A/N: So, yes, an update! Yay! Update in two weeks, not next week, because I still have things to work on. I think that's about it, and if I have anything else I want to add, I will update the author's note tomorrow. Have a great week guys, and thanks again for reading. If you've got something to say about the chapter, either negative or positive, definitely leave a review, and let me know what you guys thought!

Chapter 11-Threshold Arc: Easy Days

"Just this once, let it be easy."- Cynthia Lord

The light wind rustling the leaves of the trees in the clearing was the only sound around as I crouched in front of the Memorial Stone. The stream that cut Training Ground 3 in half was further away, so its soothing burble was absent as I cocked my head to one side and stared at the list of names on the side facing me. Reaching out a hand, I carefully traced over the carved kanji of a name in front of me. 'Uchiha Obito. You're not really dead, though. What are you up to right now, I wonder?'

I stood, brushing my skirt off as I sensed an approaching chakra signature at the edges of my range. I pulled out my storage scroll, rapidly finding the seal I'd set in last night at the very beginning of the paper. I pulsed the correct level of chakra into it, and with a poof a bouquet of white lilies appeared and I caught them with my free hand. I rolled it back up with the other and carefully set the lilies down in front of the stone, closing my eyes as I stuck the scroll back in my hip pouch. I bowed at a perfect 90-degree angle, my hands clasped in front of me, before I straightened up, opened my eyes, and turned to head back into the clearing where we'd held the Bell Test yesterday.

I could feel the surprised spark of the lightning-based chakra signature that belonged to Kakashi-sensei as I passed by its hiding spot in the trees, but didn't pay it any attention. Let him think what he wanted of my visit and the flowers. I couldn't visit the Uchiha cemetery where Izumi was buried without making myself look suspicious, so the Memorial Stone it was. I was glad that I'd bought waterproof pouches for all my things, otherwise that storage scroll I'd been working on for the past couple of years would have been utterly ruined after my dip in the river yesterday.

"Yume-chan, there you are!" Naruto called out, grinning and waving at me as I emerged from the trees. He and Sasuke were sitting by the stump from yesterday. Well, Naruto was sitting. Sasuke was standing, arms crossed and back turned to us, gazing over the stream and seeming pensive.

"Morning. I thought we were meeting up at 8 am?" I said, glancing up at the sky as I moved to stand in front of Naruto. In the Academy, one of the first things that they'd taught us when we were doing survival training was how to pinpoint the general time of day based on the position of the sun in the sky. Even when it was cloudy out, you could figure something like that out based on what little light still existed and any shadows on the ground. From my calculations, the boys were probably about half an hour early. I'd been here since around 7, having decided to visit the Memorial Stone and spend some time speaking to Izumi. Plus, I'd needed a little more time to recuperate after yesterday.

When I'd gotten home it had been to Grandpa and Dad already there, and I'd been whisked off to our private training grounds in the back so that I could sign the Monkey Summoning Contract. I'd been ecstatic to add my name to the bottom of the list on the scroll, right below Dad's. I'd pressed in a thumb imprint consisting of my own blood, and the scroll had flared white in acceptance of the new summoner. Grandpa had had to leave right after, as he still had to deal with his remaining Hokage business, but Dad and I had worked on summoning till late in the evening.

"Remember Yume, you need to concentrate. Focus on your bond with the summons, what you want to accomplish, and let the chakra flow into that connection," Dad coached, his voice soothing, and I gritted my teeth in concentration. Closing my eyes and reaching for the familiar feeling of slow-flowing lava that was my chakra, I focused on the new connection that I'd felt open in the back of my mind when the contract had flared white. 'I want to summon a monkey. Just one. Come on, I've been at this for hours!'

I fed a giant wave of my chakra into the connection, trying to push more in than I had before to get something, anything, to happen. Focusing angrily on the thought of just one monkey, just one, I let loose with three quarters of my remaining reserves before I suddenly felt something click. Not breaking my concentration but cutting off the chakra supply to the connection, I pricked my thumb before quickly flipping through the hand signs and slamming my hands into the ground.

"Well, aren't you a young one," A high-pitched voice said, and my eyes popped open to see smoke clearing and an old macaque, its fur a light silvery white, its red face wrinkled and little glasses perched upon its nose as it squinted at me. It was the same height as me, and was dressed in formal robes. Its inner kimono was white, but the outer was a dark green, complimented by dark grey hakama and a grey haori overtop. No socks or formal sandals though, as when I glanced down I could see ten little toes wiggling around, an opposable thumb on each foot making them look like exact copies of the monkey's hands.

"Ah, Scroll Keeper Enri. A pleasure," Dad said, bowing, and the old macaque smiled a touch.

"Little Ichigo-chan. It is good to see you again," The macaque, Enri, said. He turned his eyes back to me, and even though I was exhausted and sweaty and panting for breath there seemed to be approval in his eyes. "You would be our new summoner then. It is not often that I am the first to be summoned by a beginner. Interesting."

"I'm Sarutobi Yumeko. Thank you for allowing me to join your contract as a summoner," I said, bowing formally and trying to get my breathing back under control. The macaque chuckled and I heard it moving over before I felt a hand rest on my head.

