𝑾𝑰𝑻𝑯 𝒀𝑶𝑼 | 𝑲.𝑰𝑵𝒁𝑼𝑲𝑨

|I{•------» [8] «------•}I|

"UH OH, Stomachs growling, huh?" Kakashi teased them as Ruka stared at the ground in denial. "By the way, as a result of this training, I've decided not to send any of you back to the academy."

She looked at him in disbelief. "What do you mean? We failed to catch the bells."

While Sakura looked at him in confusion. "Huh? All I did was faint," she said. "Was that enough?"

Ruka turned to her in annoyance. "I thought you were that useless to notice that," she snapped, causing Sakura to growl at her. "W-WHAT DID YOU SAY?!"

"Shut up!" Ruka growled at her as she covered her ears. "I'm so tired of you screaming!"

The Princess was constantly annoyed with the pinkette all day since all she did was follow Sasuke, screaming, and fainting.

Naruto ignored them as he began to cheer until Kakashi ruined it. "Yes, all of you are permanently dropped from the program."

"WHAT?!"

Ruka glared at him as she clenched her fist. "Why would you do that?"

"Because you don't think like ninjas, you think like brats who don't deserve to be ninjas," Kakashi told them bluntly, which caused Ruka's face to scrunch in fear. She was afraid to go home now to face her grandfather; she was going to be the only Sarutobi member who couldn't be a ninja because of her fear.

Sasuke got angry and charged towards Kakashi, but he pushed him to the ground and sat on top of him.

"Let go of Sasuke! You can't step on him like he's a bug," Sakura shouted, but Kakashi ignored her. "Do you understand what being a ninja means? Why do you think we put you in squads?"

"What do you mean?" Sakura asked in confusion.

"In other words, you don't understand the answer to this test. You never realized what this exercise is all about, not even close, but Ruka was the only one that figured it out," Kakashi explained.

"What answer?" Naruto asked, while Sakura glared at Ruka, who glared back at her.

"The answer to determine whether you pass or fail," Kakashi replied.

"I wanted to ask this from the beginning," Sakura said, which made Ruka sigh in annoyance. 'For someone who's smart, she is pretty dumb.'

"Use your heads. Four people in a squad, why do you think we do that?" Kakashi asked.

"Teamwork," Ruka said nonchalantly, remembering what he had told her about how important it is in the shinobi world.

Kakashi nodded. "Yes, but it's too late. If all four of you had come at me, you might have been able to get the bells."

"But there are only three bells and there are four of us. If we had managed to get the bells by working together, this would've led to a group conflict," Sakura argued.

"Exactly," Kakashi told her. "I purposely pitted you against each other. I wanted to see if you put the squad ahead of yourself. A genin should have a natural feel for teamwork, but all of you, it never crossed your mind except Ruka."

Kakashi looked at the pink head. "Sakura, you were so obsessed with Sasuke, who was gone, that you didn't help Naruto, who was right in front of you."