Fanfic / One Eye, Full of Wisdom

One Eye, Full of Wisdom is a Naruto For Want Of A Nail fanfic written by Mr Bright 01, with the first chapter being launched in July of 2015. A currently unrevealed event in the past has allowed Hatake Kakashi to recover from the pain of losing his team and sensei and allowed him to grow into a shinobi who has wisdom to go with his canon intellect. When it comes time to train the next generation, instead of the hands off approach used in canon, he decides to do his best to make them strong. In a world of stealth and subterfuge, Team Seven will face foes deadly than ever, and not just because they can shoot bigger fireball jutsu.

A great deal of effort has been put into keeping the tone of the original, largely trying to get the mix of humor and serious subjects right. The story emphasizes tactical fighting over flashy jutsu, and each character has a slowly growing skill set that differs greatly from their canon counterparts.

The author of the story often shares his thought processes and goals in his somewhat copious Author's Notes. He has stated that there will be no massive and unreasonable power ups, and he has alluded to the possibility that canon foes may even receive a power decrease to match the significantly less overpowered nature of the work. There will also be no real focus on pairings or romance, as the author feels that such subjects do not fit into the tone of the original, as well as an admitted dislike for the romance genre. And the author has stated a clear desire to avoid the common tropes associated with Naruto fanfiction.

On hiatus.

One Eye, Full of Wisdom provides examples of:

• Achievements in Ignorance: Gai's girlfriend is a civilian who lacks the sixth sense to detect the presence of others all shinobi develop. As a result, she's the only one who pays enough attention to see Jiraiya approach the group and sit down. She's actually surprised no one else noticed him.
• Action Girl: Almost every female who makes an appearance is one, even more so than in canon.
• Adaptational Heroism: Various antagonistic characters have gone from full-on villains to either become allies or neutral parties.
  • Orochimaru and the Hidden Sound never joined forces with Suna to attack Konoha, and Orochimaru seems to be going out of his way to assist people, showing his own regrets.
  • Zabuza and Haku become friends with Team 7 after Wave, and Zabuza becomes Naruto's sensei when he's temporarily traded to Suna.
  • Hidan isn't a part of the Akatsuki and partners up with Naruto, Temari, and Kankuro in order to fight off the Jashinists attacking the Ishigakure Trade Market. After the incident, he reads his own intestines and decides that Jashin mandated that he help Naruto while he builds a trade route between Ishi and Suna.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: Sasuke goes from a gruff loner in canon to a gruff, but somewhat sociable person here. It's noted that he didn't actually start the head-on dive into full-blown sociopathy he made in canon until Orochimaru and Itachi got their hooks into him and started bringing out his worst traits.
• Adults Are Useless: Averting this is one of the main themes of the story.
• Affably Evil: For a given measure of evil, the Kyuubi stays polite and civil the entire time it converses with Naruto.
• All-Loving Hero: Naruto still tends toward compassion and forgiveness, but learns that he shouldn’t apply it to people like Gatou.
• Almighty Janitor: Sakura, Sasuke, and Shikamaru are all declared as fully deserving of promotions but due to how the Chuunin Exams ended, they can't be promoted that way. They could be promoted outside the exams, but such promotions would mark them as special to their enemies and make them targets.
• Animal Motifs: Sakura and cats.
• Ambiguously Evil: Orochimaru. Might be going towards Faux Affably Evil.
• Arc Words: "Their strength is my strength." Kakashi teaches Sasuke this phrase early on to help him both learn to rely on his teammates and understand he doesn't have to be jealous of them or compete against them.
• Arranged Marriage: As a very hypothetical possibility branching off from their dealings, the Aburame Clan offers to find Sasuke a bride (probably from their clan or an ally) in a few years if he so desires.
• Ax-Crazy: Gaara, naturally.
• Bait-and-Switch: Temari blasts Ino point blank and calls her pathetic. Then she forfeits, and it's revealed that Ino successfully possessed her and was calling Temari pathetic.
  • During the final fight of the Wave Arc, Zabuza figures that either the Tazuna at the battle or the Tazuna at the house are the real Tazuna. In the end, he finally asks Kakashi where he stowed away the real Tazuna. He's eating at Ichiraku Ramen with one of Naruto's clones all the way back at Konoha.