"I sense power in you, child. It shall be interesting to see where you progress. If you have need of me, simply focus your attention on my name when you are summoning and I will answer." Then there was a poofing noise and I glanced up to see that he'd disappeared.

"Yume-chan? Yumeko-chan?!" Suddenly Naruto was in my face and shouting and I leapt back in surprise, my hand going to my tantou before I realized what I was doing.

"I…sorry, what?" I asked, shaking my head and releasing the tantou's hilt. Sasuke snorted from his position beside Naruto, who was still looking concerned.

"You were staring off into the distance and not responding. Naruto assumed you'd went into a standing coma," He said, his arms still crossed over his chest.

"You didn't have any better suggestions!" Naruto snapped, scowling at us both, and I smiled at him reassuringly. 'But…I swear I tend to drift off like that a lot. What was so worrisome about this time?'

"Sorry, guess I'm still tired. What were you saying?" Naruto huffed but took a step back and settled back onto the stump.

"I said that Shisui-san and big bro Itachi woke us up early to tell us that they were leaving on another mission," Naruto said.

"They've been gone a lot lately," I replied, frowning, and Sasuke sighed.

"Big brother says not to worry about him, but we think it's because he got marked as an A-rank threat in Kumo's bingo book a couple of months ago. Since then, Iwa and Kiri have done the same." I raised an eyebrow, as this was news to me. I supposed that he wasn't considered an S-rank threat because the Uchiha Massacre had never happened, and because he didn't end up joining Akatsuki and doing a bunch of other stuff. All the same, he was still a good jounin, one of the village's best.

"Yeah, but he and Shisui-san are listed as an S-rank threat when they're together," Naruto added, crossing his arms behind his head and leaning back to look at the sky.

"How did you guys find that out?" I asked, confused, and they exchanged looks.

"Ino told us, when we asked. Her mom always has the latest copies of the bingo books," Naruto said. It made sense. None of us had yet managed to guess what position Ino's mom held in the ranks, other than that she was strong enough to be jounin ranked. My theory was that she was in ANBU, but I didn't have any proof just yet.

"This is their fifth long-term mission in the past month," Sasuke said, and if I didn't know him any better I would have sworn it sounded like he was whining.

"Well, maybe a spar will help take your mind off things," I suggested, and they both perked up.

"No paralysis tags!" They shouted at the same time, and I giggled.

"All right, I'll agree to that. Means Naruto can't use his either," Naruto deflated slightly at that as Sasuke smirked.

"Good. I was getting sick of him sneaking up and trying to stick them on everything," He said.

"Same rules as usual then?" I asked, taking a couple of steps back and sliding into a defensive stance. The boys mirrored me, moving away until we made up the three points of a triangle, slipping into their own stances. They both nodded, and I grinned.

"On my count," Naruto said, holding up a hand with three fingers raised. "Three…two…one…GO!" He shouted, immediately snapping his fingers into the seal for his shadow clones as I turned and booked it into the forest, Sasuke shouting the name of a ninjutsu as I felt his chakra flare with its usage. Flashing up into a tree, I bounced to another sapling several trees over before settling onto a branch and yanking out my storage scroll. I could hear multiple Narutos shouting and an explosion as something went off, but I was focused on finding a specific seal. It took me a moment longer than I would have liked, as I sensed the real Naruto begin to move into the trees in search of me, but it finally appeared about halfway through the paper.

I quietly bounced three more trees away as I sensed the combat begin to move into the woods near my position, Sasuke giving chase once he'd managed to destroy most of the clones, and pulsed some of my chakra into the storage seal. A vial of black powder appeared with a gentle poof of smoke, and I hastily rolled up the scroll and stuck the vial between my teeth as I heard shouting below. I stuck the scroll in my pouch and grabbed the vial with my free hand just as Sasuke appeared in front of me, his fist shooting straight for my face. I quickly shifted just enough out of the way for him to miss me, the whoosh of the air being displaced blowing across my face, and I leapt backwards as Naruto came jumping up into sight.

I flung a brace of senbon at them with my free hand to keep my teammates back as I uncorked the vial with my teeth and spat the cork with unerring accuracy at Naruto's forehead. It was tiny, but he yelped in surprise as it smacked into the spot between his eyes as he tried to dodge the senbon. It looked like they'd decided to team up for the time being.

Sasuke came out of nowhere then, flinging several kunai at me as I flipped and dodged from branch to branch to shake them from my tail. I'd corked the vial with my thumb, so as not to worry about its contents spilling out. I felt the flicker of Naruto's chakra in a jutsu, and the sudden appearance of several weaker copies of his chakra signature heralded his summoning of more Kage Bunshin. I flung myself into the clearing, landing on my feet, and as I whirled around I hastily poured the contents of the vial into my mouth, wincing at the foul taste. As Sasuke and several Narutos came streaming after me I flashed through the often-practiced hand signs before pursing my lips and spewing forth the gunpowder in the form of a smokescreen.

