Next day, 3:00 AM. Before Dawn

"Goooood Morrrrninnng~" Sakura yawned. "It's time to get up guys. We need to make it over there before five so we have plenty of time for some traps. Get up!" She slapped the boys on their rear ends.

Both groaned and then rolled into a sitting position. "We're up, we're up."

The trio gulped down a hasty breakfast of cereal and toast and fruit before picking up their backpacks and holsters. Making their way to the training ground, Naruto pulled out a brush and some ink and began painting seals on the ground. Following his example, Sasuke and Sakura laid out traps everywhere, committing them to memory.

By the time it was five o'clock, the entire training ground was littered with seals and traps. Only, once Naruto sealed it all, it was invisible and will be activated only by a foreign chakra unlike Naruto Sasuke, Sakura's. Almost every inch of ground was covered in seals. The moment Naruto puts them on active mode, Kakashi would have nowhere to run. Even the ground he would be standing on wouldn't be safe. Then it'd be easy to lead him to the actual traps Sakura and Sasuke set up.

What Naruto actually had drawn out were explosions and binding seals. Some released knives and some made a hole in the ground.

Now all they had to do was wait.

So they waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited.

... The sun came up.

They waited again.

...

...

...

"Yo! How's everyone doing?" Kakashi's cheerful voice rang out across the clearing. Instantly, he had all three youngsters up on their feet and glaring at him. Aww, how cute. The liveliness of youth! Oh no, now he was sounding like Gai.

"YOU'RE LATE!" They pointed accusingly at him. So cute.

"Mah, mah, I had to help an old lady with some of her stuff, and she lives all the way on the other side of the village! I had to help her. Sorry guys."

Naruto looked pissed. Sakura looked murderous, and Sasuke looked annoyed. He cleared his throat again. "Now that I'm here, I'll explain the rules." He set down an alarm clock on the three posts and put some bentos down. "Here I have some bells. You need to get the bells from me before the alarm clock rings at noon. The person who does not have a bell will fail, and I will tie him or her to the post and eat lunch right in front of you."

So that's why he told us not to eat breakfast! Their stomach's growled, having eaten hours ago. Their anger levels spiked. None of them registered that there were only two bells in Kakashi's hand.

Kakashi quirked his brows. By now, at least one of them would have freaked and pointed out the two bells in his hand, but this group was different. Oh well. "Start!"

Naruto immediately put his seals on activation mode, unbeknownst to Kakashi. Kakashi looked around at them, confused that they weren't doing anything. "I said start? Aren't you guys going to hide?"

"If we're going to fight you for the bells anyway, there's no point in hiding and separating ourselves," Sakura explained. "Besides, you made us angry enough to want a direct confrontation."

"Naruto's already in position." Sasuke pulled out a kunai and twirled it expertly. "And so are we."

Kakashi didn't get it. All he could manage was an idiotic, "Huh?"

Then the ground beneath him exploded.

"Damn it!" Kakashi cursed, not caring who heard him. Just who the *uck set up all these seals? He'd been dodging knives, barely dodging explosions, falling into ditches, then accidentally running into some very well hidden booby traps and setting those off too. He was splattered with mud, dirt, grime, paint, and charred in some places. The three ingrates hadn't even moved from their position yet. From what he figured, the place they were standing on was a safe zone, of all sorts. Still, he was an elite Jounin, and getting to that safe-zone would be easy. What was tricky was all those seals he had to maneuver through. It had been thirty minutes since the start of the test, and he was the one on the run. Him. It made him feel so humiliated that he wanted to bang his head on a tree trunk.

He pulled out his lovely book. The sight of it made him see red. The brats had damaged his book with the first explosion. Now the beautiful, dainty orange color of it was burned to a dirty brown. He'd get them back.

Besides, if they didn't come to him, how would they get the bells? In a taunt, he yelled, "How are you going to get the bells if you aren't even going to come close to me?" He ran, taking a long leap up into the air to avoid more traps, heading straight for the safety zone, but Sasuke and Sakura had kunai in their hands, anticipating his move.

"Gotcha," they called in unison, and let the knives fly. Unable to dodge in midair, Kakashi hastily summoned a replacement and ran into the safety zone.

