Sasuke, Listen to Me

Before he could steady himself, Naruto's second strike had already arrived. A knifehand aimed not at any pressure point, but at his Adam's apple. Those five tightly aligned fingers were hard as iron, carrying undisguised killing intent.

Kakashi recoiled backward in shock, performing a textbook bridge to evade the lethal blow.

"Hey, hey, Naruto, aren't you being a little too enthusiastic?" He still tried to maintain that lazy demeanor, attempting to disrupt his opponent's rhythm with words.

Naruto said nothing and simply kept attacking.

Before he knew it, Kakashi had been forced by Naruto into the predicted position.

A faint click of Naruto's tongue came from ahead. It was the signal he had sent to Sasuke.

Sasuke's fireball arrived right on cue.

The enormous ball of fire did not fly toward Kakashi himself. Instead, it struck precisely into a patch of bushes along his escape route.

The flames instantly devoured the green leaves.

Kakashi was forced to dodge a second time, and this new landing point happened to be the "closing" point of the entire tactical net.

The instant his feet touched the ground, three senbon coated in purple poison shot soundlessly from the shadows beneath him in a triangular formation.

It was a trap triggered by an almost invisible metal wire working in tandem with Sasuke's fireball.

Naruto had set it there long ago.

Kakashi's pupils abruptly shrank to pinpoints.

For the first time, he felt a genuine threat.

His body twisted forcefully in an extremely awkward posture, and the muscles around his waist erupted in tearing pain.

He narrowly avoided the deadly Senbon, but the hem of his clothing at his waist was sliced open.

Their objective from the very beginning had not been to seize the bells.

They had been planning on the premise of subduing him.

When the attack missed, Naruto's icy voice rang out again.

"Retreat. Rebuild the formation."

Sasuke and Sakura did not hesitate in the slightest. They immediately followed Naruto's figure and vanished into the depths of the forest.

There was no dragging their feet, only a chilling display of discipline.

Kakashi stood alone where he was, a trace of cold sweat seeping from his temple.

He looked down at the torn edge of his clothes and the Senbon on the ground gleaming with a sinister light, his heart grave.

This tactic had been logically sound and decisively executed.

It had exploited everyone's traits, turning both Sasuke's ninjutsu and Sakura's "incompetence" into indispensable parts of the plan.

And the one directing all of it... was Uzumaki Naruto.

Time passed second by second, gradually approaching afternoon.

Naruto gathered the other two once more.

He took out a simple map showing the terrain he had surveyed beforehand, with three locations marked by pebbles.

"The final attack. The objective isn't the bells, but eliminating the target's fighting capacity."

"I'll be the main attacker and lure him to Point A. Sasuke, prepare your most powerful ninjutsu at Point B. Sakura, wait at Point C. When you see my signal, detonate the Explosive Tag I gave you earlier."

The moment he finished speaking, Naruto revealed himself and charged at Kakashi like a cannonball fired from its barrel.

No hand signs, no ninjutsu.

Pure taijutsu combat.

His attacks were broad and forceful. Every punch and kick carried brutal precision and lethal efficiency, nothing like a twelve-year-old Genin.

Kakashi was forced to respond with everything he had. The rhythm of the fight was entirely controlled by his opponent, and he was being led step by step toward the predetermined trap.

Just as Kakashi was about to be lured into Point A, he suddenly stopped all movement.

He gave up his entanglement with Naruto and instead looked up toward where Sasuke and Sakura were hiding.

The left eye that had always been covered by his forehead protector slowly opened.

A Kurenai Three-Tomoe Sharingan spun beneath the sunlight.

"Enough."

He had already seen through the entire arrangement.

The next second, Kakashi appeared before the three of them in a Body Flicker and declared the exercise over.

"None of you ever considered 'taking' the bells from me. All you wanted was to 'defeat' me."

Kakashi first shook his head helplessly.