"Katon: Haisekishou," I breathed, and immediately ducked down as one of the Narutos came flying overhead with a kick, having aimed for where they'd last seen me. Some of the clones began calling back and forth, occasionally coughing in the sudden cloud of ash that had spread to engulf the clearing. I hadn't progressed to the point that made this jutsu B-ranked, specifically the exploding portion of it. The best Sarutobi jounin could not only form the ash with their chakra alone, but ignite said cloud with just a flare of chakra. Uncle Asuma usually used a piece of tinder to ignite the explosion, his belief being that it was a waste of chakra to infuse so much into the ash cloud to keep it up long enough to explode. I still did the infusing bit, because it was easier for me to keep up that way, but I hadn't yet figured out how to make it explode on command. I could still sense people in it though, so infusing my limbs with enough chakra to keep me silent and stealthy, I supressed the rest and went hunting.

"Damn it, get out of the smoke!" Sasuke called, coughing as he inhaled some of the ash, and I felt the brief pulse of his chakra to my left. I darted in that direction, utterly silent, and shot forward into a side kick as I felt Sasuke begin to move upwards through the smoke. I caught one of his knees and sent him flipping through the air, pursuing below with my hands already flashing through another set of hand signs.

"Doton: Doryuuheki!" I said, and as I completed the incantation I slammed a foot down into the ground, resulting in a stone wall shooting up just in front of me. It wasn't particularly tall, but I didn't need it to be as I jumped straight up and used it as a jumping point to come at Sasuke in a downwards kick. He'd landed at this point, back into the smoke, and dodged out of the way just as my foot slammed into the grass where he'd been a moment ago.

"Katon-" He began, and I grabbed and flung several senbon at him before he got the chance to finish, my body going cold at the thought of what could have just happened.

"Do you want to blow us up?" I shouted into the smokescreen, irritated with myself for not mentioning the drawbacks of this jutsu to my teammates earlier. I'd only started working on it with Uncle Asuma a week before we'd graduated though, so I'd not had the chance to use it in combat yet. Plus, the damn thing was really chakra consuming, so I didn't see much use in keeping it up for long periods in battle. It was good enough for spars for the time being, but even with my reserves extended from the chakra coil expansion exercises I'd done over the years, this was probably never going to be a go-to jutsu for me.

"What?!" Came the yelp of several Narutos, and I just barely dodged as Sasuke flung one of his fuma shuriken at me instead. I felt the touch of the chakra-laced ninja wire against my arm just in time to fling myself to the ground, the shuriken swinging back around as if it would have wrapped me in the wire trailing from its back.

"The smoke is chakra enhanced gunpowder, so no fire!" I shouted, scrambling to my feet and jumping straight up as I sensed Sasuke rapidly moving in my direction. I emerged from the cloud to see it had begun to disperse at the edges, and looked down to see Sasuke come flying up towards me. I course corrected as best I could as he came shooting up at me, blocking his fist but not able to prevent the impact as our bodies collided and we were sent soaring through the air again. There was a rapid exchange of blows on both of our parts, neither seeming to gain the upper hand as we approached the cloud again, and I felt a sudden blast of wind beneath us. Next thing I knew the cloud was gone, we had hit the ground, and the Narutos were standing in a circle together, apparently having used one of his wind ninjutsu to clear the smoke away.

"Next time, a little warning would be nice!" The Narutos shouted, turning to glare at me as I shoved Sasuke off and flipped to my feet, a kunai waiting in one hand and a storage tag in the other. Sasuke mirrored me, except he had his fuma shuriken out and no seal. Not willing to see what he was planning now that the fire hazard had cleared, I pulsed my chakra into the storage seal and a thick stream of mud came bursting out at top speed, smashing into a startled Sasuke and several of the Narutos and carrying them across the clearing. I'd gone and filled a couple of storage tags with mud after one of my ninjutsu training sessions with Mama. It never hurt to have extra tricks up your sleeves.

I flashed through more hand signs, judging that I'd managed to bring myself down to almost a third of my reserves after the effort required to get the Haisekishou to stay up, plus the earth wall, and murmured an incantation as I felt myself begin to sink into the ground. 'Ah, the usefulness of an earth affinity.' I waited as I felt the signatures of Sasuke and the original Naruto step out of what I assumed was the stream based on the splashes I'd heard before I sunk down.

"Aww, where'd she go?" I heard Naruto say, and slowly began to sink a little further before I began inching my way towards the two signatures, my meager control of air bringing only just enough oxygen to keep me going. I needed to practice that part of this jutsu. And I needed to work on the part that let me get through rock, as I was forced to dodge around another stone in my way.

"Keep an eye out. She could have gone back into the forest to prepare something else," Sasuke's voice said, coming from a few feet in front of me and about ten feet overhead.'Not exactly. I'm really going to have to share the new jutsu I learned with my teammates after this.'It was their fault, really. When they'd banned paralysis tags I'd been forced to get creative. I moved upward through the dirt, suppressing my chakra signature till it was the barest hum in the background, before I felt Sasuke right above me. With a grin, I reinforced my arms with more chakra before suddenly reaching up and grabbing at him. I felt myself latch onto two wrapped ankles and immediately yanked down, dodging out of the way as a body was pulled down with me, Naruto shouting in surprise overhead.

"Doton: Shinjuu Zanshu," I said, completing the incantation as I popped my head out of the ground to grin at a furious Sasuke, who also only had his head above the ground.

"Oh man, Yume-chan, what was that!?" Naruto asked, crouching down to inspect Sasuke as I pulled myself out of the ground, totally forgetting our spar in lieu of a 'cool, new jutsu'. I yanked out a knockout tag and slapped it to his cheek instead, causing his eyes to roll into the back of his head and for him to fall over backwards.

