A Lily Bloom In the Land of Shinobi

"You're late, Sensei." Said Sakura, stifling the need to yell.

Kakashi raised an eyebrow, then smiled as he saw the little bundle of fun and sunshine curled up in a blanket. This would have been an adorable image on its own, except that it seemed that at some point the blonde had climbed onto Satsuki's lap and made herself comfortable there.

The Uchiha girl herself seemed to pay no mind to Kakashi's flashy shunshin entrance, entranced as she was with massaging Naruko's scalp through the sea of golden hair. There was a small smile on the Ice Princess's face, so small as to be almost unnoticeable.

"You should wake her up." Kakashi said, keeping his voice low so as to not disturb the blonde's sleep himself. Even he couldn't quite bring himself to give her a rude awakening. "Satsuki…" he said, focusing his lone eye on the Uchiha.

The Uchiha turned to him. "She finally shut up." Said the irritated girl, glaring at the silver haired jounin as if he'd just insulted her entire clan. "We'll keep her this way, even if I have to carry her on my back through the entirety of this exam." The sheer resolution and conviction in her words, almost, read ALMOST, made Kakashi consider letting her go through with that.

Almost.

Sakura looked at Satsuki weirdly. "… Satsuki-san…" the pinkette turned around so that she was giving her back to her teammates and sensei . "She's just as clingy…"

Satsuki probably hadn't heard her, concentrated as she was on humming a soothing tune and continuing her ministrations on her blonde teammate's sleeping body, lest she wake up from her nap and break the peace. Kakashi, however, was quite attentive and alert and had therefore picked up Sakura's words.

So alert was he that he even picked up the envy in Sakura's tone. He wanted, so badly, to giggle in the way that only Icha Icha could make him giggle… His team was turning out more interesting by the minute. The fact that he'd found them having a picnic was only a further plus. Without making a single noise, Kakashi moved faster than their eyes could track until he was behind the unwitting Uchiha.

With fluid and fast movements, he extracted the sleeping blonde from the Uchiha's hold and did it in such a smooth manner that the blonde herself seemed completely unaware of the change in position until she stirred slightly from contact with Kakashi's rather tough jounin vest. Her confused pawing at his chest found her snuggling against it, once she made herself comfortable in his arms.

He really did love the girl he saw as a little sister and thus he had to reign in the creeping need to bully her. Being so adorable made him want to harass her just to see her pout about it. "Wake up sleepy one…" Kakashi muttered, poking her in the forehead and cheeks. Her face turned to one of discomfort rather than content and she tried to slap the hand away. "Wake up, Naruko… I've got ramen for you."

The girl quickly blinked herself back to awareness. Or rather, failed to do so despite trying admirably. "Don' wanna…" She mumbled. "Wake up…" She added, directing a half lidded, sleepy stare at where Kakashi was looking down with a smile on his face. Meaning, that weird eye-smile thing he did. "Feed me, Inu-niisan…" she mumbled.

"Just wake up already!" Yelled Sakura, causing Naruko to yelp and, since she wasn't aware she was currently tied into a bundle of blankets and in her teacher's arms, when she tried to sit up she only managed to somehow jump out of Kakashi's arms. Her face met the ground shortly afterwards, which happened because her arms were held back by the blankets keeping her warm and cozy.

She quickly shot into a seating position, rubbing her nose while making pained sounds that were only made funnier by the fact that they sounded nasally obnoxious and hilarious. "Poot. I was having the bestest dream ever!" she declared, glaring at her team and teacher and falling into an expression that she must have thought was intimidating, yet only managed to make everyone laugh.

"Well, now that everyone is awake, I'll explain the terms of this test so we can speed this up. The objective of this test is… these!" He said, producing a pair of silver bells from outta nowhere. "You see, this is something called the Bell Test, it goes all the way back to our Sandaime Hokage. The objective is very simple, really. Take these bells from me. However you can. Nothing is forbidden. Everything is permitted. There are bonus points if you manage to kill me while at it." Explained the silver haired jounin. "So come at me with the intent to kill when you're trying to get these." He said, lifting the bells again and causing them to jingle.

Sakura raised an eyebrow. "What? But… Sensei, there are only two bells!"

