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"You'll have to excuse my bad manners. I'm not normally in the habit of slugging a lady. But then, looking at you, you don't really fall into that category, do you?"

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Chapter 2 – Team 10

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Academy

Class Room 207

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Iruka-sensei walked into the ever-loud classroom, followed by ten Jounin that would be the team superiors. Iruka smiled as he said,

"Alright, Genins. Settle down." When they were all quiet, he turned to the Jounin. "Which of you will go first?"

Surprisingly, Kakashi stepped forward and said, "Uchiha Sasuke, Aburame Shino, and Haruno Sakura. Meet me on the roof in ten minutes."

He shunshinned out of sight.

Asuma stepped forward and said, "Inuzuka Kiba, Akimichi Choji, and Yamanaka Ino. You got three minutes to get to Training Ground 24."

When they left, Kurenai stepped forward and said, "Hyuuga Hinata, Nara Shikamaru, and Uzumaki Naruto. Training Ground 22. Five minutes."

She, too, shunshinned out of sight, with her team walking out of class.

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Team 10 was waiting for their sensei to show up. Hinata was leaning against a tree, tapping her index fingers together as she tried to sneak glances at her two teammates. Shikamaru was sitting down, his back against the same tree, snoozing. Naruto was sitting on the branch directly above Shikamaru, his eyes closed, seemingly asleep.

"Alright you three!"

Naruto jerked in surprise, causing him to fall on top of Shikamaru, in the opposite position. Shikamaru slowly woke up to the sight of an ass in front of his face.

"Get off me!"

Shikamaru shoved Naruto off of him. Hinata was too busy blushing while desperately holding in her giggles to comment. Kurenai, on the other hand…

She was roaring in laughter as she said, "I didn't know you two swung that way!"

Naruto was grumbling due to the fact that Kurama was laughing so hard that he almost pissed himself.

"Alright." Kurenai rubbed the tears out of her eyes as she said, "To get straight to business, you each are going to be given a color. The color will be red, blue, or green. The color you are given represents three chakra-laced tags that are somewhere in the village. Once you find a tag, all you have to do is pour a small amount of chakra into the tag, making it emit a certain color. If it is your color, you take it. Simple."

With his eyes still closed, Shikamaru said, "There's gonna be catch, isn't there."

Kurenai rolled her eyes and thought, Kill joy.

She nodded and said, "The catch is that you only have three hours to find them. Hinata you're blue. Shikamaru is green, and Naruto is red." They all nodded. "Alright, when I say start…"

They all, in Shikamaru's case reluctantly, stood up.

"Annnd… go!"

Hinata and Naruto ran into the village. Shikamaru just sighed and walked at a leisurely pace.

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Three hours later

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"So how was it?" Kurenai asked innocently.

Naruto glared at Kurenai, but didn't say anything as he waved three tags in his hand. Shikamaru was sleeping against the same tree as before, three tags on top of his legs. Hinata was looking absently at the three tags in her hands. Kurenai nodded in satisfaction.

"Looks like you guys passed. Be here tomorrow at six-thirty in the morning."

Without another word, she shunshinned out of sight. Shikamaru got to his feet and walked back into the village, giving a slow wave to his two teammates. Naruto climbed up a tree and sat down on one of the lower branches then leaned against the trunk of the tree.

"N-Naruto-kun…" Hinata said shyly.

Naruto opened a single eye and tilted his head slightly to glance at Hinata.

"Yea?"

"Aren't… Aren't you going to leave too?"

Naruto nodded and stated, "I am. But, I asked a friend to meet me here in a couple of hours. Might as well stay."

"O-oh. Okay then. I'll, see you tomorrow, Naruto-kun." Hinata muttered as she walked away.

When she was out of sight, Naruto sighed and closed his eyes.

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Mindscape

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When he opened them, he was standing on top of the Hokage's tower, eagles soaring around him. In the distance, Kurama was conversing with a 50-foot tall Mountain Hawk-Eagle.

An eagle large enough for Naruto to ride on flew in front of him and hovered.

Naruto looked at the bird of prey oddly and asked, "…yes?"

It turned around and muttered, "Hop on. Mother wants to see you."

With the smallest amount of hesitation, Naruto hopped onto the back of the bird and sat down just in front of the wings, and tightly gripped the small feathers around its neck.

"Oi! Not so tight!" It exclaimed.

"Sorry." Naruto muttered.

The eagle shook its head and took off at blinding speeds towards the two giants. Just as Naruto was certain he was going to fall off, the eagle suddenly stopped and hovered a few meters above the ground. The two giant animals halted their conversation as Naruto landed on the ground in a crouch.

"Ah, Naruto!" Kurama turned to the giant bird, "This is the mortal I was telling you about, Taron."

The Hawk-Eagle leaned forward and squinted at Naruto with a piercing glare, her beak getting dangerously close. Naruto leaned backwards slightly to avoid getting smacked in the stomach. She blew hot air that smelled like flesh onto his face, causing him to blink rapidly to get the stink out of his eyes. She straightened back up with a smirk on her face.

