The world fractured in an instant. The chain, a serpent of hungry barbs, cut through the air with a lethal hiss, aiming straight for Kakashi's neck. Time seemed to stretch, each second an eternity of decisions.
Tazuna let out a choked cry, a pathetic sound lost in the tension. Sasuke tensed, his muscles ready to spring, but the attack was too fast, too direct. Sakura felt ice run through her veins.
And then, just as the metal was about to find its mark, Kakashi dissolved into a cloud of smoke and splinters. A rough log took his place.
CLANG!
The chain wrapped around the log with brutal force, splitting it in two with a sickening crack.
"A decoy!" Gōzu, the bulkier of the two brothers, growled.
"Find him! Don't let him escape!" Meizu ordered.
But before they could even begin their search, a voice cut through the chaos. It wasn't Kakashi's. It was Naruto's.
"PROTECT TAZUNA!"
The cry wasn't one of panic. It was a command, a roar of authority born from certainty. The fear that had paralyzed him in the past was gone; in its place was a protective fury.
POOF! POOF!
Two shadow clones appeared at his side. They didn't charge the enemy. In a surprisingly disciplined move, they flanked Tazuna, placing themselves between the terrified bridge builder and the assassins. One of the clones even drew a kunai, taking a defensive stance that, while clumsy, was undeniably brave.
The original Naruto planted his feet firmly on the ground, his blue eyes fixed on the brothers.
"You won't take another step!"
Sasuke watched the scene, and for a moment, disbelief overrode his anger. The loser, the coward who had panicked in the Hokage's office, was now at the forefront, coordinating a defense. The humiliation at the village gate, the image of Hinata disarming Kakashi, came back to him like a punch.
No. I'm not falling behind. I won't let her, or this clown, surpass me.
"I don't need orders from you, loser!" Sasuke hissed.
He channeled the humiliation into a cold precision. He wasn't going to attack blindly; he was going to show them why an Uchiha was different. He launched himself forward, not like a bull, but like a viper, his kunai gleaming in the sun.
But just as he moved, another voice joined the cacophony, one as quiet as it was sharp.
"Sasuke-san, to your left! The chain is coming from below!"
It was Hinata. Her Byakugan was active, the veins around her temples visibly pronounced. She wasn't looking at Sasuke but at the Demon Brothers, yet her eyes saw beyond them. They saw the flow of chakra, the tension in the enemy's muscles, the trajectory of the next attack before it was even made.
Sasuke, on pure instinct, obeyed. He leaped, twisting in mid-air just as the chain swept through the spot where his feet had been a split second before, kicking up a cloud of dust. He landed with feline agility, his black eyes fixed on Hinata for an instant, a mixture of shock and fury in his gaze. How? How did she know?
"Don't get distracted!" Hinata shouted again, her voice losing its stutter, replaced by urgency. "Sakura-san, the one on the right is about to jump!"
Sakura, who had been frozen for a second, reacted. Adrenaline and her newfound power surged within her. The panic from the bell test was replaced by a crystal-clear clarity. Her ability, the [Analytical Eye], activated. She didn't see two thugs; she saw a system. She saw the weapon that connected them, the way their movements depended on each other. She saw the weakness.
"Got it!"
But she didn't move to attack. Instead, she focused. From her fingertips, nearly invisible chakra threads shot out, not toward the enemies, but to the ground around them. They weren't obvious traps. They were subtle, as fine as spiderwebs, anchoring themselves to small stones, roots, and imperfections in the path.
Just as Hinata had predicted, Meizu, the brother on the right, crouched and leaped toward Sasuke, his metal claw ready to disembowel him.
"Now, Sakura!" Naruto yelled from his defensive position.
Sakura tugged on one of her threads. A small stone, no bigger than a thumb, lifted from the ground and shot toward Meizu's face. It wasn't a dangerous attack, just an annoying distraction.
The assassin, mid-leap, blinked on instinct. It was enough.
The blink broke his concentration. His jump trajectory shifted by a minuscule degree, but in a high-speed battle, a degree is a chasm.
