Seeing how frank his student was, Kakashi was at a loss for words.
What was that saying again? Sincerity was the ultimate weapon. This situation was a perfect example.
"So, what exactly are we doing today? Weren't you talking about a Survival Exercise? This place doesn't look like somewhere you could hold one..." As he spoke, Nanfeng let out a burp, making the stress lines above Kakashi's head grow even darker.
"Didn't I tell you not to eat breakfast before coming here? How do you explain this?" Kakashi's tone was starting to sound annoyed. He'd eaten that morning too, but enough time had passed that he was starting to get hungry.
Looking at the three of them, full and satisfied, Kakashi felt a nameless blaze of anger surge up to his head. Even Nanfeng's gentle face began to look a little sinister to him.
"We knew that Teacher Kakashi likes to search for direction on the road of life, so we searched for our own direction too. But along the way, we lost ourselves in a restaurant and thought, why not have a meal first?" Nanfeng showed no trace of guilt. In fact, he looked rather pleased with himself.
That'll teach you to be late all the time, you damn jerk. It feels pretty good to have someone borrow the excuse you used to like, doesn't it?
For some reason, Nanfeng felt as though he'd cuckolded Kakashi. It was only borrowing an excuse, but it was still a strange feeling.
It had to be because he'd been reading too many weird books lately. It was all that old geezer Jiraiya's fault, writing novels like Icha Icha Paradise and corrupting minors. He ought to be arrested.
At that moment, outside some unknown women's bathhouse, a white-haired, lecherous old man suddenly sneezed.
"Hmm? Which cutie is thinking about my dashing good looks again?" Jiraiya rubbed his nose, then cheerfully went back to gathering material for his writing.
Kakashi stared at Nanfeng, speechless. At last, he understood what it felt like to be stood up by someone, as he'd done to so many others. But now wasn't the time to get angry. There were more important things to take care of.
"Let me put it this way. Yesterday's so-called Survival Exercise was a ruse. Today, you'll be doing real combat training. To pass, you'll have to fight with the intent to kill your teacher."
As he spoke, Kakashi took out a scroll and set it in front of Nanfeng and the others. It listed the names of everyone who'd passed his assessment before.
"Not a single one? How is that possible?" Naruto saw the huge zero beside the pass rate and completely lost it, shouting in disbelief!
"Well, your teacher is considered pretty strong even among Konoha's Jonin. The only reason they failed was that the gap in skill was too great. That's why I'm telling you that you need to fight me with the intent to kill if you want to beat me. You have five minutes to prepare. I'll wait right here."
"It doesn't matter what you do. Set traps or beat me head-on—if you can show me something that earns my approval, you'll pass!" Kakashi didn't wait for their response. He simply stood on a post in the middle of the Training Ground and started reading.
The three members of the team gathered to discuss their battle plan for the assessment.
"What do you make of this practical training? Not a single person has passed him, so there must be some special way to break through or counter him. Otherwise, they wouldn't have assigned us to a Jonin who clearly doesn't want to lead Genin." Sasuke immediately picked out some of the key points.
He still didn't know exactly how they were supposed to pass, though.
"Let me put it this way. The scroll briefly recorded some of what happened at the time. All the Genin who took the test tried to pass by relying on their own combat skills, but they overlooked one thing..."
"Even a Chunin who's actually been on the battlefield isn't someone a so-called genius Genin can handle. The gap in combat experience is just too great. So I think the key to this assessment is testing how well we work together."
After Nanfeng finished speaking, Sasuke and Naruto's eyes lit up.
They wouldn't boast about much else, but after all these years of training together, their teamwork had improved tremendously. With a suitable battle plan, they could at least give Kakashi a bit of trouble for a while!
"Anyway, we don't necessarily have to pass the test outright. The most important thing is to get under this guy's skin. Otherwise, he'll keep thinking we're easy to mess with, and that's just unacceptable." As he spoke, Nanfeng took a bottle of white powder from his pocket and turned to Naruto and Sasuke with an evil grin.
"What's that?" Seeing Nanfeng's strange smile, Naruto instinctively felt that this wasn't going to be simple.
"Just some Itchy Powder I mixed up myself. It won't do much damage; it'll just make you really itchy..." Nanfeng's devilish voice whispered in Sasuke and Naruto's ears.
In that instant, the two of them quickly settled on a plan for the rest of their lives!
It was fine to provoke an enemy by some means, even to get under the skin of a Jonin or a Kage Level powerhouse—but they must never target Nanfeng... Otherwise, they'd never know how many ways he could find to torment them.
"Enough talk. Let's put together our battle plan..." Nanfeng took the lead. This had always been his job. He understood each of them and their roles inside out, which made it easier for him to assign tasks appropriately.
A moment later, a smoke bomb went off in front of Kakashi. Seeing this, Kakashi finally put away his book and watched the three blurry figures with interest.
"So that smoke bomb was just to give you time to prepare all this?" Once the smoke cleared, Kakashi saw the Explosive Tags, Senbon Launchers, and all kinds of other trap equipment in their hands. For some reason, the corner of his mouth twitched...
"There's no way we can beat a Jonin head-on, no matter how hard we try. We can use these things instead. We might not be able to defeat you, but we can definitely get under your skin!" Naruto grinned wildly and flung the tools in his hands at Kakashi as if they cost nothing.
"Sasuke, how did Naruto convince you to go along with this too?"
Before you continue