Hesitation Means Defeat

Time passed bit by bit in training.

By midmorning, Sakura lay beneath the shade of a tree like a salted fish, unable to understand—completely unable to understand—how those two had so much energy.

It had been all morning. Did they not know how to take a break?

"Yo, good morning, Sakura!"

Hearing that flippant greeting, Sakura immediately bristled. She stood up and fixed the person before her with a devouring glare. "Kakashi-sensei, could you please have some sense of time? Do you know what time it is?"

"Sorry. When I looked in the mirror this morning, I accidentally lost myself." Kakashi smiled apologetically.

Sakura spat lightly. It was the first time she had realized her teacher could be so shameless.

"Hey! You two, hurry up and rest! The exercise starts in an hour!" Kakashi called out to the pair in the distance, his eyes curved into crescents.

Naruto's movements paused, and the right hand supporting his entire body nearly gave out. "...497, 498, 499...500!"

He pushed himself upright with effort, then looked at Sasuke, who was training beside him, and advised, "Too much is as bad as too little. Training volume should be based on your own condition."

After saying that, he headed toward the nearby river.

Sasuke glanced at him from the corner of his eye. He was not an idiot, so he naturally understood that Naruto was right. But for the first time—his first time—he was this furious at his own laziness.

What had he been doing all these years?

They had both been training, yet he could not even persist through half of someone else's training regimen!

Whenever he thought of that, he felt sick at the impotent rage he had felt when he lost at the Ninja Academy.

Thud!

"Sasuke!" Sakura cried out in alarm, hurrying over to help the fallen Sasuke up.

"Full of fighting spirit, huh!" Kakashi nodded in satisfaction. "But you'll need plenty of stamina for the upcoming exercise. The consequences of failing the exercise are very serious..."

When he got to the important part, he deliberately left them in suspense. Unfortunately...

Naruto was doing who knew what near the river; Sasuke was too exhausted to speak; and Sakura—well, compared to Kakashi-sensei, the person she liked was more important.

"Ahem. If you fail this exercise, you'll have to go back to the Ninja Academy and start over!"

Sasuke: "..."

"Huh?!!"

Looking at Sakura's stunned face, Kakashi's wounded heart finally felt a little comfort.

An hour later.

"...Your mission is to take the Bells from my hand. Understand?" Kakashi said with a smile, holding up two Bells.

"Why are there only two Bells?" Sakura's top-student instincts kicked in steadily, and she spotted the key issue at once.

Bells... Tch. I wonder whether the Guardian Bells at the temple are still there.

Naruto thought of how, although he had never understood how the Buddha statue in that temple had brought him back three years, Kuro's and his adoptive father Owl's Guardian Bells had undoubtedly shown him many interesting things.

"...Do you understand?" Kakashi asked again.

"Y-yes, I understand..." Sakura swallowed and replied somewhat nervously.

"Then, the exercise begins!" Kakashi waved a hand, and the three figures vanished from the spot in an instant.

Kakashi nodded in satisfaction. The three of them had solid fundamentals. It looked like things would be much easier in the future.

"In the bushes, behind the tree trunk... Interesting." He suddenly realized that with one sweep of his eyes, he could only find two people.

Naruto looked at his companions on either side, whose hiding spots still had plenty of flaws, and nodded as well. Without the pressure of a life-or-death crisis, their concealment skills at their current stage were already quite good. He could not demand too much.

Holding one's breath and silencing one's movements were the two core principles of the concealment techniques he had learned in his previous life.

There was not much difference in this life.

"He's coming. The target is... Sakura." Kakashi was moving directly toward Sakura's position.

Naruto gripped his scabbard tightly in his left hand and waited patiently for his chance. Once the distance closed, he saw a faint red dot light up on Kakashi's back, and his blade slowly slid from its sheath.

The Stealth Kill Marker—an old skill from his previous life.

Basically, as far as he was concerned, as long as a red dot appeared on an enemy's body, he could take them out.

Whoosh! Whoosh!

Two Shuriken flew from Sakura's hands. One came from the front, while the other flew from Kakashi's blind spot.

Though the girl's practical combat grades at school were not outstanding, she was not at the bottom either.

Kakashi twisted aside to dodge one, but the other that followed struck squarely into his vital point.

"D-did it work?!" Sakura stared at the scene in astonishment.

"Nope!" Kakashi's voice suddenly sounded behind her, while the other Kakashi struck by the Shuriken turned into a wooden post amid a puff of smoke.

"One of the ninja's three principles—ninjutsu!"

Kakashi formed his hand into a blade and struck toward the girl's neck.

Suddenly, a figure leaped down from the tree branch above. Both hands gripping the hilt, he drove the blade, gleaming with chilling light, precisely into the red dot on Kakashi's back.

"Urgh..." Kakashi's lips moved as he looked at the figure from the corner of his eye, but as life drained from him, he slowly fell to the ground.

"Ah!!!" Sakura watched in terror, unable to understand. Was this not just an exercise?

Why? Why had someone died?!

Naruto pulled out his blade. Ignoring the girl frozen in place, he carefully observed the surroundings.

No one knew better than him what it felt like for a blade to enter flesh.

That strange sensation just now, as though he had stabbed into something viscous, was definitely not a feeling he recognized.

"Left, right, front, back, above... below!" Naruto sprang backward. From the ground where he had just been standing, a pair of hands suddenly emerged.

Fire Release: Great Fireball Jutsu!

Sasuke, who had followed the sound, seized the opportunity. His hands rapidly formed seals, and a massive fireball nearly a meter across crashed viciously onto the hands protruding from the ground.

Naruto lunged from the right, scooping up the collapsed Sakura and carrying her away.

Boom!

Sparks scattered everywhere!

A large crater of scorched earth appeared before their eyes.

Sasuke landed steadily atop a thick branch. Just as he was about to inspect the ground below, a pair of palms reached out from the dense leaves above his head and dragged him into the darkness.

"Ah!" Sasuke's agonized scream startled the birds from the forest.

Then Sasuke's head was thrown out from the woods.

The sight and sound were all too real. Sakura, who had only just steadied herself, rolled her eyes back and fainted on the spot.

Naruto narrowed his eyes. He did not even look at the head on the ground. One of his teachers, Lady Butterfly, had been especially skilled at things like Genjutsu.

Unfortunately, his aptitude for Genjutsu had been poor, and he had not learned its true essence.

Still, he had some experience in seeing through Genjutsu.

"One of the ninja's three principles—Genjutsu!"

Kakashi's figure slowly emerged from the ground. As he appeared, the bleeding head on the ground transformed into a stone of the same size.

A Shuriken flew out, with Naruto's figure following close behind.

Clang!

Kakashi swung the kunai in his hand, knocking away the Shuriken, but a heavy slash came immediately after.

The powerful force made his body sway involuntarily. Naruto seized the chance, darting behind him. He held the blade in reverse in his left hand, braced the hilt with his right, and drove it viciously toward his enemy's spine.

Falling Shadow...

Thud!

That unusual sensation of piercing something came through the blade again.

What was it this time?

As the smoke cleared, a tree stump was firmly impaled on his blade. Once again, this Substitution Technique combining the Clone Technique and Transformation Jutsu disgusted him.

The Substitution Technique was one of the three basic techniques every ninja had to learn. He could use it too, but not as fluidly as Kakashi.