"This is nice. At least one of my cute little genin can count." Said Kakashi, offering Sakura a smile behind his mask and leaning down, slightly scaring the pink haired genin. "Only two can pass this test. One of you is invariably going to fail."

"Hey! That's not fair! We've all worked really hard to get here!" Naruko yelled. Her glare was focused on the solitary eye Kakashi showed. The Hatake could understand her reaction, as it was mostly brought out from fear of failing. Unlike the other two, she was not certain she could graduate again should she fail.

"That's how it works." Explained the silver haired jackass. "Any other questions?" Seeing as how his team was still petrified, he merely smiled and jumped away, landing a good dozen meters away from them. "Behind you is an alarm clock set for noon." They immediately turned around to notice that, indeed, there was a clock that they'd never seen him set. Kakashi reigned in a chuckle. "If none of you has a bell by then, you will all fail."

"I won't fail." Said Satsuki, solemn and serious, glaring at Kakashi.

"I'm sure you will." Kakashi said. "Now… Go!"

Immediately, Satsuki and Sakura disappeared, both retreating into the woods, believing their abilities to hide enough to fool someone of Kakashi's caliber. Sometimes, genin were just too cute. He smiled at the one who was just there. Either she realized hiding was pointless or she just decided she wanted to try first. It didn't matter to Kakashi, either way.

"I'll beat you!" Said the blonde girl, glaring and pointing at the silver haired man.

"Sure you will." Kakashi muttered, his hand immediately going for his pouch where his favorite book rested. With an absent minded smile, he waved at her. "Come at me." He didn't even need to look at her to hear the sound of her footsteps. He didn't even need the slightest bit of concentration on her movements.

She telegraphed them minutes in advance. Heck, he could tell you what all of her movements would be before she even tried them. She tried a whole arrangement of different movements, all of them executed in a rather poor, sloppy manner that had her over extended after each and every movement, which in turn made her follow ups even worse than they would be under her laughable skill.

She should never have graduated. As she was, a second year academy student would beat her in a hand to hand battle. "Ninja lesson number one." Kakashi intoned, sounding bored. "Taijutsu." He added.

Naruko growled as Kakashi quickly and swiftly dodged every single attack she threw at him. Even making use of her better than average flexibility and not inconsiderable speed, she couldn't even force him to tear his eyes away from that damnable book.

"If your opponent can dodge everything you do, you're doing something wrong." Explained Kakashi. "A simple tip to help you in the future." He said, as Naruko threw a wide, sweeping kick that he ducked under. Normally, that'd be impossible, given how short she was, but she had actually jumped to reach his head. She kicked with so much strength that she actually couldn't stop herself from fully spinning. Kakashi's right hand, the one that wasn't holding his Icha Icha, went to Naruko's shoulder, in easy reach due to being crouched.

She almost hit the ground face first at being suddenly grounded, but managed to keep on her feet.

"And now we go to ninja lesson number two. Never reveal your back to your opponent." He said, and he saw Naruko begin to sweat at the implications. "With that, let me continue onto ninja lesson number three. The Nidaime made many techniques. Many of them sound dumb at first glance."

Naruko once again tried to kick him, except this time the spin kick was intentional…

…Only to find that Kakashi wasn't behind her anymore.

"But there is no technique the Nidaime made that is not extremely useful in the right situation."

As he said that, he pocketed his book and then his hands met each other. He made a single hand seal, Tiger, and then put his hands together into a gun-like shape. "Konoha Hiden Ninpou: Sennen Goroshi (Konoha Hidden Legendary Ninja Art: One thousand years of death)!"

He rammed his hands forward and Naruko yelled out in terror as she realized that they were heading to her unprotected behind. She prepared herself for unimaginable pain and braced herself.

Except that Kakashi's hands never reached her butt. She heard a sound as if somebody had struck a piece of meat with a hammer and she saw Kakashi's form go flying away. "Satchan came to my rescue!" She cried happily, smiling at the safety of her butt.

Satsuki glared at the silver haired man who'd landed on a heap. She didn't know why she'd broken her cover, or why she was seeing red and focusing on her sudden yet undying hatred of her teacher. Her hand went to grab Naruko's jacket and then she pulled her up, the hand that had lifted her now around her waist and, more importantly, keeping her skirt down. "MINE!" she yelled, glaring at the man who was now picking himself up.