"I got you now little-" But then, before he could get his hands on the little brats, they jumped away, and the ground beneath him exploded again. Damn it! Wasn't it a safety zone?

He rolled out of the way just as the explosion took place, his hair singed, but the moment he stepped onto another piece of dirt seals flashed all around in a complicated circle around him, effectively binding him to the place. "The hell?"

Naruto and Sasuke and Sakura appeared, and took the bells off his belt. "Yay! We win!" The blonde brat jumped up and down in a victory dance. Sakura and Sasuke high fived. Kakashi groaned. How had he, the Copy cat ninja, gotten in this situation?

But he had an ace up his hand. "So you did get the bells. But now what? There's only two. Who's going to go back to the Academy? Hmm?" HA! He got the brats cornered!

To his immense surprise, the blonde one- Naruto- tilted his head, perplexed. "Did you drop one?" he asked.

"..." Kakashi blinked. "What did you say?"

"Did you drop one?"

"..."

"You hid it!" Sakura accused. "You hid it so that we can't pass! How could you, you evil man!"

Sasuke scowled and cracked his knuckles in a dark, sinister warning. "You better tell us right now. Before the alarm rings."

Kakashi was baffled. "There are no more bells! There's only two!"

"Liar!" Sakura pointed her finger at his nose. Kakashi went cross eyed trying to keep it in view. "You hid it!"

"Tell us where it is!" Naruto punched Kakashi in the head. Ooh, Kakashi was seeing stars. Sasuke kicked him in his stomach. Ugh.

Sakura grabbed his hair and pulled. "Tell us where it is! We're not going to pass with only two people. We're either all going pass as one or not going to pass at all. And not passing is not happening today. Where is it? Where is it?"

"Yeah! We're all gonna pass as one! We're a team and you ain't gonna separate us!" Naruto yelled and chomped down on Kakashi's leg. Exalted, Kakashi was just about to shout, "You got it! You guys pass!" but the vicious bite on his calf made him scream like a girl.

"Let me gooooo! There is no third bell! Please let me gooo!"

"Where is it?" Sasuke kicked Kakashi in his balls. The poor Jounin couldn't even bend down to cover the tender area, due to the binding seal. "Tell us now!"

"Tell us now!"

"Tell us now!"

Kakashi cried. They just wouldn't listen to him! "Ouch! Stop biting me! Owww! I really didn't hide anything.. OOWWWW!"

He screamed and screamed. There was no way he was ever taking these demonic brats as "boring" ever again.

"Ah, Kakashi. Good of you to finally join me at- at last.." Sarutobi nearly dropped his pipe when he saw the state one of his best ninja was in. Asuma and Kurenai had their jaws on the ground, shocked at the multicolored Kakashi as well as bits of his burnt clothing. Slouching, the copy ninja looked like he went through hell. And boy, did hell did he go through.

"Kakashi, dude, what happened to you?" Asuma regained his voice. "You look like you just went through a mudbath, decorated with paint, and put into a kiln for baking. Weren't you testing your Genin?"

"...I was." Asuma never heard his big, manly friend sound so small.

"So did they pass?" Sarutobi asked, keen on finding out how well the devilish trio had fared.

Kakashi stood up straighter and nodded, shocking everyone in the room. Kakashi, had finally taken on a Genin team. It was a miracle.

"So what did they do to you?" Kurenai asked. "You look terrible."

"Smell terrible," Asuma wrinkled his nose.

Kakashi was quiet, then, started to chuckle. His chuckles became louder and turned into full out guffaws. The other shinobi stared at Kakashi like he went mad.

Kakashi turned to their leader, trying to calm himself. "I'll tell you this, Hokage-sama, Asuma, Kurenai. No offense, but our team is gonna kick your team's asses." He turned, then marched out of the office, laughing in his wake.

He left the shinobi in silent shock and annoyance. He was still mourning over the loss of his book, and considerable amount of his hair, but boy, his team was one amazing team.

When he said his team was going to kick ass, he wasn't just talking about Team 8 and Team 10. He was talking about the Third's team, the Legendary Sannin. His team held so much promise. They were the 'up front and charge through the front line" type of shinobi, the very powerful ones. It made him feel giddy. He giggled, not caring who saw him.

He'd never felt this alive since he was with his own team fifteen years ago.