  • During one Omake, Anko and Kakashi agree to a trade, each allowing the other to remove two articles of clothing from the other. After Kakashi makes Anko remove her weapons pouches and Anko makes him take off his first mask, people start demanding she have him take off the second mask, to which Kakashi turns pale and demands that they close the blinds. Once they do, Kakashi takes off the second mask and reveals... a third mask. He gets thrown out the window by Anko.
• Berserk Button: Don't ever insinuate Sakura is a failure. She nearly decks Inari for it.
• The Berserker: Zabuza becomes this when frustrated by Naruto and Kakashi’s tactics.
• The Bet: There's a bounty out on Kakashi's mask or a picture of him without it. Everyone from Teuchi to Danzo to the Hokage have contributed to the pool.
• Beware the Silly Ones: Maito Gai. And he teaches Naruto to weaponize this well enough to out-strategize Shikamaru.
• Big "WHAT?!": EVERYONE'S reaction when Naruto Loses to Chouji in the the Chunin Exam due to a technicality. (He was accidentally flung out of the ring into the audience by one of Chouji's attacks).
• Blue-and-Orange Morality:
  • According to Kakashi, shinobi and civilians can't truly understand each other due to how different their lives are. While a civilian would react poorly, a shinobi thinks nothing of another shinobi fingering a kunai while talking to them in unusual circumstances as paranoia keeps them alive.
  • Kyuubi is the personification of destruction. He destroys but in doing so, paves the way for new life. He remarks that to Naruto, the destruction of his home is a tragedy, but to the world it's just another step in the endless cycle of destruction and rebirth.
• Book Dumb: Gai was said to be this before his rivalry with Kakashi got going. Kakashi’s first dare for him was to read a book, and Gai had to get smarter as Kakashi got stronger. Naruto as well, shown when Sakura has to dumb down her vocabulary several times.
• Bothering by the Book: Hiashi's and Hinata's plan to permanently get rid of the Caged Bird Seal relies heavily on doing exactly what they're supposed to in a given situation, after they deliberately engineer said situation.
• Break the Haughty: Kakashi specializes in this, and then rebuilding them into better people and ninja. He’s done it to Sasuke, Neji, Sakura, and did it to Kiba by proxy. Ino also suffers this (especially the rebuilding) at Sakura’s hands. Baki is going to do this to Temari during the break before the exam finals.
• Bring My Brown Pants: The first time Sakura beats Kiba in a spar, Kakashi grabs her fist an inch from his nose and pretends not to notice the wet spot under Kiba.
• Broad Strokes: The author has been quite specific in that while the events of the world are unchanged up until the story begins, some of the characters have different mindsets that their canon counterparts, with all of those differences having a common cause in the past. They have also stated that the extremes of power displayed post-timeskip in canon will likely be changed or downplayed to match the tone of the fiction.
• Call-Back: During the Wave arc, Sakura learns that Naruto has "something like a Kekkei Genkai" and simply asks him if it's safe; Naruto assures her it is. When they're fighting Gaara, Naruto tells her it's not safe anymore; not for Gaara, and maybe not for her.
• Chekhov's Gun: During the early matches of the preliminaries of the Chunin Exams, Kakashi talks to his students about never attacking from behind when ambushing a shinobi, because that is the most obvious place, and most shinobi know it and act accordingly. Then Sasuke and Lee fight, and one of them goes for a surprise attack...
• Chivalrous Pervert: Jiraiya as per the norm. Especially notable in one instance where he starts to hit on Gai's girlfriend, but the instant he finds out she's taken, he immediately backs off, tones down his pervertedness, and acts more cordially.
• Comically Small Demand: Kakashi's and Gai's bets are always for the same ryo coin which Naruto notes has changed hands so many times all the etchings have been rubbed off, leaving only a smooth gold disk. Though, the coin is only a token used to motivate themselves.
• Confusion Fu: Naruto's strategy against Shikamaru in the preliminaries embraces this, as does his fight with Mamushi in the forest.
• Continuity Nod: At one point, Sakura thinks about what might have happened if Kakashi had not encouraged her to fight instead of working as support.
• Cooldown Hug: After her Training from Hell, when Naruto is finding out what his clones did that left her in such bad shape, Sakura gives him one to cool them both down and show no hard feelings.
• Crazy-Prepared: This is the entire specialty of shinobi, but especially Kakashi.
