The bell test

At four fifty in the morning, Ling arrived at Training Ground Three right on time. Dawn had barely broken, the dew had yet to dry, and a chill lingered in the air. He was not the first to arrive. Sasuke already stood in the middle of the field with his arms folded and his eyes closed, seemingly long accustomed to this sort of waiting.

At four fifty-five, Sakura arrived with dark circles under her eyes. She relaxed when she saw Sasuke and quietly took her place a short distance away.

At five sharp, Kakashi had not appeared.

Five ten... five twenty...

Only after the sun had fully risen did Naruto charge into the training ground, shouting with half a slice of bread still clamped between his teeth. He had clearly forgotten all about the warning not to eat breakfast.

"Aaah! I almost overslept! Kakashi-sensei isn't here yet? Great!"

Sasuke answered him with an impatient snort, while Sakura gave him a speechless look.

"Yo, everyone's here." Kakashi closed his book and strolled over, his gaze sweeping across all four of them and lingering on Ling for a moment.

He took two bells from his ninja tool pouch and gave them a shake. "Get a bell before noon. Anyone who doesn't gets no lunch, gets tied to a post to watch the show, and gets sent back to the academy."

After announcing the rules, Kakashi looked at Ling and added in a seemingly casual tone, "Ling, I know your situation. So for you, today's test isn't about showing me what I already know. Understood?"

His words left Naruto and Sakura a little confused. Sasuke also glanced at Ling.

Ling understood. Kakashi was setting boundaries in advance: he knew Ling's basic abilities far surpassed those of an ordinary genin, so a conventional test would be pointless. What he really wanted to see was how Ling worked within a team, how he adapted on the fly, and... whether he was still hiding anything else Kakashi "didn't know."

[Hmph, crafty brat.] Tobirama snorted. [He knows what you're capable of, so he's changed the test. He wants to see your tactical choices under pressure, and whether you'll reveal more of what I've taught you just to "pass." Stay alert and stick to the plan.]

"Now... begin!"

As always, Naruto was the first to charge in with a shout, only to be sent flying by Kakashi's Thousand Years of Death, with no suspense whatsoever.

After dealing with Naruto, Kakashi fixed his gaze directly on Sasuke and Ling. "All right, warm-up's over. Sasuke, show me what the Uchiha can do. Ling, show me your 'new tricks.'"

He charged at Sasuke, moving noticeably faster than he had while toying with Naruto. Sasuke immediately found himself struggling. Kakashi effortlessly countered his shuriken and taijutsu one after another, leaving him completely overwhelmed.

Ling did not immediately rush in to attack. He knew just how much Kakashi understood about him-his basic Water Release, his Water Clone, his shuriken skills. Kakashi knew them all inside out. Using those against a jonin who knew him so thoroughly would accomplish very little.

He moved swiftly around the perimeter, searching for an opening. Occasionally, he threw a few shuriken at tricky angles, not to hit Kakashi, but to disrupt his rhythm or force him to spare a moment to defend whenever Sasuke was about to take a serious blow.

"Good tactical support, Ling." Kakashi even had time to offer commentary as he deflected a kunai with a backhand motion and drove Sasuke back with a kick. "You know how to play to your strengths and avoid your weaknesses without wasting chakra on ineffective attacks. But... it's still not enough."

The pressure abruptly intensified. Kakashi's attacks grew sharper. Though he had not activated his Sharingan, his wealth of combat experience alone left Sasuke struggling to defend himself, danger closing in at every turn.

Sakura watched from the sidelines, frantic with worry, but could find no way to intervene.

Just then, Sasuke attempted to use Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique, exposing a tiny opening as he formed his hand seals. Naturally, Kakashi did not let it slip past. He closed the distance in an instant!

At that critical moment, Ling finally moved. His hands flashed through a series of seals.

"Water Release: Water Formation Wall!"

A dense wall of water rose instantly, positioning itself precisely between Kakashi and Sasuke! The timing was flawless, catching the exact moment before Kakashi's attack landed and before Sasuke unleashed his technique.

The water wall successfully blocked Kakashi's attack, but it also intercepted Sasuke's Great Fireball. Water and fire collided, throwing up a thick cloud of white steam that instantly obscured their vision.

"Hmm?" Kakashi murmured in surprise and stepped half a pace back. It was not the Water Formation Wall itself that surprised him, but the speed of its execution, the precise timing, and its extraordinary density-it was a whole level stronger than the Water Formation Wall he remembered Ling using! Was this the result of recent special training? Or...

The white mist dispersed. Sasuke had seized the opportunity to put some distance between them and stood panting, giving Ling a conflicted look. Ling remained in a defensive stance, breathing slightly harder, as though that fast, exceptionally well-executed Water Release had cost him quite a bit.

Kakashi watched Ling, his visible eye narrowing slightly. This kid... has improved again without my knowing. Moreover, that cover had seemed less like an attempt to save Sasuke and more like an effort to stop him from recklessly unleashing a wide-area ninjutsu with uncontrollable consequences. His tactical choice had been remarkably coolheaded and seasoned.

"Interesting," Kakashi murmured to himself. He no longer rushed to attack, instead watching at his leisure as the two regrouped.

In the fighting that followed, Kakashi deliberately began putting pressure on Ling, forcing him into more complicated choices to see where his limits lay. Ling's performance remained steady and "reasonable": superb chakra control, excellent tactical awareness, and abilities consistently at the upper limit of a genin who was "exceptionally talented, but still within reason." The occasional glimpse of progress beyond Kakashi's expectations could easily be explained as "a genius's everyday improvement." He never used any advanced techniques that bore Tobirama's unmistakable style or defied conventional understanding.

[Good. Keep it up,] Tobirama instructed. [Let him see your potential for growth and your tactical value, but keep your trump cards out of his reach. The higher his assessment of you, the less likely he'll be to restrict you by ordinary genin standards, and the more freedom we'll have to act on our own.]

In the end, the test still concluded with Kakashi effortlessly confiscating everyone's weapons and announcing, "No one passes."

He placed the two bells on a wooden post and took out the boxed lunches.

"The rules haven't changed," he said, though he gave Ling a meaningful look. "Only two of you get to eat."

This time, there was less mockery in his gaze and more genuine scrutiny and thought. He had confirmed Ling's strength and growth, but now he had posed this classic dilemma to see what choice the child he thought he understood so well would make when "teamwork" clashed with "rules." This test aimed at Ling had only just reached its true heart.