Next Morning
"YOU'RE LATE!" Sakura shouts at Kakashi.
"Hn." Sasuke grunts with a roll of his eyes.
"You see there was a little old lady that needed help with her groceries." There's Kakashi's lame excuse.
"Is she okay now? Does she need more help? You can go back if you need to. I understand." And my sassy retort.
"This is why you are my favorite student."
Now that the morning ritual is out of the way, down to business!
"So, Kakashi, what are we doing today? Sparring? Cardio? Stamina? Teamwork exercises?"
"Actually, I thought we could test all of your elemental affinities."
Hell yeah! My plan worked! Subtle hint drop about wanting to test my affinity and Kakashi brings the chakra paper! I wonder, could Kakashi have been such a bad teacher simply because he has never done it before? Does he really have no idea what to do so he is just waiting for us to ask? Let's put that idea away for later.
"Me first! I wanna go first!" This is going to be awesome!
"Alvarcus you're going last." Mean Kakashi-sensei! "Sakura, you are first. Come here."
Kakashi handed over a piece of paper to Sakura. She looks so confused.
"Kakashi-sensei? What do I do?"
"Channel chakra into the paper. Depending on how it reacts, it'll show your chakra nature. Earth nature turns the paper to dust, wind nature cuts the paper, water nature soaks the paper, fire nature burns the paper, and lightning nature crinkles the paper. Go on! Let's see what you get!"
Sakura channeled chakra into the paper. We all looked on in anticipation. The paper... got wet.
"I got water! Water is good right?" Sakura has a water affinity.
Good for her! That might prove useful in medical jutsu, the human body is made of a ridiculous amount of water.
"Elemental affinities are neither good nor bad. It depends on the user." Words of wisdom, brought to you by Kakashi-sensei. "Sasuke! You're next!"
Sasuke took the paper. Using one hand (show off) he channels chakra into it. The paper immolates.
"Fire." He sounds oddly smug about that. Well in cannon he does like his fire jutsu.
"Alvarcus. Your turn." Kakashi hands me the final piece of paper.
The moment I have been waiting for! What do I want? Wind? I could make giant string blades! Lightning? I could use that to paralyze my enemies! Water? Earth? Fire? Oh I don't care I have good ideas for all of them!
Taking the paper very carefully, I channel some chakra into it. The paper immolates. Fire, my primary affinity is fire. Who would have guessed that in the land of fire, I would have a fire affinity. I should have known.
"Woot! Fire! Oh man! Kakashi-sensei! You need to show me how to use fire chakra! Can you imagine it: Fire Whips! Muahahahaha! Picture it! Ten whips of pure fire flying around the battlefield!"
"Alright. We will start it tomorrow." Kakashi half-heartedly agrees.
There is move evidence that Kakashi doesn't have a clue how to teach. Is he just following my suggestions?
"For now why don't we have a free for all spar? Sasuke vs Sakura vs Alvarcus! Winner decides what D-rank we to this afternoon."
"Deal!" "Alright! If I win you can choose Sasuke-kun!" "Hn!"
We split apart from each other, making a triangle.
"On my go!" Kakashi says.
"Go!"
Sasuke immediately whips out two kunai and throws one and me and the other at Sakura. I deflect mine easily, you'll have to do better than that Sasuke! Oh crap he threw 2 kunai at each of us! I don't have time to block it again!
Without thinking, I do what I have been doing all week long: Use a chakra string. I attach a string to the airborne kunai, whip it around my body, and launch it back a Sasuke. I miss horribly.
"Did you see that! That was so cool!" I happily yell to my shocked teammates.
I can't believe it. I redirected his kunai back at him. With a chakra string and centripetal force. And Kakashi thought strings were only good for puppetry!
"Do it again! Throw something at me!"
Sasuke and Sakura are more than happy to grant my request. Our 3 way spar devolved into a fun game of "try to hit Alvarcus with stones."
For the first 5 minutes, I got a lot of new bruises. Stones hurt. But I got better at catching and throwing them back. Pretty soon it was even. For every one stone that hit me, I hit one of them. Then I hit them twice. Then three times. By the end of an hour, I could catch all the stones they threw at me easily. No problem! Then Sasuke stepped his game up.
He started throwing handfuls of stones at me.
Before I could easily use my 10 strings to keep up with their onslaught. But now? Impossible. What to do?
Each stone needs one string. I can make 10 strings, so I can reflect 10 stones. I need to make more strings.
How do I do that? I only have 10 fingers. Oh, there's an idea! Who said the strings need to come out of the fingers? I know for a fact that Sasori didn't need to use his fingers.
I make strings come out of my back.
That's right, back strings. It worked brilliantly. Sasuke and Sakura are gobsmacked. They have never seen me use strings from anywhere but my fingers. Hell I am pretty shocked too! This is great! Ten isn't my limit anymore! Just imagine how quickly I can paint fences now!
"Take that you stone throwing demons! I can take whatever you can dish out!"
Sasuke and Sakura make eye contact. They share a demonic grin between them both. Not good, not good!
"Uh... I take it back?"
"ATTACK!" They yell in unison.
Very soon I look like a mini stone tornado. I have a crazy amount of stones whipping around my body. Sometimes I could catch a stone and release it on the first rotation. Others I had to swing around multiple times. Like I said, mini stone tornado.
I have to say, that practice was really fun.
...
Later that Day, Mission Office
"Team 7, reporting for duty Hokage-sama. What missions do you have?" Stupid Kakashi, saying he gets to pick the mission because we didn't technically spar. I count that as a spar! I have the bruises to show for it!
"Hmm... Let's see." Sarutobi Hiruzen idly browses through a stack of mission scrolls.
This is my first time seeing him up close. Every other time we've come to the mission desk he hasn't been here. The one thing that really stands out to me is his age.
The Hokage is seriously old. Like keel over and die at any second old. I'm impressed he managed to live this long, this is a world full of killers. I bet more than a few have tried to claim his life.
"We have a babysitting mission, a gardening mission, and a Tora mission." The Hokage tells us.
Tora? Why does that sound familiar?
"Team 7 accepts the Tora mission. They deserve it." Kakashi gleefully accepts the scroll.
That is not good. Kakashi is too happy about this. His happiness means others pain. Usually Team 7's pain.
"Oh really Kakashi-kun? This is quite the punishment." The Hokage sounds mildly surprised.
"I know. That is the point."
Why do all the older nin look like they are in on the joke of the century?
"Your goal: return the Daiymo's housewife's cat to either her or me. Good luck!" The Hokage finally tells us our mission parameters.
Oh. It's this mission. The demon cat of doom mission. Great. This is going to suck.
"Let's go team! The record is 4 hours! Let's try and beat it!" I hate you Kakashi. I really do.
We head out of the door. This is going to be difficult.
"Hokage-sama, isn't that a little, well, mean? Those kids have no idea what they are getting into." Iruka asks.
"It is better this way." The Hokage puffs on his pipe.
"I have to say, those kids are in for one long D-rank. What was the record? For hours?"
"Four hours and seventeen minutes. Think they can beat it?"
"I'll take that bet! They will beat the time. Sasuke is the rookie of the year, and even if he doesn't look like it Alvarcus has a sharp mind. Winner leaves an hour early. Deal?"
"Deal. Iruka-kun you should know that the record is 5 years old. Tora has only gotten more elusive and cunning with age. I'll enjoy going home early!"
"And you should know that they were my students for four years. I know what they're capable of."
The door opens. Team 7 enters.
"Oh? Give up already Kakashi-kun? That won't look good on your student's records."