The man began to laugh at seeing this display, and seeing the now self conscious potential kunoichi, he only laughed harder. "Aw… Satchan really likes Naru-chan?" Asked the jounin.

Satsuki's face was covered by red and she quickly tossed the blonde away.

"That hurt!" Cried the blonde who had landed on her butt. "What is it with you people and my ass?" she said, sounding irritated about that fact while standing up and rubbing her poor abuse behind.

"Well, one or two doesn't make a difference. Come at me gals!"

Satsuki grunted, controlled her blush and then snapped into action. Moving far faster than Naruko had at any time, she instantly closed the distance between her and her teacher, engaging in melee with the jounin. She actually prevented him from pulling the book out, actually forcing him to parry and block instead of just dodging everything.

Naruko knew she was outclassed. As much as she hated to admit it, she knew perfectly well that she couldn't even put a scratch on either her teacher or her potential teammate. Still, she let her anger at being treated like a joke get the better of her and she jumped into the fray.

She tried a rather dynamic entrance, copying Satsuki's earlier interruption. Except when she tried it, Kakashi was perfectly aware of her movements. She was also significantly slower than Satsuki, so it was tremendously easy for him to catch her kick before it hit him. Naruko's rage ebbed, and she whimpered as she realized her rather precarious position.

Satsuki's face twisted into a grimace as she noticed Kakashi's intentions, as well, and she braced herself. She was perfectly correct in doing so as Kakashi used the age-old tried and true technique of causing grievous bodily harm utilizing a genin as a weapon.

He let go of Naruko's ankle just as she was about to impact Satsuki, causing what could've been a simple attack to turn into an attack that left Satsuki holding a human body and weighing her down, as she'd actually caught her teammate rather than just block the attack.

Naruko found herself carried bridal style by her teammate. "Hi Satchan!" She said, waving and looking up at the girl. The Uchiha blushed and threw the blonde away. Predictably, she landed on her ass once again. "This time it didn't hurt." She remarked as she stood up, dusting her skirt off.

"I'm not going to let this indignity slide..!" Satsuki managed to somehow sound as if she was muttering while talking loudly. Her hands met and she began to blaze through handsigns memorized from years of practice.

"Hm? You've got that much chakra?" Asked the silver haired jounin.

"Katon: Goukakyuu No Jutsu (Fire Release: Grand Fireball)!" cried the Uchiha, pushing fiery chakra-fueled fire out from her mouth. Great amounts of chakra went into fueling the massive fireball that crashed down on the perfectly still jounin teacher. She poured chakra until she was certain that there was nothing that could've survived the fireball.

She let go and panted, falling to one knee and using her hand to keep herself from crashing to the ground. All that was left on the ground was a big patch of burnt grass. She cursed, as Kakashi could have gone away in any direction. Luckily, it was the big clearing in the center of the training ground, and therefore there was a big and wide swath of open space that meant that Kakashi couldn't try a hidden approach.

She began frantically looking around, but the only thing with her in the clearing was the orange wearing blonde who seemed to be utterly and thoroughly confused. And impressed.

A pair of hands sprouted from out of the ground, one of them grabbing onto each of Satsuki's bare ankles. Instants later, she was pulled into the ground, burying her up to the neck. She let out a confused and pained gasp, the pressure was decidedly not being nice on her body. Kakashi appeared from under the ground, smirking under his mask. Satsuki directed a glacial glare at him.

Kakashi merely continued to smirk, tilting his head back to completely avoid the incoming punch from Naruko, causing the girl to gasp in shock as she overshot her target, having jumped with all her strength to deliver a devastating blow to his cheek and failing at that miserably. Kakashi grabbed her extended arm before she could even try to salvage her attack into an elbow strike, spinning around once and getting rid of her momentum, leaving her hanging in the air.

"Ah, crap!" With his own gained momentum, Kakashi lifted his leg and smashed it into her gut, sending her flying away. Satsuki hadn't even noticed the small pond that Naruko landed in before the water exploded upwards from her sinking.

"I wonder… does she know how to swim?" Asked Kakashi, absentmindedly. "Oh, well, if she drowns, we'll know." He added, smiling faintly. "Well, I guess I'll go look for Sakura and see if she wants to even try."

