Chapter 301   - Ch301. Genin Test: Genjutsu

Feeling a bit disoriented, Hinata found herself staring at Naruto on the verge of death, riddled with kunais and shurikens. It shocked her but she quickly recognized she was in Genjutsu and promptly fluctuated her chakra, breaking out of it.

Her senses returned to normal, making her head snap in the direction of the Kakashi who cast the genjutsu only to witness a few wisps of white smoke, signifying it was a clone that dispelled.

The immediate threat gone, Hinata's eyes quickly flickered to Sasuke who stood rooted in his spot with wide eyes before she looked at Naruto who lied on the ground, shivering. Hinata disregarded the Uchiha and jumped directly towards Naruto, knowing the knucklehead will have a lot harder time combating illusions than someone with activated Sharingan.

Kneeling next to Naruto, Hinata put her hand on his chest and pulsed her chakra into his system, only briefly noting that Sasuke finally snapped out of the genjutsu. Unlike Hinata's expectations, Naruto didn't immediately wake up. Instead, tears started to stream down his cheeks, making Hinata worry.

"Naru-" She leaned forward in worry when...

"RAMEN!!!" Naruto's upper body abruptly sprang up with a scream, causing Hinata to widen her eyes before their foreheads collided with a loud and painful thud, making their heads jerk backward.

"Oww!" Naruto's upper body impacted the ground headfirst before his hands snapped towards the back of his head that hurt more than his forehead.

"Uuuu..." Hinata who fell on her bum also started to rub her forehead with her hands, holding back tears while slightly blushing from the proximity of their faces at the time of the collision.

Both of them completely ignored the deadpan look a certain Uchiha was shooting them from the side, 'I am in the team with idiots...' He resignedly thought with a tired sigh.

...

Not far away, Kakashi who was about to start running in the direction of the three genins suddenly shook his head as a sudden pain invaded it alongside the memories of his last clone who was forcibly dispelled by exhausting almost all of its available chakra. This kind of dispel was even worse than a clone being killed as far as the user was concerned.

In a fight, this would have been fatal since for a second, it gave the user a sense of vertigo not dissimilar from what real chakra exhaustion feels like, causing him a headache and an impression of physical weakness that almost drove Kakashi to his knees. The unpleasant feeling was gone almost as far as it appeared but that second would have been fatal in a fight. This was yet another reason why shadow clones were not used by high-ranked ninjas in fights.

"Naruto..." Kakashi frowned, "who would have thought the kid has anti-genjutsu counter-measures set up."

Kakashi's clone knew that genjutsu was a bad idea against a team with Hyuuga and Uchiha. He didn't think it would be effective much. He just wanted to see how long it would take them to break out of it for the sake of evaluation.

Sasuke had his Sharingan, which meant sticking a genjutsu on the kid was hard as heck. Fortunately for Kakashi, he knew a lot about Sharingan and knew how to bypass some of its natural abilities. Getting past Sasuke's three-tomoe Sharingan was a slightly troublesome piece of cake for Kakashi even though he doubted the genjutsu would last for more than five seconds. After all, a fully matured Sharingan was called a cheat for a reason.

Hinata was a Hyuuga. This was even more bothersome than Sharingan as far as genjutsu was concerned. Many genjutsu specialists think that the key to defeating a Hyuuga with genjutsu is using non-visual one. Well... many of those found out the hard way why that was not a good idea. Hyuugas simply could see their own chakra network and that meant they instantly discovered if something was amiss with it.

Kakashi was in ANBU and thanks to his bountiful experience he knew a way to trick these white eyes too. Granted, only one out of ten Hyuugas would be unobservant enough to miss it but Kakashi decided to test Hinata anyway.

As for Naruto...

A sudden desperate scream of, "RAMEN!!!" spread through the forest, scaring many birds in the vicinity and causing Kakashi to grin.

Since Uchiha and Hyuuga were walking cheats against genjutsu, Kakashi decided Naruto would have to be evaluated more... harshly. As such, the genjutsu he put Naruto under was a bit special.

A less known fact about Sharingan was that it could alter the perception of time to an extent in its genjutsu. In the few seconds, Naruto was caught in the genjutsu, he was made to relive an entire day of being bound to a chair and unable to move while all around him were thousands of fragrant, delicious-looking ramen bowls daringly tempting the young Uzumaki with their delicious aroma, making him drool. And amidst these bowls, right opposite Naruto, a different Naruto stood, gulping down a bowl after bowl with gusto before the ramen replenished itself while he viciously mocked and taunted the real Naruto.

'Ah... nothing triumphs a good mental tortu... ahem, training.' Kakashi nodded in self-satisfaction.

The Sharingan's ability to change the perception of time was very limited. It only allowed Kakashi's clone to at most stretch a few seconds to one day and even that consumed half of its available chakra. Even the original Kakashi would not be able to do better than that, no matter if he was willing to expend more chakra on it. This ability of Sharingan wasn't known simply because no Uchiha in his right mind would use it in the middle of a fight. The chakra consumption was far too much and extending the target's perception of time just gave him more time to actually realize he is in genjutsu and counter it. That said, this was Naruto surrounded by ramen so Kakashi wouldn't be surprised if the kid totally disregarded the possibility of genjutsu and actually thought he died and went to heaven...

Kakashi went through the memories he inherited from his clone and unexpectedly, the second the clone caught Naruto in the genjutsu, something triggered, making the clone unable to 'disconnect' his chakra from Naruto's and he was instantly sucked dry of its chakra, causing him to dispel before he could gather the necessary anti-genjutsu evaluation of the team.

'So that was the reason I was hit by the feeling of chakra exhaustion!' Kakashi briefly shuddered, glad he didn't try to use genjutsu on Naruto himself while wondering what the heck was the Jutsu safeguarding him. It clearly allowed Naruto to be put under genjutsu while attacking the caster.

'Maybe it's a seal?' Kakashi pondered. It wouldn't be far-fetched. Naruto was an Uzumaki and both of his parents were Seal Masters. Yet... Kakashi doubted it is a seal made by Naruto. It was a too brutal counter for the knuckleheaded sunshine to come up with it himself. Kakashi's mood soured as a frown shoed on his hidden lips, 'Why do I have the bad feeling it is some kind of extremely dangerous forbidden Jutsu? And why only Anko comes to mind as the person who would teach an academy student such a thing?'

Kakashi wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer to these questions....