"All right, you win," Sasuke sighed, switching his glare to his suddenly snoring teammate as I snickered overhead. "That brings the score to 5 wins for me, 4 for Naruto, and 6 for you." I shrugged, flipping through the hand signs for the 'Doton: Moguragakure' jutsu one more time and sticking my hand into the dirt to grab Sasuke's collar and fish him out. He came away easily, as I'd pulsed my chakra into the dirt to make it soft again, and he huffed and began to brush himself off as I let him go.

We'd begun doing practice spars like these the week we'd been waiting for team assignments. It had been Sasuke's idea, as it was a good way to learn each other's fighting styles before we were placed on a team together and forced to come up with a way to work them together. Sasuke pulled off one of his ninja sandals and shook it to dislodge whatever dirt had managed to worm its way in when I'd yanked him belowground. I was starting to run very low on chakra, and was very much so regretting my decision to start off with a B-ranked jutsu.

"Wakey, wakey, sleepyhead," I joked, deactivating the spent knockout tag as I crouched beside Naruto.

"Ugh…not fair," Naruto groaned, stirring only enough to rub at his face with one hand before he stretched out again, apparently content to just lie there for the next while.

"You guys said no paralysis tags. I had to come up with something else appropriate to replace them," I replied, smiling tiredly. "I've been waiting to experiment with these knockout tags since we came up with them, so I'm glad they worked right."

"Weren't you going to test them on a cat first, though?" Naruto asked, cracking one eye open blearily. Maybe they were a bit too powerful, though?

"I would never!" I said, faking offense as I shot back to my feet. "They'd hate me even more if I even thought about it." Naruto and Sasuke both chuckled at that, Sasuke settling cross-legged beside Naruto as he'd finally finished cleaning himself off.

"I think we may need to-" Naruto paused to yawn. "Adjust the formula a bit. I'm suddenly exhausted, and I definitely didn't use that much chakra." I echoed his yawn, reaching up a hand to cover it.

"Mmm, yeah, probably," I mumbled, pulling out the three remaining tags we'd made in the first round of experiments that had worked. With most seals a dud would explode, indicating that you'd messed up on some aspect of the parameters or array in some way. That was why cancellation seals existed, to deal with duds in case you were worried the explosion might be too powerful. Others just plain didn't work if you didn't set them up properly, but this kind had been the exploding type.

"They could still be useful for transporting prisoners," Sasuke offered as I pulled out my storage scroll and unfurled it on the ground, looking for the seal that had my fuuinjutsu supplies. "Just no more experimenting on allies."

"No problem. Once was enough to see that we should fix them," I replied, finding the seal and pushing in the right amount of chakra to poof my supplies into existence again. I moved the wooden box filled with fresh paper tags, bottles filled with chakra enhanced ink, a towel and my brushes onto the grass before rolling my scroll back up again and putting it away. "Naruto, maybe we should change the spiral array for these ones?" I offered, and Naruto sat up with a sleepy grumble as we began to work through the problem of fixing the seals without causing too many explosions. Sasuke moved off to run through some katas to cool down, and we spent a pleasant two hours like that, taking a break to eat a quick snack as we waited for Kakashi-sensei to make his appearance. My chakra reserves slowly ticked back up as we rested, till I was at about half full again.

"I know I'm not an expert, but should there be that many explosions?" Sasuke asked, deadpan as he hauled me and Naruto away just in time before another failed experimental seal went off with a light boom.

"The explosion was much smaller that time. It means we're probably getting close," I replied, as Naruto began muttering to himself about 'have the final swirl be left this time'.

"Getting close to what?" Kakashi-sensei's voice asked from overhead, as Sasuke had yanked us backwards in such a manner that we'd made a little pile on the floor, both me and Naruto half on top of him.

"You're late!" Naruto shouted, pointing an accusatory finger up at Sensei as I rolled off Sasuke and popped to my feet.

"Good afternoon, Kakashi-sensei. Such a pleasure to finally be graced by your presence," I said, smiling, sarcasm dripping as I gave him a little formal bow. He chuckled and reached out to ruffle my hair, which I immediately attempted to dodge but he was still faster than me. I pouted as I reached up to smooth out my hair, readjusting my pigtails in the process.

"Sorry I'm late, a black cat crossed my path and I had to go the long way around," He said, and we all paused for a moment to take that in.

"Liar!" Naruto burst out, jumping to his feet and beginning to hop angrily from foot to foot. Sasuke rolled his eyes and flipped to his feet as well, brushing himself off once more.

"Maa, maa, so noisy," Sensei said, unconcernedly flapping a hand in Naruto's direction, but his eye was taking in the fuuinjutsu supplies we still had out and all the little black spots and holes in the ground where there hadn't been any yesterday. "I see you've been busy while you were waiting for me though. Playing with explosive tags isn't safe, you know."

"We weren't playing!" Naruto snapped, looking affronted and crossing his arms over his chest. "We were trying to fix a seal design."