"Well…" She sarcastically rolled her eyes. "I suppose I could give the brat a trial run."

Kurama nodded in satisfaction. Naruto, on the other hand, was confused.

"A trial run of what?"

He looked at both of the behemoths, silently asking for an answer.

Kurama cleared his throat, causing some trees to shake from the echo. He turned his gaze to the blonde assassin and said,

"For the past week I have been negotiating a summoning contract with the Eagle clan."

Taron nodded and added, "The trial run will consist of a three month time period where my clan and I will be observing your movements, with exceptions of necessary privacy, to decide on whether or not you are a worthy mortal to be a clan summoner."

Naruto nodded in agreement and clapped his hands then rubbed them together. He asked, "Alright, when do I start?"

Kurama got on all fours and placed his head right in front of Naruto so that they were looking eye to eye, and said, "Right when you wake up."

He then roared in Naruto's face.

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Real World

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Naruto jerked awake and rolled out of the tree, just as a bolt pierced the bark where his head had been just a heartbeat before. He landed on his feet and looked at the bolt, then at the rooftops, and saw a fleeing figure running along the roofs.

With a growl at the base of his throat, Naruto ran to the closest building and scaled the wall. He hopped onto the roof and activated Eagle Vision to find the culprit. His saw a gold and red figure running away.

Oh no you don't. Naruto growled and took off running to give chase.

He jumped over an alley. Hearing a small grunt behind him, Naruto turned his Eagle Vision 180 degrees and saw several ANBU tailing him. With a grimace, he turned back around just in time to sidestep a chimney, not losing any momentum. The culprit jumped down onto the street and continued running, crossbow in hand.

Giving a single handsign, Naruto activated his cloak to the original hooded trend coat that quickly changed color to match the time of day. He skidded to a stop at the end of the collection of houses to see his target turn down an alley a little ways down the street. Naruto ran across a clothesline and along the buildings that made up the left wall of the alley.

The target, by body shape a man, ran into a side street, and tripped over a garbage can.

Now!

Naruto took aim with his senbon launcher and hit the man in the calf, deadening the leg and slowing him down. With the grace and silence of a bird hunting its prey, Naruto dived off of the building and landed on top of the man. He dropped the crossbow in shock.

Naruto threw him against the wall of a building and asked, "Why did you try to kill me?"

The man sputtered out random incoherent words to try and defend himself. Naruto scowled. He grasped the man's shoulder and shoved him into a nearby alley, making him trip on him own feet and smash his face against a dumpster. He tried to scoot away, but it was in vain.

Naruto stood over him, unsheathed his hidden blade and pressed the tip against the man's neck, making him stay stock still in fear.

With a voice as cold as arctic ice, Naruto said, "Answer me."

The would-be murderer stuttered, "T-the village wou-would've be-been bet-t-ter off wit-t-thout you, de-de-demon."

Naruto mentally scoffed at the statement and was about to pierce the man's throat when,

"Naruto."

Naruto rapidly turned around to find the Hokage entering the alley with two ANBU right behind him.

"That's enough, the ANBU will take it from here."

A hesitant nod was the only response Naruto gave as he stepped aside and leaned against the alley wall as the ANBU took the man away for questioning. Sarutobi took a puff of his pipe and leaned against the wall next to the blonde jinchuuriki.

"So," he started. "when were you planning on revealing your true abilities?"

Naruto sighed and stated, "I was honestly hoping that I wouldn't have to for a very long time." He scoffed and continued, "But it seems Kami decided otherwise." He turned his head to look at the Hokage and muttered, "Why do you ask?"

The old man shrugged and said, "Curiosity mostly. Are you planning on showing them to your team?"

Naruto inclined his head slightly and simply replied, "In time." He stepped away from the wall and spoke as he left the alley, "Well, it's early, Hokage. I think I'll hit the sack so that I won't sleep through my first team meeting tomorrow."

Sarutobi nodded in acceptance and said, "Very well. Good night Naruto-"

The young shinobi was already gone.

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Very short when placed next to the previous chapter, but I had to type this up at the late night hours of the day to get this finished before school started up on Thursday. Speaking of the previous chapter, I made one small edit to it. Not enough to provoke a reread, but just note that the senbon launcher and hidden blade had switched wrists.

On the note of the tags I had placed at the beginning of the summary…

[Nice-Kurama] – Because when you're a millennia old demon with the power to turned mountains into rubble, and you're trapped inside of an infant, why wouldn't you want to make the best of an unfavorable situation?

[Serious-Naruto] – If you had 50+ years experience of killing, sex, and stealth, you'd be serious too.

[AU] – Otherwise known as 'Alternate Universe'… Pretty self-explanatory.

Probably by the time you're reading this, I would have gotten rid of the [Good Orochimaru] and [No Chuunin Exams Invasion] tags.

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