  • He cultivates the image of a perpetually-tardy layabout so that nobody looks for him while he's spying on people, and makes himself seem pathetic to ensure he's underestimated.
  • After the Demon Brothers attack, Kakashi decides to keep Tazuna safe for the mission... by keeping him back in Konoha while the rest of them clear out Wave.
  • Underneath his mask is a second mask in case someone takes his mask off. Beneath that mask is a third mask.
    • The entire circumstances behind him revealing his third mask, to minimize the damage he takes for that gag: he gets Anko to remove her weapons pouches beforehand, seemingly to tease the audience, and pretends to be incredibly nervous of showing his face and makes people close all the blinds. When he does reveal his third mask, Anko is disarmed of weapons and instead throws him through a window, the impact of which is cushioned by the blinds.
• Crippling Overspecialisation: Deliberately averted. Kakashi puts a lot of effort into giving his students a rounded collection of skills.
  • Kakashi lampshades this problem with the more common fire jutsu, stating they're all Grand Fireball Jutsu But More. He compares it to always fishing with a net, when sometimes you need a spear.
  • Zabuza's swordsmanship comes back to bite him when his arm is badly injured. Gai uses it as an example of why Naruto shouldn't specialize so much. A more well-rounded enemy would abandon the sword and use a different method of attack.
• Determinator:
  • Sakura is slowly shaping up to be this alongside Naruto.
  • Hinata has a moment of this during her Preliminary Match as well.
• Deadpan Snarker: Sasuke.
  “I blinded them with science, Sakura attacked them with all her might, and you… you played Ro-Sham-Bo with them? Classy.”
• Dirty Business: Despite how they're portrayed, members of T&I are never sadists, and in fact sadists are not allowed to join. Instead, they're professionals who torture and abuse prisoners while feeling nothing but the hope said prisoners will give them the information they want. Ibiki warns Sakura when she joins that she will lose sleep over what she does and she will hate herself for it. But like the rest of them, she'll still get up every day and do it because she has to.
• Do Not Taunt Cthulhu: Most of the shinobi present cringe at Zaku disparaging the Hokage, noting that you can hate a powerful enemy all you want, but you should never forget how powerful they are.
• Don't You Dare Pity Me!:
  • Sasuke and Neji both show signs of this. Both mostly get over it when they finally understand that it is friendship, not pity, being offered.
  • Temari is furious at what she sees as Naruto saving her because she's a girl until he manages to convince her that he's saving her because he doesn't want her to die. Naruto knows full well how strong she is, but she's currently exhausted and low on blood; if he allowed her to rejoin the battle, she'd almost certainly die.
• Dungeon Bypass: When his opponents try to lure him into a building, Gaara responds by demolishing the entire building instead.
• Dropping the Bombshell: Kakashi does this to Zabuza when he reveals that the clones Zabuza has been chasing for the last few chapters and that have injured him several times are not Kakashi's, but Naruto's.
• Eating the Eye Candy: Mioki, a civilian who watches security cameras, spends quite some time staring at Gai's butt when they meet.
• Enraged by Idiocy: When Temari attempts to attack her opponent after the match has been called, Baki flips: he smashes her fan, details how she will personally perform every step needed to replace it, after she explains her dishonorable conduct to her father, and she will do no mission for Suna until she has finished. Justifed, because this is the second time a Suna ninja attempted to attack after the match’s end, and not only does Temari not have Gaara’s excuse, but she had attacked a ninja whom the Hokage had just personally congratulated for winning.
• Exact Words: Kakashi's bet with a shopkeeper involves paying said shopkeeper 10,000 Ryo for each of his genin that doesn't make it to the final round, and getting a 5% discount at his shop for one year for every genin that does.
• Faking the Dead: Kakashi activates Sasuke’s sharingan under controlled conditions by faking his death at Itachi’s hands while speaking with Sasuke.
• Fatal Flaw: Kakashi quickly identifies his students’ and tries to get them under control before it really becomes fatal.
• Fiery Redhead: The consequences of Sakura’s temper, especially with her new training and confidence, are explored in the Land of Waves.
• Foreshadowing: After getting a look at Kakashi's book, Zabuza remarks that explains so much about him. Said book is blank.
