New Sensei - 6

Jiraiya sat comfortably in the clearing while putting the finishing touches on his novel. He looked up when three copies of Naruto came careening out of the tree line, each wielding a kunai.

With a sigh, Jiraiya stood up, "There's really no rush kid, you still have..." He stole a glance at the kitchen timer, "Hm...four hours and forty-six minutes it looks like..."

"I'm getting a bell now old man!" Naruto snarled. He and his clones leapt and dove for the sennin, who wasn't at all impressed.

"Have it your way..." Jiraiya sighed, side-stepping the first Naruto and grabbing the wrists of his counterparts, "You could've put more planning into this you know!"

With a shove, he redirected the clones to simultaneously stab each other and disappear. Or at least, that's what the sage envisioned would happen. The clones didn't erupt into a cloud of smoke...they only leaked sand.

"Wah-?" Jiraiya leapt back, startled as Gaara appeared to his right, remolding his sand copies of Naruto to attack again. Naruto was already diving at the off-balance hermit.

The blonde nin dodged the sennin's counterstrike and reached for the two, shining bells tied to his belt. Naruto grinned broadly as his fingertips made contact with the cool metal surface of a bell and...

"Hands off!" Jiraiya quickly swatted him away, knocking him down into the dust with a grunt.

While Naruto staggered to his feet, the sennin smirked as he evaded Gaara's sand clones, impressed that they had made a combined effort, 'What about the farm boy though? He's around here somewhere-'

Preoccupied with Gaara, Jiraiya was unable to prevent the flurry of senbon that were rushing toward him from snapping the strings of the bells. Haku, somewhere aloft in a tree, had taken the position of 'sniper' and would only intervene if necessary.

Gaara and Naruto eyed the two, tiny flecks of light that dropped helplessly to the ground by Jiraiya's feet. They charged like beasts. All the while Jiraiya made note of how different this bell test was compared to his own as a genin, 'Sheesh, it's always a team effort with these three! I figured it would be. Unlike most other teams I suppose cooperation won't be an issue here!'

"Shadow Clone Jutsu!"

The sage had no time to prepare himself as ten clones of Naruto materialized, surrounding him in a ring of orange jumpsuits.

"Shadow Clones, eh?" Jiraiya grinned as he knocked his assailants back with little effort, "That's new, but not good enough!" The real Naruto dove for Jiraiya again with a cry, aiming towards the glinting objects at his feet.

The overzealous nin suffered a painful knee in the side of the head, followed by an exasperated sigh from the toad hermit. Gaara wasn't pleased with the bloody nose Naruto was now sporting. If Jiraiya wanted to get rough, he wasn't going to hold back.

Gaara formed seals as Jiraiya made a grab for the bells himself, "Sand Dragon Bullet!"

"Eh?" The sand around the sennin's feet twisted into the form of a large, grainy, angry-looking dragon, "Not again-!"

Pressurized sand hurtled into Jiraiya's chest, knocking him into Naruto and sent them both tumbling to the opposite side of the clearing.

Haku sprang like a blue blur from his vantage point and snatched the bells off of the ground while the tangled, sandy mess that was Naruto and Jiraiya recovered from Gaara's powerful and as always...reckless assault.

"Get off me, Ero-sensei!" Naruto wriggled away from the super pervert and stood, brushing sand off of him, "Hey Gaara! Next time aim!"

"I was aiming."

The blonde huffed in aggravation as he returned to his teammates, but his annoyance vanished upon seeing Haku holding up two, small bells victoriously. Gaara smirked as the sage also stood, muttering curses under his breath.

Once the toad hermit had recuperated and regained his genins' attention, he glared down at Gaara, "That...that was pretty good, save for hitting Naruto. But...lay off the thrashing will you? I'm getting too old for that crap!"

Gaara said nothing, not making any promises.

"Jiraiya-sensei," Haku looked smug, "It appears we've finished a few hours early."

The sennin snorted, "Yep. Thanks to your strategy. To be quite frank, I didn't really think it would take long for you all to grab a bell," A maniacal look came over his face, "I only wanted to see who actually did get one...the outcome was...interesting."

Naruto frowned, "What's that supposed to mean? We worked together, but Haku got both of the bells!"

"I noticed," Jiraiya said dryly, "So we'll solve this diplomatically...you will decide amongst yourselves who'll be going back to the Academy. Two bells...two genin."

"THAT'S BULL!" Naruto bellowed, "None of us are going back there!"

The sennin gave him a detached look, "Life isn't always fair kid. Get over it."

Silence fell over the three genin of Squad 2. They had hoped, even been almost certain, that if they worked as a unit they would all pass...according to Haku's suspicions. The exercise was to pit them against each other, but overcoming that obstacle and working as a team should've enabled them all to remain a squad.

Apparently not.

Naruto was sweating. Diplomatically? The obvious choice would be to send him back. He hadn't been the most serious of students, he admitted, but that didn't mean he didn't learn. He wanted to stay on the team. He couldn't leave.

"I'll go back."

Jiraiya, Naruto and Haku looked at Gaara in shock.

Gaara didn't seem very perturbed at all, much to their surprise...although an ounce of regret was visible on his face after he volunteered. And unfortunately he had astonished Haku and Naruto so badly they were beyond the point of protesting.

Jiraiya showed no sympathy, "Well? Get going! Don't stick around here and waste my time!"

Haku looked close to having a nervous breakdown.

Naruto's fists clenched and he gritted his teeth, "Don't talk to him like that! He...he doesn't have to..." He turned to the red haired boy, "You don't have to do it, Gaara! This is stupid! Ero-sennin is a complete jerk so...why don't we all go back?"

Haku looked up. Naruto was right: Jiraiya was being unusually harsh.

"Yeah!" The blonde gave a fierce look to the man, "If you have a problem with one of us; you have a problem with all of us! We'll all go back to the Academy and get a teacher who's not a big asshole! We'll always be a team!"

Haku nodded in solemn agreement and a look of mangled relief came over Gaara. It was disappointing, but they would stick together no matter what the difficulty was, even failing a hopeless test.

The grave expression on Jiraiya's face began to crack and he chuckled to himself, "You three really are inseparable, aren't you?"

They looked at each other, confused.

"Well, there's no denying you couldn't give a rat's ass about the rules of any mission when it comes down to the fate of your teammates, even if it is a bit extreme, so..." The sennin grinned, "You've passed!"

Stunned faces.

Jiraiya nodded, "Right...well? Quit standing there like idiots and let me see how you've improved! You didn't actually think I'd send one of you squirts back to the Academy did you?"

Haku looked floored, "B-But, why did you push us so hard to get a bell if it was all an empty threat, sensei?"

He flipped open his naughty novel, "Oh...well, Hokage-sama said you three recently stole a Forbidden Scroll and learned some jounin-level techniques...I was just curious to see if it was true..."

Naruto was grinning, "Well why didn't you just say so? We could've showed you from the start!"

"Where would the fun be in that?" Jiraiya snorted, "You think I can't pull your legs once in a while?" He smirked, "You should've seen your faces when the sand kid volunteered! It was priceless!"

Gaara wasn't in a laughing mood. His self-sacrifice was no laughing matter.

At least they would remain Team 2. At most, they had made complete fools of themselves by chasing bells early in the morning...and Jiraiya cherished the thought.