"It's a knockout tag Naruto and I came up with. It's too powerful though, leaving anyone affected by it feeling nauseous and groggy for an hour after it's let up. We need something that doesn't have such intense side effects," I explained, bending over and beginning to clean up my supplies. I was using Naruto as the baseline experience for that, and considering he had his Jinchuuriki healing factor it was highly likely the effects would have been way worse for anyone else I'd used the tag on. It was a good thing I hadn't used it on Sasuke.

"Could I look it over?" Kakashi asked, and I paused, flicking a glance to Naruto. He was still frowning, but after a second he relented and nodded. I scooped up one of the original tags we'd not blown up and handed it to Sensei. He inspected it for a moment, curiously, before he pointed out a problem with one of the parameters in the upper corner of the array.

"This is set to affect too many portions of the brain," He said, and handed it back to me. I frowned and looked over that section, realizing with a start that he was right. It would mitigate some of the side effects if we changed it, but the problem lay with what we could change it to.

"We're going to need to do more research," I announced, handing the tag over to Naruto as he groaned.

"Do we have to?" He whined, inspecting the affected portion of the seal and scowling as he recognized the same problem Kakashi-sensei had pointed out.

"Training first. Research later," Sasuke ordered, snatching the tag from Naruto and tucking it into my hip pouch before either of us could protest. Kakashi-sensei chuckled in amusement as Naruto and I suddenly turned dangerous looks on our teammate, who looked entirely unrepentant for interrupting our inspection.

"All right kids, calm down," Sensei began, landing a hand on both mine and Naruto's heads and leaning on us slightly. I struggled to escape for a moment, but he leaned more of his weight on me till I stopped. "I've got plans for training for today, but first I want to check something. The notes I got from your Academy sensei stated that, of the three of you, Yumeko-chan has the best chakra control. Is that right?" When it looked like we were no longer going to jump Sasuke, he removed his hands.

"Yeah. Sasuke's right behind her, Sakura-chan was even better, and I'm not all that great at it," Naruto answered, reaching up to rub at the back of his neck sheepishly. I crouched down to finish packing up as Sensei paused, considering.

"I know the tree climbing exercise, if that makes a difference," I said, pulling out my storage scroll and resealing my stuff before I stood back up.

"Water walking as well?" Sensei asked, and I shook my head.

"I only started that three days ago. I mostly focused on the subtler chakra control exercises, like folding up delicate rice paper into increasingly complicated origami designs, being able to manipulate grains of sand individually, that kind of thing. The only reason my tutor, Nanami-sensei, let me learn tree climbing was because it was useful for chakra coil expansion exercises," I said, and Naruto and Sasuke simultaneously frowned at me.

"Coil expansion?" they said at the same time, and exchanged frowns at each other this time. I smiled a little at their reactions.

"Chakra coil expansion is a common practice among certain clans with summoning contracts. They start children with exercises to use up their chakra every day to allow their coils to expand bit by bit, ultimately allowing for a greater pool of chakra for them to use when they get older. I started when I was ten, but you can start as early as eight. The coil expansion only works up to a certain point though, because everyone has a limit to how much chakra their body can hold. That amount naturally increases as you grow, but coil expansion allows you to increase it to about 30-50% more," I explained.

"Sounds useful," Sasuke grunted, looking contemplative.

"I think the Uchiha clan already does it with their children," I pointed out. "It's part of the reason all of you start work on your fire ninjutsu so early. It allows for an increased and organic expansion of your coils over time, as you progress to increasingly difficult ninjutsu. I'm pretty sure that all clans with their own ninjutsu techniques have incorporated coil expansion into their regimens for their children in some way or another."

"It's also seriously dangerous," Kakashi-sensei said, beaming at the three of us as we turned our gazes on him again. "The possibility of suffering permanent damage to your coils increases as you get older, so you need to be carefully supervised the entire time you're doing it."

"Did you do it when you were younger, Kakashi-sensei?" Naruto asked, and he nodded.

"But that's enough about me, time to get to work now!" He said, clapping his hands together and still beaming. 'That was almost nothing at all!' "Yumeko-chan, would you like to help me demonstrate tree climbing to the boys?"

"Umm, sure?" I said, confused. I was sure Team 7 hadn't learned tree climbing until they got to the Land of Waves, but I wasn't going to complain about starting it early. Naruto could use the help with chakra control if nothing else.

"Great!" Kakashi-sensei said, and suddenly he was behind me and ushering me forward towards three of the larger trees on the edge of the clearing. The boys trailed behind us as I tried to break free of the grip on my shoulders.

"I can walk by myself!" I hissed, and Kakashi-sensei chuckled as he manhandled me over to the largest tree.

"My genin are just so uncute," He said, pleased at my reaction, and waved a hand at the tree as if for me to get on with it. I glared at him for a moment before turning to face the tree in question.

"I'm plenty cute, old man," I said, flipping one pigtail over my shoulder imperiously like Ino did with her own hair, on occasion, before calmly walking over and channeling chakra to the soles of my feet as I began to walk vertically up the tree. It didn't take much effort to keep the output of my chakra constant, since I was used to much more gruelling chakra control tasks, but tree climbing also took more chakra than some of those other exercises. That was mostly because you were directly fighting against gravity and attempting to balance your weight against the forces pulling against you. I imagined it probably grew harder, and thus required slightly more chakra, the greater one's mass. Plus, there was the problem of molding chakra in the coils in one's feet, though I'd never had much trouble with that aspect. I stopped at the highest branch, walking along it and settling down, my legs dangling, and the cutest smile I could muster plastered across my face.