• For Want Of A Nail: Chapter 41 reveals the (probable) point of divergence: Kakashi didn't manage to track down Rin after she was kidnapped and made into an unstable jinchuuriki, thus sparing him the trauma of her Suicide by Cop (that honor instead going to a passing Orochimaru). The guilt from her disappearance remained, but he survived and recovered in a way his canon self wasn't able to.
• Friendly Enemy:
  • Haku and Naruto recognize each other as both being enemy ninja, but since they aren’t fighting right now they still get to know each other.
  • Kankuro stays friendly for the entirety of the Chuunin Exams, even complimenting Sasuke on trying to use Temari to rile him up.
• Friend to Bugs: Shino, naturally.
• Frying Pan of Doom: Used by Ayame on Jiraiya.
• Genre Savvy: Gaara replaces his father's chest of gold dust with lead pellets to keep him from interfering.
• Graceful Loser: After they lose horribly, both Kiba and Sakura easily beg the other to train them. Kiba because Sakura's superior skill rendered his superior strength useless, and Sakura because Kiba's improved skill allowed him to thrash her.
• Grew a Spine: Hinata, when forced to spar with Naruto and he repeatedly congratulates her for landing hits.
• Groin Attack: Naruto delivers one to one of the Demon Brothers.
• Guile Hero: A running theme in the story. The cunning, analysis, and maneuvering of the shinobi lifestyle is repeatedly demonstrated.
• A Handful for an Eye: Sasuke throws ground glass seeped in capsaicin and mixed with salt into Haku's eyes during their fight.
• Happily Adopted: Adopting Sasuke and Sakura as honorary members of the Aburame and Inuzuka Clans respectively is discussed and considered, but only one goes through.
• Having a Blast: Naruto has a thing for using explosives against enemies. One Jashin cultist who fought him quickly realized that not only do all his clones explode, but everything they use explodes, from potatoes to shogi boards to frisbees.
• Hidden Heart of Gold: The Kazekage, Baki, and Temari all act like total pricks to Naruto after he temporarily becomes a Suna nin, but it's shown to just be them hazing the new guy. Once Naruto proves his worth, the former two are demanding but professional while Temari's openly friendly.
• Hidden Purpose Test: Every test prospective members of T&I go through has some hidden aspect to it, such as when Ibiki tells Sakura not to leave a room until he returns. After seemingly passing the test, she's told she can leave, but Sakura figures out the trick and refuses to leave until Ibiki returns.
• Hold the Line: The second fight against Zabuza and Haku has Kakashi, Naruto, and Sasuke stalling for Sakura to get back with proof she killed Gatou, nulling Zabuza's contract to kill Tazuna.
• Honey Trap: Sakura acts as a platonic variation after joining T&I. She brings prisoners food, tends to their injuries, and generally befriends them as a way to make them open up. Successes range from getting an idea on how to break a prisoner to another prisoner basically telling her his life story (including many crimes they couldn't yet pin on him).
• Horrifying the Horror: Orochimaru intimidates Gaara into standing down when the latter tries to kill one of his spies.
• Hypocritical Humor: Sakura catches herself just before she protests on moral grounds about killing one man (Gatou) to avoid killing another (Zabuza). She reminds herself that isn’t an argument a shinobi should make.
• Heroic BSoD: Sakura reaches the edge of this during the return trip from the Land of Waves.
• Honor Before Reason: It’s suggested by Hiashi that a number of the Hyuuga make themselves miserable, but know no other way to live.
• I Know You Know I Know: Kakashi calls it the Poisoned Chalice problem (in an apparent nod to The Princess Bride)
• Interspecies Friendship: Sakura has a cat who joins her as a ninja partner. Turns out to be part of the Cat Summoning Contract.
• Kansas City Shuffle: A large part of nearly every fight is trying (and often failing) to figure out what an opponent's bluff is.
  • Since Zabuza isn't sure whether the Tazuna at the bridge or at his house is the real one, he goes after one and sends Haku after the other. Turns out the real Tazuna was back at Konoha.
  • Tenten is too afraid to go into melee with Sakura because that's her specialty but also afraid to stay at ranged because the girl looks so confident. She learns too late that Sakura is actually a summons under henge and the real Sakura is laying a trap beneath her feet.