Sasuke, already warned by Hinata, wasn't where Meizu expected him to be. He slid under the ninja's leap, his kunai aimed upward.
"Take this!"
The kunai didn't find flesh. It found the thick metal band of Meizu's gauntlet, producing a shower of sparks. Sasuke's attack hadn't wounded him, but it had forced the enemy into an awkward position.
"Gōzu, pull me back!" Meizu shouted, as the chain connecting them tensed.
"He's coming from the right, Naruto!" Hinata yelled, her head swiveling as she tracked both enemies simultaneously.
One of Naruto's clones moved, intercepting Meizu in the air. The clone stood no chance, but that wasn't the point.
SLASH!
The illusion dissipated in a cloud of smoke just as Meizu's claw tore it in two. But the impact, even against a clone, slowed his momentum.
The fight became a coordinated disaster, a chaotic dance that, against all odds, was working. Sasuke was the tip of the spear, his taijutsu precise and lethal. He attacked with a cold fury, every move meant to kill, but his fury now had direction.
"Sasuke-san, feint left and attack right! He's going to block with the gauntlet!" Hinata commanded.
And Sasuke, swallowing his pride that left a taste of ash in his mouth, obeyed. He found that when he followed Hinata's instructions, his attacks, once blocked, now found an opening. His dodges, once instinctual, were now anticipatory. It was as if he could see the future, a future whispered into his ear by the girl he had always considered weak.
Sakura, from a safe distance near Tazuna, was the invisible puppet master. Her chakra threads now covered a small section of the battlefield. They weren't strong enough to trap anyone, but they didn't need to be.
"Watch your feet!" she yelled, as she pulled a thread, causing a root to rise subtly from the ground.
Gōzu, in the middle of a charge, stumbled. It was a tiny stumble, a half-second loss of balance. But it was enough for Sasuke's shuriken, instead of being deflected, to slice a cut into his arm.
"Dammit! What was that?" Gōzu roared, looking at the ground and seeing nothing.
"That was my awesome pebble genjutsu!" Naruto shouted, taking the credit.
"It's not a genjutsu, you idiot!" Sakura snapped. "And shut up!"
Naruto's clones were the wall. Every time one of the brothers tried to get around the main fight to reach Tazuna, a clone would get in their way. They were weak, dissipating with a single hit, but they were persistent. A swarm of orange gnats that distracted, annoyed, and most importantly, bought time.
"They're just kids! Why can't we finish them?" Meizu complained in frustration, after another of his attacks was dodged by Sasuke thanks to a warning from Hinata.
"I don't know!" Gōzu answered. "It's like they know what we're going to do!"
Hidden in the canopy of a tall tree, Kakashi watched. His initial plan had been to let his students get a taste of reality, scare them, and then intervene as the hero. But what he was seeing defied all logic.
This is impossible, he thought, his single visible eye wide open, his orange book completely forgotten. They aren't working as a team, not really. It's chaos. Sasuke is fighting for his pride, Naruto is defending on instinct, and Sakura and Hinata... they're... different.
He watched Hinata. The girl who should have been trembling behind a tree was the nerve center of the battle. Her Byakugan wasn't just a pair of eyes; it was an early warning system, a real-time combat radar. She predicted, commanded, directed.
And Sakura. He saw the nearly invisible threads, the way she manipulated the environment with a subtlety that he himself would find difficult to match. It was an application of chakra so fine it defied standard classification.
How? When did they learn this? This kind of growth isn't normal. The Academy doesn't teach this. What happened between the bell test and now?
His gaze fell on Naruto. The boy was shouting nonsense, his clones were weak, but his positioning was flawless. He had created a perfect defense zone around the client, sacrificing his clones without hesitation to protect him. The "loser" had become the team's defensive pillar.
Naruto… you're the key to all this, aren't you?
The battle reached a tipping point.
"Enough games!" Gōzu shouted. "Meizu, now!"
Both brothers grabbed the chain by the ends and began to spin it, creating a deadly circle of steel and barbs.
"Back!" Sasuke yelled, leaping away to avoid its radius.
"We can't get close!" Sakura said, her face pale.