"Woah…Yume-chan, that was awesome!" Naruto cheered from below, grinning broadly. Sasuke was inspecting the tree next to mine with sudden interest, as if he wanted to attempt to make his way up right at that moment.

"Adorable," Kakashi-sensei deadpanned, and I glared at him again as he turned to Sasuke and Naruto and handed them two kunai from his pouch. 'I'm physically thirteen, I'm still in the cute phase, you damn jerk! I'll show you!'

"You're going to need to gather chakra to the bottom of your feet to climb the tree," He began, both boys suddenly paying the utmost attention to him. I tuned him out, staring out over the clearing and swinging my feet back and forth.

'Why does he push my buttons so quickly? Well, besides the fact that he's got who knows how many years of practice messing with people...Yeah, OK, that's probably how. No tight feeling lately though. Maybe it went away with exposure to him? Izumi, what do you think?'

No response, not that I'd been expecting any. I sighed and looked up at the sky, the lightest wisps of clouds beginning to drift across it.

I was jolted from my reverie at the sound of cracking wood, and glanced over to see a large hole about halfway up one of the trees, a slash mark just above it and a panting Sasuke below, glaring up at the mark. Naruto was currently clutching his head and whimpering on the ground beside him, as if he'd hit it on the way down.

"Well…that's one way of doing it," Kakashi-sensei said, his classic orange book out as he lounged under my tree. "Now, Sasuke-kun, where do you think you went wrong?"

"Too much chakra," He panted, frowning down at the kunai in his hands. "I need to use less, but not so little that I fall off like Naruto did."

"Good," Kakashi said, and waved a hand at the boys to continue, not taking his eye off the pages in front of him for a second. I rolled my eyes and jumped off my branch, hopping to the next and the next before I landed on the ground, using my chakra to absorb any force from the landing.

"Do you guys want some help?" I offered, moving over as I flashed through hand signs and placed my hand on Naruto's head, swiftly healing the bump he'd managed to obtain after his fall. It had already begun to heal by the time I reached it, I had just sped it along.

"Maybe later," Sasuke replied, taking off at a run for the tree and making it right up to where he'd gotten last time before he was suddenly slipping and jumped off. He flipped through the air, landing in a crouch, and glaring again at the marginally wider mark he'd made overtop the original.

"Thanks for healing me, Yume-chan," Naruto said brightly, jumping to his feet, and palming the kunai he'd been given again. "I want to try a couple more times before I ask for advice, though." With that, he began running for the tree next to Sasuke's, and I shook my head in amusement as he made it a quarter of the way up before he was suddenly flinging himself backwards, having made his mark after he lost control and began to slip.

"Sensei, do you mind if I go work on water walking on the stream?" I asked, turning to him. "I can mostly do it on a still pond, but I want to see if I can handle moving water."

"Try not to fall in," He said, flipping to another page, and I huffed in irritation before turning and moving over to the stream. I heard a giggle from behind me and immediately scowled. I needed to burn those books, sooner rather than later.

I walked over to the burbling stream that cut through the training grounds, the sunlight overhead glinting across it. It was decently large, about five meters across at this point, and I crouched down to dip a finger in. I yanked it out almost immediately, because Holy shit, cold. It was late March now, so I wasn't sure what I'd been expecting, especially after my experience yesterday. Sighing, I hastily unclipped my pouches and my tantou and set them to the side. If I fell in, I'd prefer it if only my clothes got wet this time. I had an extra change in my storage scroll, an addition to the seals after yesterday.

I carefully drew chakra to my feet, creating the equivalent of little chakra discs below them, and put one foot out over the water, the other still balanced on shore. One of the easiest methods to keep oneself afloat was to make sure that the density of one's chakra was lower than the density of the water below. You also needed to bond your chakra to the molecules in the water below you, to anchor it and prevent yourself from losing your balance. That applied to both still and moving water, but the issue with moving water was that one needed to constantly be correcting for the flow of the water to stay in one place, or else you'd simply just be dragged along for a ride. I'd also heard things about surface tension and some more advanced physics, but I liked my own method for now.

I spent about five minutes practicing with one foot till I felt confident enough to put the other out, almost immediately compensating for my full weight as I did so. As I felt the water moving below me, my chakra responding and rapidly attaching and detaching itself to the flow so that I remained in one position, I couldn't help but smile. I had thought this was cool when I'd finally managed it on the koi pond at home, but doing it on a moving surface of water was even better. Things like this had been impossible in my former world, so suddenly being able to do these amazing, magical things still blew my mind on occasion. There was still even more left for me to learn and do though, so many different techniques and abilities I was just waiting to get a chance at.

'You're a wizard, Yumeko.' I giggled quietly at the thought, and shakily took a step forward. It was a little bit more difficult to immediately compensate for the change in position, but I managed it. I kept up a tight focus as I slowly made my way across the stream, turning back and moving a bit faster the second time. When I still hadn't fallen in, I grinned and proceeded to start jogging across the surface, running through some of my taijutsu katas as I did so. I was halfway tempted to try skating, but I'd never been very good at it in my past life and the brief spike of fear at the thought shut it down almost immediately.