  • Sasuke engages Kankuro in taijutsu until he hears a wooden creak from him, causing Sasuke to realize he's fighting Kankuro's puppet. Sasuke holds a knife to the bundle hiding Kankuro, only for it to launch several kunai at him. Kankuro had hidden pieces of wood in his outfit to make clicking noises, causing Sasuke think he was a puppet.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Sakura thinks her Training from Hell by Naruto’s clones on Kakashi’s orders is this for how she used to treat Naruto. She’s arguably right, but Naruto certainly takes no pleasure from what he does.
• Loophole Abuse: Nothing says Sakura has to fight her prelim match inside the room everyone's gathered in. While the rules are changed after her match, Sakura earns a fair bit of respect among the ranks for her outside the box thinking.
  • Averted in the Finals. There may be no stated rule that a ring-out will disqualify you, but it's nonetheless the case. Hayate didn't hesitate for a moment to disqualify Naruto for landing in the stands, though Hayate does need to confer with his superiors before disqualifying his opponent for throwing him into the stands in the first place. This is because the shinobi villages don't want civilians to believe they think of them as expendable as that would hurt business.
• Mundane Utility: Naruto's Healing Factor most often gets used to let him exercise longer than anyone else.
• Murder Is the Best Solution: Sakura prevents a fight to the death against Zabuza and Haku by killing Gato and letting them have all his money as severance.
• Mutual Disadvantage: Hidan and the Jashin High Priest try to kill each other, but both are immortal.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Sakura in the Land of Waves. Ino in the forest of death.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Ino fully intended to simply forfeit her match against Temari, but every insult hurled by her opponent convinced Ino to fight harder, resulting in her winning.
• Nice to the Waiter: Sasuke is held high in the Aburame Clan’s esteem because he does not crowd them, does not shun them, and shows respect for their hives.
• Non-Malicious Monster: The Kyuubi as destruction personified. He's not malevolent, simply doing his job.
• Not Afraid to Die: Naruto tries to combat Shukaku's manipulation by declaring that he's not afraid of him or death. Shukaku counters by offering to kill every one of Naruto's friends in front of him then letting him live with the guilt.
• #1 Dime: Kakashi and Gai have an old Ryo coin that they use as the stakes for their wagers. Said coin has passed between them so many times that it's etchings have worn down, leaving only a smooth gold disk.
• Oblivious to Love: Naruto is directly advised by Sakura to offer to take Hinata on a date if she wins her match against Kabuto. He does so, but fails to understand why this would motivate Hinata.
• Obvious Rule Patch: Sakura lampshades this by pointing out that the rules don't say they have to fight inside the arena, leading to her sprinting out of the room to find a better battleground, and admitting to herself that the officials will probably change the rules for the next exam.
  • Sakura's actions also change the final exam as the officials realized that the previous open arena made every fight too straight forward and little more than a simple brawl. As a result, a large three story building is added with several rooms so participants can set traps and ambush their opponents.
• Oh, Crap!: Several, generally of the "something bad just happened" variety. The end of the pre-exam Fort Invasion mock mission. The end of Shikamaru verses Naruto in the preliminaries.
  • Tenten gets a massive one when she realizes that the vial Sakura's cougar sized cat just dropped from the hole in the ceiling contained a paralytic poison and has claw marks on the inside meaning said cat now has poison claws. Even more so when she realizes her options are 1) Running into an ambush with the cat, 2) Trying to blow up the entire floor and maybe injure herself, 3) Fight Sakura in the dark, 4) Use a flare and lose the use of one hand while trying to find Sakura^note She refers to said options as "Nope", "More Nope", "Nope Squared", and "Slightly Less Nope".
• Out-of-Character Alert: Sarutobi discusses a few things with Kakashi and wonders if he thinks it odd that he's suddenly considering Danzo for the next Hokage. Kakashi immediately tells him that's insanely out of character for him, which confirms for Sarutobi that he was under an extremely subtle genjutsu.
• Parental Substitute: Kakashi functions as this to his team in his own ways. He pushes Sakura to her limits and helps her with her self-worth, he gets Sasuke out of his shell and helps him to live and enjoy life, and he helps Naruto live a more healthy lifestyle and make his life in the village the most bearable it can be under the circumstances.
• Pass the Popcorn: After a while, villagers stop fleeing Hidan's fight with the Jashin High Priest and instead hang around to watch the two immortals futilely try to kill each other.
