The Young Sage

Just Like Old Times

His old training ground. He saw the three wooden poles and the one which he was tied up to. He smiled as he saw it and walked deeper into the training ground. Sakura followed him.

"Like old times?"

"Like old times"

They both stayed in the middle of the training ground. Sakura tied back hair flew in small wind and Naruto red coat did so too.

"Let the bell test begin!" Tsunade announced.

"Uhhh, where's Kakashi?" Someone asked, looking and not finding.

"Naruto" Sakura said, as she tightly gripped her gloves.

"Yeah"

He closed his eyes again and sensed the watchers chakra. And a peculiar one deep down in the ground.

"He's in the ground" he concluded.

"I got it!" Sakura cocked her arm back and punched the ground.

The ground instantly blew up and split in half. The impact created such a strong breeze, everyone who was watching protected their eyes from the rubble. So did Naruto, shocked at Sakura new strength. He swallowed, making sure not to anger her anymore.

As the dust cloud decipated, there stood deep in the ground, now completely visible, Kakashi who just nervously looked up. His head band was up, revealing his bright red eye. He sighed and crawled back up.

"Good teamwork. Using Naruto detection skills and Sakura destructive power to reveal my position" He nervously resumed.

"Let's see how you deal in the dark forest"

All three jumped and ran deep inside the forest.

"Alright Naruto, same deal?" Sakura asked, seeing Naruto re open his eyes.

"No Kakashi is smart. He created shadow clones and they are each in strategic points. We attack one and the rest can easily ambush us" He stated in a strategic manner which surprised Sakura.

"So what do we do?" She asked, wanting to see how far his strategic mind would go.

"We do the exact same" He smirked.

Naruto created multiple shadow clones and ordered them to attack their each specific clone.

"Now we wait" Naruto said, sitting down and concentrating.

There goes one, that wasn't him.

Another, wasn't him again

Again not him

Got you!

He opened his eyes and looked at Sakura.

"Found him, he is to around right in a bush, 12 paces from us."

"Alright let's go"

"You go, I'll be there shortly"

"What-"

"Just go, I'll be there when you need me"

He closed his eyes again and made a strange handsign to Sakura. She shrugged and where Kakashi was according to Naruto.

She quickly reached the destination and stayed back to check. With her quick reaction, she caught a kunai thrown at her. She smirked and threw it back from where it came from. She heard it hit something.

Out came from the bushes Sasuke in terrible condition. He was scratched, burnt and bleeding from his mouth.

"H-help me..." Sasuke spoke out to Sakura. But she didn't react.

She knew it wasn't real. But she sighed, sad about Sasuke leaving and wishing he was still here. But her feelings towards him as a lover have long been gone. She just wants her team back together. Whole again.

She took out another kunai from her pouch and threw towards the fake Sasuke. He caught, slowly disappearing and being replaced by Kakashi. Before he could say anything, she jumped out and cocked her arm back to punch her Sensei. He jumped back and she punched a tree. It exploded into nothing but small wood chips. Kakashi swallowed nervously. The destructive power of her punches rivalled the ones of Tsunade.

They both stared at each other. Sakura smiled and Kakashi was confused.

Suddenly, Sakura began to disappear and melt away. Smoke began to surround him. Kakashi knew this was a genjutsu, and went to release himself but a force broke his hand away.

Kakashi frantically looked around and saw he was surrounded by white glowing eyes. And infront of him stood Naruto with a drastically different appearance. His nose was bigger with small warts growing on it. Other small warts could be found around his cheeks. And his eyes were bright white with his pupil being a horizontal rectangle.

Kakashi was slightly disgusted by his appearance but he still believed he was in a genjutsu. He tried again to release himself but Naruto grabbed his hand.

His hand was covered in warts and his fingers seemed bigger and resembled the ones of frogs. His grip was tight.

Naruto smiled.

He released his grip. Quickly, Kakashi released himself from the genjutsu but released nothing changed. The white eyes around him disappeared in puffs of smoke and the smoke that engulfed was real smoke. He looked around and saw Sakura and Naruto were gone. He ran out of the forest and saw they were eating with everyone else.

Naruto and Sakura turned around and smiled at the confused Kakashi as they raised their hands and showed the two bells. Kakashi looked at his side and saw the bells were gone.

"What happened?" He ask, genuinely confused.

"Well, I dropped a smoke bomb and Sakura disappeared using a small genjutsu. I used multiple shadow clones to look around and distracted you. I knew since you didn't know about my new look that you would think it would be a genjutsu so I easily snuck in and stole on and Sakura stole hers." Naruto resumed and laughed.

"So all that was-"

"Real, yes"

"And your f-face and h-hand"

"I know, I'm truly handsome aren't I?" Naruto jokingly laughed, Tsunade clapping.

"Congratulations you both passed, truly proud of you both"

"Thank you Tsunade" Sakura and Naruto both, giving each a fistbump.

Kakashi was still utterly dazed.