Saying that, the silver haired jounin simply walked away like a boss, into the forest Sakura had retreated into.

Incidentally, Sakura was no longer hiding in the forest. In fact, she had actually utilized the time Kakashi wandered into the forest reading his book to approach her teammates. First she headed to the small pond. Naruko was on its shore, busy coughing out the water that had gotten into her lungs from her most recent tumble.

Sakura chose to ignore how her teammate's backside was revealed to the world. That way laid trouble. With a grimace, she helped the girl to her feet. "Come on, we have to help Satsuki before Sensei gets back here."

Naruko sighed, running a hand through the big mass of wet hair trailing behind her, noticing how mud, a few sticks and countless leaves, the trash that had littered the pond, were now sticking to it. Steeling herself, she shook her head quickly, and the hair trailing behind her followed, massive amounts of water and trash being removed from the golden mane. When she finished doing so, a good fifteen seconds after she'd started, her hair was surprisingly clean.

She'd had it all throughout the academy. Sakura just guessed that having it for so long meant that she'd found some way to negate the disadvantages. A special technique to shake the dirt and trash off it was something that Naruko would come up with, probably.

She sighed, regardless.

The dirt surrounding Satsuki was surprisingly soft, so much so that it was pathetically easy to dig her out using their kunai and bare hands. It only took a few minutes when it should have taken them hours. It made sense that the jutsu had loosened up the earth, after all, the pressure would've probably crushed Satsuki's squishier bits otherwise. It was a capture technique, not an assassination one, it seemed.

"Okay. I watched that fight and… there's just no way we're gonna beat Kakashi-sensei in direct combat. There has to be some trick to this test. It's just too… randomly cruel to do something like this." Sakura explained.

"I concur." Satsuki said, nodding at the pinkette. "But it's an individual test, sharing our knowledge would be counterproductive."

Naruko looked at the ground intently for a few seconds before sighing. "That is just stupid and so totally like you, Satchan!" said Naruko, pouting. "Why should we keep our thoughts from each other? Just so that we don't figure out a way to beat the test before you?" She said, actually bopping the girl on top of her head, causing her to give an astonished stare at the blonde who had the sheer balls to hit her. "This is obviously trying to turn us against each other and you're the only one who's falling for it."

"I can't believe I'm agreeing on something with Naruko…" Sakura muttered, rubbing the bridge of her nose. "…But she's right. If we teamed up, we may have a chance…"

"No." Satsuki said, shaking her head. "Neither of you two would be able to put a hand on me in a spar, and I could only hit Kakashi once because he was distracted. Even all three of us together wouldn't be able to beat him. Not without a secret trump card." Said Satsuki, after a few seconds of meditating on the information she'd been given. She completely failed to acknowledge her prior logical error and continued with all the poise and absolute coolness that only the Ice Princess could muster.

"I hate to say this but… Naruko, you're the unpredictable one here… any ideas?" Sakura said, turning to the blonde who tapped her chin in thought. "We don't have that much time before Kakashi-sensei figures out I'm no longer in the forest. I left traces of my perfume all over it, but he's bound to pick up the trail back here eventually."

Naruko nodded to herself, then a smile appeared on her face. It was not a nice smile. In fact, so creepy was it that it caused both of the other girls in the clearing to shiver in fright, recognizing the look of glee in the blonde's face. "I've got just the jutsu for this task, but I'll need your help! Kakashi-sensei is a jounin, so he may be able to resist it if I use it on my own!"

Sakura blinked. "Is it some kind of torture jutsu?" she asked.

"…You could say that." The blonde said, her smile widening. "Though some say that it's the most wonderful torture they've been under…"

"For some reason, I fear for my innocence." Satsuki said, looking at Sakura and managing to do so with a perfectly straight and serious face.

"So do I, Satsuki, so do I." answered Sakura, not bothering to hide her nervousness.

"Okay, here's how you do it…"

It was a few minutes later that Kakashi, who had been randomly walking around the forest (of course he knew exactly where Sakura was at any given point of time this exam had started, he was a jounin for a reason, he'd just been humoring the girl, as the thing with the perfume WAS clever) while reading his book, found his team all sitting together. "You're ready to give up, then?"

