Spoiler: show
Team Building Exercise
The three young ninja sat in a circle around a cleared patch of dirt. Sasuke doodled on it with a stick as he explained his plan.
“We have only a few advantages over our opponent,” he began. “A major one is our numbers. He could probably multiply himself with clones, but it would take energy, effort. A second is that we’re well aware he completely outclasses us – don’t give me that look, Naruto, it’s true. He could beat us all with one hand missing and without looking at us. But he knows that too. I don’t think he’ll take us seriously. So if we can surprise him, we might get somewhere... and I think we can be very surprising.”
Naruto grinned.
“How tough can he be? He fell for the oldest trick there is!”
“He let that eraser hit him, Naruto,” Sasuke explained patiently. “He was just too lazy to dodge... which is the last thing we have over him. He doesn’t care. Probably wants to fail us and is only pretending to test us as an excuse. He won’t be putting his all into this... and we will.”
“But if he wants us to fail, there’s no way we’ll make it!” Sakura exclaimed.
“Nothing to do but try our best,” Sasuke replied. “Even if we’re doomed to failure.”
He had learned that the hard way.
As the planning session went on, Sasuke drew Naruto and Sakura into it, carefully prodding them to share ideas and suggestions. He did not want to seem to have all the answers. This had to be a team effort. It was the first step in bringing the three of them together.
At first, his efforts to befriend his teammates had still been no help. The time he had was not enough to develop a true friendship and have any time left to enjoy it. But Sasuke kept trying, taking a lesson in persistence from his rival. He had managed alone for years before time became a circle; he could have the patience to endure a little longer.
Sasuke smiled, just a little, as his teammates settled into the flow of things, their issues with one another left behind as a plan took shape. Sakura was book-smart, able to calculate trajectories and quantities with ease; and Naruto, idiot though he was, was clever. His many years of playing pranks had made him skilled in setting traps and coming up with unusual ideas that still had a chance of actually working. With Sasuke and Sakura to point out and patch the flaws, the results were better than anything any of them could have done alone. More importantly, they were learning to work together. And they were becoming friends.
Sasuke’s persistence had paid off. As he got to know his teammates better, he became better able to creep closer more quickly without seeming unlike himself. Was it manipulative? Some might say so. But he did not feel bad about using his knowledge of his friends to give them what they wanted.
No plan, of course, was complete without the preparation to execute it. Naruto sent some clones to get supplies while they set up what they could without them, bickering occasionally but managing to get something accomplished before the clones returned. Supplies acquired, the rest of the preparing went... well, neither smoothly nor quickly, but they eventually got everything done with no injuries that would cause trouble during the test. Good enough for the first day.
He had messed up a few times. Tipped someone off that something was up. But it never mattered, because even if he was unable to allay their suspicions, they forgot everything when the wheel returned to its beginning.
And so he had learned, and in time mastered, the art of befriending Naruto and Sakura. It was a strange friendship, since they forgot it again and again while he always remembered, but it was more than nothing. He could sense Master Kakashi’s eye on him, and the approval therein.
He closed his eyes as he turned to go home. He knew he did not deserve that approval, or the friendships he built again and again. But he needed them, and on his better days, he thought perhaps his teammates did too.
The three young ninja sat in a circle around a cleared patch of dirt. Sasuke doodled on it with a stick as he explained his plan.
“We have only a few advantages over our opponent,” he began. “A major one is our numbers. He could probably multiply himself with clones, but it would take energy, effort. A second is that we’re well aware he completely outclasses us – don’t give me that look, Naruto, it’s true. He could beat us all with one hand missing and without looking at us. But he knows that too. I don’t think he’ll take us seriously. So if we can surprise him, we might get somewhere... and I think we can be very surprising.”
Naruto grinned.
“How tough can he be? He fell for the oldest trick there is!”
“He let that eraser hit him, Naruto,” Sasuke explained patiently. “He was just too lazy to dodge... which is the last thing we have over him. He doesn’t care. Probably wants to fail us and is only pretending to test us as an excuse. He won’t be putting his all into this... and we will.”
“But if he wants us to fail, there’s no way we’ll make it!” Sakura exclaimed.
“Nothing to do but try our best,” Sasuke replied. “Even if we’re doomed to failure.”
He had learned that the hard way.
As the planning session went on, Sasuke drew Naruto and Sakura into it, carefully prodding them to share ideas and suggestions. He did not want to seem to have all the answers. This had to be a team effort. It was the first step in bringing the three of them together.
At first, his efforts to befriend his teammates had still been no help. The time he had was not enough to develop a true friendship and have any time left to enjoy it. But Sasuke kept trying, taking a lesson in persistence from his rival. He had managed alone for years before time became a circle; he could have the patience to endure a little longer.
Sasuke smiled, just a little, as his teammates settled into the flow of things, their issues with one another left behind as a plan took shape. Sakura was book-smart, able to calculate trajectories and quantities with ease; and Naruto, idiot though he was, was clever. His many years of playing pranks had made him skilled in setting traps and coming up with unusual ideas that still had a chance of actually working. With Sasuke and Sakura to point out and patch the flaws, the results were better than anything any of them could have done alone. More importantly, they were learning to work together. And they were becoming friends.
Sasuke’s persistence had paid off. As he got to know his teammates better, he became better able to creep closer more quickly without seeming unlike himself. Was it manipulative? Some might say so. But he did not feel bad about using his knowledge of his friends to give them what they wanted.
No plan, of course, was complete without the preparation to execute it. Naruto sent some clones to get supplies while they set up what they could without them, bickering occasionally but managing to get something accomplished before the clones returned. Supplies acquired, the rest of the preparing went... well, neither smoothly nor quickly, but they eventually got everything done with no injuries that would cause trouble during the test. Good enough for the first day.
He had messed up a few times. Tipped someone off that something was up. But it never mattered, because even if he was unable to allay their suspicions, they forgot everything when the wheel returned to its beginning.
And so he had learned, and in time mastered, the art of befriending Naruto and Sakura. It was a strange friendship, since they forgot it again and again while he always remembered, but it was more than nothing. He could sense Master Kakashi’s eye on him, and the approval therein.
He closed his eyes as he turned to go home. He knew he did not deserve that approval, or the friendships he built again and again. But he needed them, and on his better days, he thought perhaps his teammates did too.