• Politeness Judo: Orochimaru manages to get his way so often simply because he points out why attacking/denying him would be a political nightmare.
• Pragmatic Villainy: Orochimaru's given reason for preventing Gaara from killing one of his agents is that said shinobi is his agent. His to kill, his to save, his to sacrifice.
• Properly Paranoid: Exaggerated with the Land of Waves arc, and it is shown why all the layers of foresight and deceit were needed.
• Pyrrhic Victory: After Misume kills his teammate Yoroi, Kakashi notes that he just killed himself:
  "Who would risk themselves for someone who'd kill his own teammate for a promotion? Who would aid him? Who would show him mercy? He won the fight but lost his future."
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Kakashi. He introduces his students to their flaws gently but immediately and provides instructions on how to improve themselves. When he is out of commission he ensures they have access to tutors who can teach them, he teams up with another teacher to provide cross-educational and teamwork, and while he will put students through traumatizing experiences, he does so for a specific reason and uses the minimum amount of trauma needed.
  • Also the Third Hokage, when he tests if Sasuke will be allowed to continue in the chuunin exams with Orochimaru’s seal or not.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Kakashi gives a couple.
  • He gives a lengthy and brutal one to Sasuke when they first meet.
    Sasuke: I don't need your pity. [begins to walk away]
    Kakashi: ^note So you want to go back to the Academy, Uchiha? Konohagakure does not need weak shinobi who get themselves and their teammates killed, Sasuke-kun, and that is exactly as you would become if you walk away now. You will go back to the Academy with a note in your files, 'Does not work well with others.' You will certainly get no training from me. And you will keep returning, with the same message to each teacher, from every jonin I know who is competent enough to train you well, because we'll all see the same thing. Until you finally get someone who has no idea what you have suffered and decides to keep you in their team even if your team suffers for it, out of pity. And then, you will know more suffering, more regret, more pity, because you will become a magnet for death. Your own callous, uncaring nature will make you and those around you suffer. Allies will die because they believe they cannot ask you for help, and the survivors will pity you for your loss. Potential friendships will die, because after being rebuffed too many times, people tend to give up and find other friends, and those lost friends and allies will look on you with pity when you walk by. Right now, you go home to silence, but you are not alone yet, because you have been surrounded by others and forced to interact with them in the Academy setting. You will not know loss until you realize you have not spoken for a week and nobody cares because they think of you as an object of their environment instead of a human. And then, you'll die. Maybe you'll refuse help as you take on a foe stronger than you. Maybe you'll snap and chase after your brother before you are ready, and get slaughtered by someone powerful enough to slay your entire clan. Maybe you'll live a long and dull life of failure before having a heart attack at home and dropping dead, unnoticed and unlamented until someone happens to sense the smell of your rotting body and contacts the authorities out of pity for the poor old man who had no one to care for him. In none of these cases do you get your revenge. In all of these cases, you fail to revive your clan. Those schoolgirls who crush on you now in that annoying way eventually grow into women who know better than to waste their time. No children, no future, and the Uchiha clan dies with you. On the path that you are currently on... you will fail at everything you claim you want.
  • He gives one to Neji as part of the process of training him.
    Kakashi: And then, there is you, a child so certain in his superiority, he will openly speak out against those who would train him, about things he knows nothing about, and is not even smart enough to use his perfect perception to look around and check for the people he's talking about.
• Right Behind Me: Before a training session with Kakashi, Neji begins to belittle and insult Kakashi. Sasuke, who has by this point awakened his Sharingan, sees Kakashi hiding in some nearby bushes and promptly hands Neji a proverbial shovel so he can dig his own grave.
• Sadistic Choice: In the Forest of Death, Ino is held hostage and the other genin are only given the option of choosing between a quick death by poison, or a slower, more violent end.
• Slave to PR: Shinobi villages suffer from this by default. Naruto and Chouji are both disqualified during the Chunin Exam Finals after the latter throws the former into the stands because the people in charge don't want civilians to think that shinobi think of them as acceptable collateral damage.
• So Proud of You:
  • Kuromaru gives one to Sakura, declaring her to not be a human, but a dog. And a good dog at that.
  • Kakashi tells his students this after they all pass their preliminary matches in a significantly intelligent manner.