Naruko smiled for an instant, but then her face changed to one of sadness. "Uhm… Sensei, could we please have the bells?" Naruko asked, grabbing both of her teammates and pulling them into one armed hugs. The pout and kicked puppy eyes, coupled with the tears threatening to spill from her eyes, ALMOST convinced Kakashi to give her a bell.

"That's not gonna work, Naruko-chan." But of course Kakashi had dealt with those for years and had built an immunity to them (Even though in every festival he ended up accompanying her to he always ended up spending close to a month's pay on buying her everything she asked for, it was just his luck that prevented the girl from connecting Inu to him up until now, even if she subconsciously knew they were one and the same).

"Bummer." Naruko said, sighing. "Oh, well, I tried Plan B, girls. It's time to deploy the big guns, now."

Now this was getting interesting. They had gotten the point of the test pretty easily, contrasting with every other team he'd had up until now. Then again, those teams were made intentionally so they would fail and given to a sensei who was trying to fail them in the first place, so it was not as if this was something to be proud of. "I'm curious what you can pull off. Remember, only two can pass!" He reminded them.

"We'll deal with that as it comes." Naruko said, shrugging.

"Rock paper scissors." Sakura helpfully commented.

Satsuki looked away, a slight blush on her face. This caused Kakashi to hide a smile. Whatever plan they were going to use would probably have a weak link on the seemingly unwilling Uchiha. He'd pounce on that, maybe humble her a bit while he's on the job.

"Anyway… It's time to end this test! Now!"

As one, they began to go through a rather short series of hand signs. The chain was instantly recalled by Kakashi's brain as he quickly made the connection to the blonde's version of the henge. He wondered what they were trying to accomplish.

"Sexy Ninja Art: Three Lilies!" the three cried in unison, causing Kakashi to blink. Then the smoke dispelled, three gorgeous displays of the female form being overly affectionate to each other. Kakashi blinked again. Yep. They were still there. The buxom blonde in the middle had a hand around each of the other girls's waists, pulling them close to herself and pressing their bodies together while she stared at Kakashi with an unmistakably sultry look that screamed overflowing sexuality.

The sheer sight of the blonde babe alone could've made any man weak at the knees. Every part of her body was perfect. There were simply no words in the thesaurus that could describe the sight. No words in the human language could convey the experience, either. Kakashi had to use all of his training that taught him how to not be seduced (particularly important on elite jounin such as him) to not fall right then and there with a nosebleed.

In contrast, the other two were flushed and embarrassed, awkwardly clinging to the blonde for support, clearly scared of the act they were doing. This should have broken the illusion that they were pulling off, but in this particular case, it only made it ever stronger. The act was just too perfect.

The blonde took a few steps forward, pulling the two others along with her, until she was in Kakashi's personal space. Despite the boosted height, she only managed to meet him face to chin. Using her arms, she pushed the pinkette and raven haired girls closer to Kakashi, making them press against each of his arms.

Kakashi was utterly paralyzed and it took all of his self control to not let his arms snake to places they shouldn't go.

"Mhm… Kakashi-sensei…" There was such need, such overblown need, in her tone that Kakashi found himself physically pushed back by his own resistance to it. The three girls crashed to the ground with him, the buxom blonde landing on top of him. Her breasts dangled in front of his face and Kakashi felt the ache in his pants. "Hm… What do we want… girls?" she asked, as the other two pressed themselves against the sides of Kakashi's chest, unwittingly pushing him further by letting their hot breaths out while too close to his skin.

"We… We want him…" they began, hindered by their own embarrassment.

"Yes, yes, Sensei, we want you—"

But by then, Kakashi was in happy dreamland, having passed out from the sheer sexual tension in the air.

"—to pass us three!" Naruko declared, smiling down at the man…

…Only to find him passed out on the ground.

"…I guess that counts as a yes?" Naruko said, shrugging.

Meanwhile, in the Hokage's office… 

"Lucky son of a bitch…"

"Observing Kakashi's test was the best idea ever, Hiruzen."

"Indeed, I agree with Homura. I don't know how we could ever doubt your ability to lead us."

"You three are a disgrace to Shinobi everywhere. Fucking perverts…"