to hold him off for long. When he comes back, I need you to make more clones and swarm him like this," I said, sketching out a diagram of the training field and our positioning in the dirt. "Make sure to leave this gap here, facing Ino. Whatever happens, keep these positions. This is very important. Do you understand?"

"Yeah, but why?"

"I'll explain later, if it works. We don't have much time. Kakashi will be coming back any second now. Just – distract him, and get him into this position. Okay?"

Naruto shrugged. "All right. But the bells – "

"We'll deal with that later. Two is better than none. We're all Genin, Naruto. The only way we'll have a chance is if we all gang up on him. We'll figure out the bells thing later. Now, repeat back to me: what are you supposed to do, Naruto?"

"Distract our sensei-teme, and chase him over to Ino's side of the clearing, then swarm him, but leave a gap, right?"

"Right. You ready?"

Naruto nodded, and snuck off into the bushes.

"All right. Clone. You are going to run off, and find Ino. She will lose to Kakashi on purpose, so make it look like you're there to help her, got it? Now, your 'boss' and some other clones will be leaving this gap when they attack Kakashi, right?"

"Yeah."

"Your job is to tell Ino her part of the plan. She's going to Kawarimi with the bells when she sees an opening, and you're going to grab them. Got it? Actual Naruto and the others are just a distraction."

"What about you?"

"I'm a distraction, too."

"Okay."

"So, repeat to me: what are you going to do?"

He wrinkled his nose. "Find Ino, tell her to Kawarimi with the bells when she sees the gap in the clones, and then grab the bells when she does, right?"

"Right."

"What do I do with the bells?"

"We'll deal with it if we get the bells," I said.

"All right."

All of a sudden a very Ino-like scream filled the air, and then silence.

"That's your cue! Go!"

As soon as the clone had taken off, the mass of Naruto clones exploded out at Kakashi once again. I ran back to the middle of the clearing and started stretching out my shadow, pretending that I was going to get Kakashi from the back while the clones chased him from the front. Naturally, he didn't fall for it, and simply moved out of range.

That was when I switched to subterfuge level two: I retreated my shadow, but only back to where one of the other Naruto clones were conveniently standing. From there, it was all too simple to whip around the clones' shadows.

"Using Naruto's clones' shadows to lengthen your own," Kakashi commented loudly. "Quite clever. But not clever enough!" He danced out of reach again, right in front of the spot where he had previously "defeated" Ino.

Now what was the point of saying that out loud? Is he just being flashy on purpose? I thought.

But no time for speculation. I wouldn't be understanding this man anytime soon, so there was no point in trying when more important things were going on in the present. The Narutos, and my shadow, had chased Kakashi right where we needed him. Ino would only have a window of about a few seconds to perform the Kawarimi.

It was now or never. A flash of purple from the tree line, and Ino had collided with Kakashi's hip. "Get them, Naruto!" she yelled.

Kakashi jumped in shock. "What?"

But it was too late. The bells were gone.

"I got them, I got them!" Naruto rushed out triumphantly, holding up the little silver bells. "You LOSE, sensei-teme!"

It worked! It worked! I can't believe it – my plan actually –

"Did I?"

The three of us faltered. Kakashi had that smile on his face again.

"You three did well. But it will be a while before you can outsmart me yet."

He disappeared with a pop – as did the bells in our possession.

We stared in silence.

The little red alarm clock hit twelve and started blaring mercilessly.

"How…?"

And then the alarm clock exploded in a puff of smoke, only to reveal none other than Kakashi Hatake, sitting on the wooden stump as happily as a frog in the rain, the real bells jingling from his belt mockingly.

"Unfortunately, I know how to use shadow clones and basic Academy techniques, too."

…

…

…

"HE WAS THE ALARM CLOCK THIS ENTIRE TIME?!"

Genin are so cute, Kakashi thought from his stump. Seriously. He almost felt a little bad watching his new team's crestfallen faces.

Almost.

The plan had actually been a good one. And it might have worked, if he hadn't taken the extra step to cheat. Then again, if he hadn't suspected that Shikamaru might have been able to come up with a good plan, he wouldn't have bothered holding himself in a Henge to look like an alarm clock for so long in the first place.

Hey – he had to make it a challenge somehow, and since they had already figured out the whole "no splitting up the teams once they've been formed" rule on the first day, that threw his original setup out the window. Besides, losing to a batch of fresh Genin from the Academy was kind of embarrassing, wasn't it? Even if there were three of them coming at you at once. Plus, staying in one position for all those hours was not easy. Really, that was an amazing accomplishment in and of itself.

Maybe these kids would be good for him. He was their sensei, after all. He had to always be one step ahead of them, at least until they finally reached an age where it was actually socially acceptable for them to surpass him. Though it was a bit embarrassing to admit, Kakashi had sort of slacked off after leaving ANBU. And it wasn't the physical aspect he was referring to – the kill-eat-sleep-train zombie cycle of his teens had not been healthy – it was the mental cycle as well. Though getting away with acting like a complete and utter jerkass was hard work, you could only exercise so much of your mind doing it.

A genius, a mind-reader, and the jinchuuriki of the Nine-Tailed Fox. He wondered just exactly how much these kids would let him get away with.

"So I have good news and bad news," he said.

"Oh, god," Ino muttered, sliding to the ground. "Please kill me now."

"You don't even know what it is yet," Kakashi said, feigning hurt.

"Bad news first?" Naruto tried.

"First, let me ask you: do you know what the point of this test was?" Kakashi asked them.

They stared at him blankly. "…to see if our skills were up to par?"

"What sort of skills?" Kakashi asked.

"Things."

"What sort of things?"

"Stuff."

Ah, crap, Hatake, he chided himself. They're learning.

"How about this: why do you think I only had two bells, and threatened to send one of you back to the Academy?" he tried.

"Reasons?"

"What sort of reasons?"

"Things."

"And what sort of things?"

"Stuff."

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