  • The Third Hokage shows pride in many of his genin during the exams for their smarts and/or dedication to their duty and desire to improve.
• The Spock: The Aburame clan as a whole function on what the logical course of action is in any scenario. Sasuke starts picking up similar habits though to a lesser degree.
• Story-Breaker Power: It’s shown how Naruto’s use of shadow clones has the potential to be this when he outmaneuvers, exhausts, and injures Zabuza. Sakura’s rising terror when he explains this without realizing why it’s so unbelievable shows how frightening it is to anyone who doesn’t know how he can do it. She claims he has more chakra than all the other ninja she can name put together.
• Stuff Blowing Up: Naruto carries a lot of explosive tags, and uses Suicide Clones as a common tactic.
• Take a Third Option: Naruto in response to the Sadistic Choice.
• Talk to the Fist: Sasuke is in the middle of explaining how the numbing agent he hit Lee with will wear off in a few hours when Lee socks him in the jaw and declares he can fight even if he can't feel his body.
• Team Dad: Ibiki functions as a father figure for the members of T&I.
• There Was a Door: During their fight, Sakura smashes through a wall to attack Shino.
• Took a Level in Badass:
  • Sakura. Notably that when Sasuke slaps her during the Wave mission, her first response is to slap back and when that fails, she headbutts him.
  • The Moonflower incident gives Ino a kick in the right direction. During her preliminary match with Temari, she manages to outsmart the much more skilled kunoichi to get her in range of her clan technique and make her quit. However, she knows she hadn't taken enough levels and had already resolved herself to quit anyway since she knew she wasn't ready to be a chunin and didn't want to embarrass the village.
• Took a Level in Kindness:
  • Sasuke develops from a Jerkass to actually caring about his teammates, in his own way.
  • Neji likewise lightens up considerably.
• Training Montage: Chapter 5 is devoted to this, showing the cross-team training.
• Troll:
  • Kakashi, even more so than canon. We even get to see his point of view, and the planning that goes into his tricks. He has a competition running with Anko.
  • Orochimaru is very much a troll, enough so that the author has called his version "Trollrochimaru" a few times.
• True Companions: They don't always get along perfectly, but the Leaf 12 as a whole are much more tightly bound in this story.
• Underestimating Badassery: Another major theme of the story is using expectations as an advantage and hiding how dangerous one truly is. Kakashi, Anko, Gai, and Jiraiya are the most notable examples, and Kakashi does well to pass on this mindset to his students. For example, Kakashi's infamous orange book is actually blank, and his perverted giggles are fake (though he does have a dirty mind). Then there's Jiraiya, who cultivates his image as a well-known super pervert to make himself all but invisible, with no one noticing him unless he wants them to notice him. Naruto is suitably impressed by the latter, calling it a great "prank".
• Unkempt Beauty: Shortly after she starts training under the Inuzuka, Sakura stops styling her hair and avoids makeup. It's noted as not making her one bit less attractive, and actually making her more so to shinobi. She returns to treating her appearance once she signs the Cat Summoning Contract.
• Villainous Breakdown: A mild example in Chapter 8. Fighting many clones only to realize the originals were never present to begin with causes Zabuza to lose it and lash out at everything in sight.
• Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Naruto dodges Dosu's punch when they were waiting for the Chunin Exam to begin, but since Dosu is a Sound Ninja, the vibrations from the punch still affect Naruto, wreaking havoc on his inner ear. This sudden disturbance forces Naruto to vomit, but because he steadfastly refuses to break eye contact with Dosu, he ends up spewing all over Dosu's face.
• Weak, but Skilled: In the cross-team training, Sakura is this, paired up against Kiba’s Strong, but Unskilled. After a few embarrassing losses, Sakura shows that the “skilled” part is still important, and spends the next several spars throwing him across the field.
• When He Smiles: For the first time ever, Sasuke smiles at Sakura when she declares that she will ramp up her training to better carry her weight on the team.
• White Sheep: Hinata is implied to be this. Later it’s shown that other Hyuuga are willing to be kind, provided they can do so within the bounds of their honor.
• Worth It: Kakashi has no problem with being thrown through a window, chased around town, and billed for the damages at a bar because after 12 long years, he finally got to get someone to see what was under his second mask. ^note  A third mask.
• Would Hurt a Child: Sakura starts on this slippery slope until stopped.