I wasn't certain how much time had passed as I practiced water walking, but eventually I heard Naruto's familiar voice calling my name. I turned, stopping the kick-punch-kick combination I'd been working on, to see him waving from the shore banks, grinning brightly. I'd also been thinking as I practiced, attempting to make plans for the chuunin exams that were coming up. I still wanted to protect Grandpa, but unlike when I'd been younger and could just throw ANBU at the problem, there was far more nuance to the issue this time around. I shook my head, clearing it of thoughts of Orochimaru, before I made my way over, stopping on the edge to secure my pouches and weapons again as I spoke.

"What's up?" I said, and Naruto's grin grew sheepish.

"Sensei says we're going to report in and get a mission soon, but I was wondering if you could give me some advice on the tree climbing technique first," He replied, and I glanced overhead at the position of the sun. 'Huh…it's 2 o'clock already? I didn't even notice. Of course, frantically coming up with and discarding plans about a certain rogue Sannin could make anyone lose track of time.'

"Sure, no problem. How far up the tree have you gotten?" I asked, linking my arm with his as we walked over to where he and Sasuke had been practicing.

"I'm almost halfway up!" Naruto said, and then frowned. "Sasuke's still further ahead than me though."

"He's got more practice with chakra control than you," I replied, bumping his shoulder in reassurance. "Remember, he did some more advanced versions of the leaf sticking exercise so that he could learn his family's fire ninjutsu."

"Yeah, I know," Naruto grumbled, looking up at where Sasuke was still running at his tree, even though I could tell he'd used up about three quarters of his reserves in the past three or so hours. He and Sasuke were best friends, but they still had a rather friendly rivalry going on. Each of them had their own specialties, like Naruto with fuuinjutsu and Sasuke with his family's genjutsu, but in regard to ninjutsu and taijutsu they were relatively even. It helped that, instead of being dead last, Naruto had gotten private tutoring from Ebisu-sensei with me, and Itachi and Shisui when they could spare the time.

Naruto was thus far more advanced than he'd been at this point in canon, so he and Sasuke were at about the same level. It frustrated them both on occasion, because they both wanted to be the very best (like no one ever was), but had this other person that they knew really well who was almost the same in terms of ability. It pushed them both to new heights when it came to training, or so I'd noticed. I was just glad that they got along well enough that their rivalry wasn't interfering with their friendship.

"At least you didn't break your tree," I said, pointing out the differences among the two tree trunks now that was I standing below them. Even though Naruto had much more chakra than Sasuke, his control was so lacking that he'd not caused any breaks in the tree trunk. Sasuke, in addition to the original one I'd been here for, had managed to create about three more in the time that I'd been practicing water walking. Two of them were almost overlapping, the third all the way down the trunk, like he'd suddenly lost concentration and expelled too much chakra, and the fourth was just below the highest mark he'd managed to make, two thirds of the way up the tree.

"Yeah, yeah, that's true!" Naruto cheered, moving over and patting the tree trunk like it was an old friend. I smiled slightly and heard the impact of Sasuke landing beside us again, making a frustrated noise before he collapsed backwards on the grass.

"Have you guys just been running at the trees this whole time?" I asked, glancing over to where Kakashi-sensei was still reading his book. He'd noticed I'd moved back though, because his one visible eye had momentarily looked over and winked at me before going back to his reading. So, he must have been spectacularly unhelpful with the boys then. Probably on purpose, to get them to be less stubborn about asking for help.

"Basically," Sasuke panted, glancing over at me. I pulled out my storage scroll and unsealed a water bottle, handing it to him. He took it with a nod of thanks and sat up a little to start downing it.

"Well, it might be easier if you went about it more slowly," I said. "Like, gather your chakra to your feet and test it against the tree trunk before you make your way up. That way, you can adjust the output as necessary and find a good balance before you start climbing. It might take longer to get to the top of the tree, and you'll have to spend some time practicing moving at different speeds to get accustomed to those too, but it's probably still better. Running works well because once you've mastered quickly moving up the tree, slower speeds come more easily."

Naruto was looking at me like I'd just given him the sagest of advice, and I rolled my eyes and gently pushed him towards the tree trunk to try it. Sasuke got up as well, handing me back the now empty bottle, and made his way to his own trunk to try the other method. I watched carefully, resealing it and getting ready to try and catch one of them should they fall, but my method appeared to have been all they needed to slowly make their way up to the first set of stable branches. They weren't at the top yet, but it was progress. It helped that they'd been practicing for a while before, and I smiled proudly as they settled onto the branches, grinning at each other.

"Well done," Kakashi-sensei said, clapping slowly as he got to his feet, his book tucked away again. "Of course, this is one of the most basic chakra control exercises for genin to master..." The way he trailed off and his deadpan tone had both of my boys twitching in the trees above and I had to struggle to not start snickering. OK, so it was funnier when he did it to other people.

"To the Administration Center then?" I asked, and he nodded as Sasuke and Naruto carefully walked back down the trees. Naruto was watching the back of Sensei's head contemplatively as we began to walk out of the training grounds, a mischievous glint in his eyes. I didn't particularly want to know what he was planning.