"When I told you to come at me with the resolve to kill me, it was only a metaphor. I didn't tell you to actually kill me. I'm your teacher. If such a great teacher as me dies, where are you going to find another one?"

After making the joke, his expression tightened. His gaze passed over Sasuke and Sakura and locked firmly onto Naruto.

"Your coordination... had no trust in it. There was only cold calculation and exploitation. That isn't what Konoha calls a 'team.' Your comrades shouldn't become bait that can be sacrificed."

Naruto calmly met the all-seeing Sharingan's gaze without the slightest fear.

"Sensei, victory is a team's only purpose. To ensure Konoha's survival, any sentimental emotion is a fatal weakness."

He took a step forward.

Kakashi focused all his attention on understanding the terrifying logic in Naruto's words, trying to find even a trace of hesitation in those blue eyes.

He was momentarily lost in thought, because it was precisely the question he had once struggled with deeply.

At that moment of intense mental focus, a fatal opening appeared in his defenses for a full 1.7 seconds.

Naruto's hand flashed like an illusion, brushing past the stunned Kakashi's waist.

The two bells fell into his palm.

"Mission complete."

The bells gave a crisp, final chime in Naruto's palm.

The air froze.

Sasuke and Sakura emerged from behind the trees where they had been hiding, their faces filled with shock.

What they saw was not victory, but an incomprehensible upheaval.

Kakashi stood frozen in place. That crimson Sharingan stared fixedly at Naruto, all his laziness and casualness stripped away, leaving only the sharp chill of an elite Jōnin.

"Team 7, pass."

Kakashi's voice was dry, as if forced out of his throat.

He paid no attention to Sasuke or Sakura. His entire focus was on Naruto.

What terrifying insight. He had only briefly lost focus because he suddenly remembered Rin and Obito, yet Naruto had seized even that fleeting opening.

"Your tactics were very successful."

Kakashi's gaze settled on Naruto's calm face.

"But that wasn't a team. It was a machine. You treated your comrades as parts to be calculated and sacrificed. That kind of thinking is more dangerous than any enemy."

Sasuke clenched his fists at his sides, his knuckles turning white.

He looked at the bells in Naruto's hand. The frustration coiled around his heart like poisonous vines, while his longing for that absolute control burned through his soul like wildfire.

Naruto tossed one bell to Sasuke.

"Victory is the best protection you can give your comrades."

He gave no explanation and turned to leave.

Hokage's Office.

Smoke hung heavily in the air, and the atmosphere was oppressive.

"He treated Sakura Haruno as a 'tactical sacrifice point' and Sasuke as a 'controllable assault force.'"

Kakashi's voice was heavy. He omitted the details of the traps and close combat, recounting only Naruto's cold theory.

"At the end, he said that victory was a team's only purpose, and that any sentimental emotion was a fatal weakness."

Hiruzen Sarutobi remained silent, puffing on his pipe one breath at a time.

After a long while, he tapped the pipe against the ashtray.

"Kakashi, we may have made a mistake."

The old man's voice was steeped in deep exhaustion.

"What we have always feared was that the Nine-Tails' hatred would consume Naruto."

He raised his head, his clouded eyes filled with an unprecedented gravity.

"But now, it seems Naruto's heart has already been occupied by something even more frightening and colder than the Nine-Tails."

Beneath Konoha, Root.

Shimura Danzō, standing in the shadows, listened to the complete report on Team 7's exercise.

His one remaining eye revealed undisguised satisfaction.

"Perfect command ability, absolutely rational judgment, and ruthless decisiveness without hesitation."

"That is what a weapon should be."

His cane lightly tapped the ground.

"Raise the surveillance level on the Nine-Tails' jinchūriki from 'observation' to 'evaluation.'"

"Begin the selection plan. I will personally test his loyalty."

A voice answered from the darkness.

"Lord Danzo, regarding Umino Iruka..."

"He is an important chess piece."

A grim curve formed at Danzo's lips.

"It is time to see whether this perfect weapon still retains the superfluous impurity known as 'humanity.'"