Naruto : Monsters

"Kakashi, why is there a booger sticking out of my nose?"

"…Well, it's not necessarily a booger. If you tilt your head to the side and squint a little it kind of looks like a nose hair-

"It's a booger Kakashi." Sarutobi Hiruzen, the Sandaime Hokage turned to look at the kneeling Jonin. He was wearing a genial look on his face that fooled no one. "I know what a booger looks like when I see one, and that" He pointed at the Hokage Monument, "is a booger sticking out of my nose. Now kindly explain to me why it's there."

The booger in question was the top half of an upside-down tree that somehow got lodged up the left nostril of Sarutobi's carved face. The leaves that hung out from the left half of his nose did look remarkably like a giant booger.

Though to be fair, Kakashi wasn't the one who lodged that thing up there, it was Naruto.

During the fight, Naruto had used one of the few ninjutsu that she had been able to learn, Futon: Great Breakthrough, a C-ranked wind technique that releases a sudden gust of wind. 

And as we discovered during training, the scale of the resulting gust of wind can vary greatly depending on how much chakra she poured into it and during the fight … well, let's just say things got a little heated and Naruto was forced to pour more chakra in that attack then she'd ever done before.

A huge patch of the forest was missing, simply gone as if it was wiped out of existence. The resulting winds were so strong that most of the trees just gave way to it, splintering so badly that nothing but splinters the size of my foot remained. But that particular tree must have been rather robust because it managed to fly all the way to the Hokage monument without breaking until it crashed into it.

In a rare stroke of good luck, Sarutobi didn't seem to believe we were to be blamed for the event. That Kakashi, being our Sensei, was the one responsible for its presence. 

So while Kakashi was forced to kneel like a misbehaving child in front of the Hokage we stood off to the side and silently watched all of this play out. Well, Shikamaru and I were watching silently, Naruto had her arms wrapped around her belly as she laughed at Kakashi.

When Kakashi stayed sullenly silent, Sarutobi pointed with his pipe to the rest of the forest, "And what about all of this, what happened here? You do realize that despite me loaning it to you for the morning this forest is not yours alone, correct? It belongs to all of the other teams as well. 

There were well over a hundred training grounds inside it when I handed it over to you but now look at it all, ruined. How did you manage to do so much damage to it in a single morning I have no idea."

The forest in question was roaming with Anbu, they were all over the place. Most were putting out the raging fires that threatened to burn what was left of it down, others were defusing the thousands of traps that Naruto had littered the place with, and more than a few were trying to free themselves from traps they had accidentally tripped.

Just that second a rather unfortunate Anbu was sent flying through the air as he triggered a trap, his foot slipping on a snarl that sent a bent tree whipping into the sky and catapulting him away. I watched, morbidly, as he vanished into the distance and I could only manage to keep track thanks to the Byakugan. 

Fortunately, he managed to right himself in the last second and land without getting hurt but not before breaking through a poor sob's bathroom window while he had been in the middle of bathing.

I just shook my head and turned back to the scene playing out before me.

As the fight kept getting dragged out and the deadline grew ever closer we became more than a little desperate and had begun taking drastic measures. We started using Grade 2 explosive tags instead of Grade 1, then when that didn't work we switched to Grade 3, then after that we simply tossed everything we had at the guy. 

At one point Naruto had to send a few clones back to the compound to resupply and they brought back an entire crate full of tags, which we ended up using every last one.

In one go.

I even had to resort to firing off a few Katon: Great Fireball Techniques, the only fire jutsu I knew and let's just say that it didn't do anything but help the forest burn down faster.

Now less than a third of the once-pristine forest was left standing. Most of it had either been burned down, was currently in the process of being burned down or had been blown up and turned to craters by the explosive tags.

After taking a moment to take it all in, Sarutobi gave Kakashi an incredulous look, "This was supposed to be a Genin exam Kakashi not a re-enactment of the Third Shinobi World War. What happened?"

Kakashi rubbed the back of his head and gave the Hokage an awkward smile, "They…put up a far better fight than I was led to expect that they would."

"Then you pass them Kakashi." Sarutobi sounded as if he were explaining something simple to a particularly slow-witted child. "You don't let the fight deteriorate to-to-to-" He waved a hand to the wasteland that had once been a forest. "-I don't even know what to call this."

Sarutobi shut his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Do you realize how close I was to having a heart attack when I looked out of my window to see a tree flying by? 

Just casually flying by in front of my office as if flying trees were an everyday occurrence before crashing into my face? As if that wasn't bad enough I almost believed we were being invaded when half the forest just blew up. One minute it was there then, poof, it was gone." The aged Hokage opened his eyes.

"Did you pass them yet?"

Kakashi began to look incredibly awkward at the question and refused to look directly at the Hokage. "…Not exactly, no."

The Hokage just stared blankly at what was supposed to be one of the greatest Jonin his village had to offer. "After all of this, you still didn't pass them?"

"…They haven't gotten the bell yet."

Sarutobi started at Kakashi, looking down at him for a good long minute as if he were the biggest idiot he had ever seen before he whacked him in the head with his pipe. Twice.

The old man then kneeled down and snatched the bell off Kakashi's belt before lobbing it over his shoulder towards Naruto.

"There, they have it. Congratulations Jonin Hatake Kakashi, you are now the Sensei to these three Genin and squad leader of Team 7."

Kakashi tried to object, "But-"

*Whack*

The Hokage lifted his pipe off Kakashi's head and began walking away. "They pass Kakashi. Deal with it." Then he stopped and spared a glance at the fiery hell the training ground had become. 

"Oh and Kakashi. You are forbidden from administrating the bell test ever again. You clearly have no idea how it's supposed to work."

Then the Hokage left, leaving the newly minted Genin team behind him.

And that ladies and gentlemen was how the new team 7 was born…in a field of fire, ash and destruction where once bloomed life…Somehow I had the feeling that this wasn't going to be a one-time off thing for us either.

"Like I said…" a soot-covered Shikamaru coughed out as he glanced around himself, "…this is bullshit."

...

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