"Hinata! Any ideas?" Naruto shouted.
Hinata's eyes narrowed. She saw the brothers' chakra flow, the tension in their muscles as they spun the chain. She saw the pattern.
"There's an opening!" she yelled. "Every three rotations, the brother on the left, Gōzu, shifts his grip! For a split second, his gauntlet is exposed. That's the weak point!"
Sasuke looked at her. "Are you sure?"
"Yes!"
"Then I need that opening!"
"I'll give it to you!" Sakura interjected.
She focused all her attention, not on the brothers, but on the ground just in front of Gōzu. She wove a dozen chakra threads, not to trip him, but to create a small vibration, a nearly imperceptible tremor beneath his feet.
"Naruto, now!" Sakura yelled.
"Got it!"
The last remaining Naruto clone near Tazuna charged. Not at the brothers. He ran to a nearby tree and punched it with all his might.
The tree shook, and a shower of leaves rained down on the battlefield. It was a simple but effective visual distraction.
"Now, Sasuke-san!" Hinata cried out.
At that moment, Gōzu completed his third rotation. Just as he was about to shift his grip, he felt the vibration under his feet. At the same time, the falling leaves obscured his vision for a fraction of a second.
His concentration shattered. His grip-shift was a millisecond slower than usual.
And that was all Sasuke needed.
Fueled by adrenaline and humiliation, he moved. He didn't run; he flowed, following the path Hinata had revealed. He dodged the chain that passed inches from his face and, with surgical precision, threw his kunai.
The kunai wasn't aimed at flesh. It was aimed at metal.
SHIIINK!
The metallic sound was sharp and final. The tip of the kunai embedded itself in the gauntlet's joint, tore through it with the force of the impact, and pinned Gōzu's arm to the tree trunk behind him.
The ninja's arm was fixed to the tree. The chain clattered to the ground.
"My arm! I can't move it!" Gōzu yelled, pulling uselessly.
Meizu froze. His connection to his brother was broken. He was alone.
The fight stopped.
Sakura panted, the effort of maintaining the threads having left her exhausted. Naruto watched, his last clone dissipating. Sasuke stood with his chest heaving, looking at his handiwork with a mixture of triumph and utter confusion.
They had won. Or almost.
It was then that Kakashi decided the lesson, or what was left of it, was over.
He reappeared in a flash, as silent as a ghost, right behind the unprotected Meizu. A sharp blow to the back of the neck was all it took. The second Demon Brother collapsed to the ground, unconscious.
Kakashi walked over to the tree and, with insulting ease, knocked Gōzu out as well.
A total silence fell over the path. The only sound was the ragged breathing of the four genin.
Tazuna stared at them as if they were monsters.
Kakashi approached his team. His expression was unreadable behind his mask, but his visible eye lacked its usual laziness. It was filled with an intensity that washed over all of them.
I expected to have to save them, he thought, his mind trying to process the whirlwind of the last few minutes. I expected Naruto to freeze, Sasuke to act alone, Sakura to scream, and Hinata to hide.
I expected them to fail so I could teach them about teamwork.
But they did it. In the most chaotic, dysfunctional way I've ever seen, but they did it. They didn't fight like a team. They fought like the disparate organs of a single body, moving on a shared instinct.
His gaze fell on each of them. On Sakura, discovering a power he didn't know she possessed. On Hinata, exhibiting a mastery of the Byakugan that surpassed many from the Hyuga main family. On Sasuke, whose arrogance had been forced to rely on others.
And finally, on Naruto. The boy who had apologized, the boy who had panicked, the boy who now looked at him with a tired but triumphant smile.
This isn't just potential. It's a turning point.
"Well," Kakashi finally said, his voice strangely calm. "It seems this mission just went up in rank."
He crouched down and examined one of the ninja's gauntlets, noticing the poison dripping from the claws.
"And it looks like Naruto wasn't so wrong after all."
He looked up, his eyes meeting Tazuna's, who was now sweating from more than just the heat.
"Tazuna-san," Kakashi said, his tone becoming dangerously pleasant, "I think you and I need to have a little chat about the true meaning of a C-rank mission."