It took us maybe twenty minutes to walk over from our training grounds. There were a lot more people out at this time of the day, packing the streets as they moved around on their daily business, laughing and talking and just overall seeming cheery. As we walked people would occasionally call out greetings to me, and I had to put my 'people' smile in place and struggle to remember who most of them even were. Mama was much better at it than I was, but I got along as best as I could. They honestly just seemed happy to be greeted in response, like it was a big deal to be remembered by name.

Sensei had his book out again as we moved, using it as a shield against human contact and socialization as we progressed. Nobody even gave him a second look at that, but they did seem surprised by the three of us trooping along behind him. I guess it made sense, as Kakashi had never taken a genin team before and was notoriously anti-social.

"Does he always walk around with that out?" Sasuke asked me quietly, and I nodded.

"With what out?" Sensei said, turning back to glance at us momentarily, feigning confusion.

"That perverted book!" Naruto snapped, dancing around to the front of the formation and gesturing at the orange cover.

"Icha Icha is a work of art," Sensei replied, sounding offended, and I rolled my eyes.

"Jiraiya-san wrote it. That immediately makes that statement suspicious," I said.

"Yumeko-chan!" A familiar voice called out, interrupting whatever Sasuke had been about to add as I felt a body slam into me from behind, their arms wrapping around my neck and a laugh bursting out of them as I stumbled forward a step.

"Ino-chan!" I cried, grinning as I disengaged from her and turned to hug the girl in response. There was some girlish shrieking from the both of us as we loudly began to catch up, even though we'd seen each other two days ago, which had Sasuke making a strategic retreat behind Kakashi-sensei at the noise and Naruto gaping at us.

"Troublesome. Ino, everyone's staring," Shikamaru grumbled, slouching up to us, a beaming Chouji eating out of a bag of chips beside him. I waved at them in response instead of saying anything, causing Shikamaru to roll his eyes in amusement.

"Ino-chan." Uncle Asuma's reprimanding voice was all the warning we got before Ino was having her ponytail gently tugged on, and she immediately whirled around to start admonishing him. He had a lit cigarette in his mouth and ignored Ino in favour of nodding a greeting to Kakashi-sensei.

"Asuma," He nodded in response. "I see your team is…loud."

"Just Ino-chan," Asuma replied, reaching out to ruffle her hair, causing the girl in question to make an irritated shrieking noise as she batted his hands away and began attempting to fix her hair. I giggled happily, reaching out and assisting, honestly just glad to see the three of them. After spending so much time with the ten of us (eleven when Neji was around) being attached at the hip, it felt weird to go even two days without seeing them. "You have Naruto-kun and my niece though. I think you're probably worse off." Naruto and I both made offended noises at that as Sensei nodded sagely.

"Yes, I'd noticed. You're not supposed to use muzzles on children, right? I'm going to have to come up with something else." Naruto whirled and immediately began shouting about 'I'm not a dog, dattebayo!' and Ino, Chouji and I all started laughing.

"Can we please keep moving?" Sasuke ground out, peeking his head out from behind Sensei to glare at the lot of us, and I grinned unrepentantly. I skipped forward, snagging Naruto's arm in one hand and dragged him forward to link my other arm with one of Sasuke's. He let out a long-suffering sigh but let me move them both forward, Ino tagging along just behind us and asking Naruto about what his plans were for Sakura's birthday present. The rest of our group trudged along after, Sensei and Asuma falling to the back of the column to discuss something or other.

We reached the Administration Center about a minute later, making our way to the Main Mission Desk on the first floor. There was a Jounin exclusive mission center on one of the upper floors, and ANBU had their own mission center in their base somewhere within the village. I wasn't sure if their base's location had ever been covered in the manga, but if it had I most definitely didn't remember it anymore.

The room was packed, other groups of older genin and their jounin instructors already waiting for assignments, some random genin corps members and several groups of chuunin, based on their vests, filling up the rest of the area. Grandpa was seated at the head of the room behind a long table covered in paperwork, several chuunin seated on either side of him. Said chuunin seemed to be constantly in motion, fluttering around with paperwork and updating the large board at the front of the room as missions were assigned or reported in as completed.

Our groups had arrived for the afternoon section of mission time, as training teams were divided into two different time slots in regard to training and missions. Half of them were given mornings to train, and then expected to come in and complete at least one D-rank mission, or be assigned a C-rank mission if they were more experienced, to finish the day. The other half had missions in the morning and training in the afternoon. I didn't sense Kiba, Hinata or Shino anywhere in the crowd, so I was pretty sure they belonged to the morning group.

Our two groups lined up, Kakashi-sensei only just managing to keep an excited Naruto from literally bouncing off the walls. Shikamaru was eyeing him, keeping his distance beside Uncle Asuma, as Naruto almost vibrated in place. Ino was having a serious discussion with Sasuke about some criminal in one of the older bingo books she'd apparently lent him when he asked, both ignoring what was going on behind them. Chouji and I were just watching Kakashi-sensei try to silently corral Naruto without looking like he actually cared, wordlessly sharing his bag of chips as we watched the entertainment.

"Naruto, you know that we're probably not going to get anything more exciting than babysitting, right?" I finally asked, taking pity on Sensei, and he turned to me with a frightening gleam in his eyes. I took a step back as all his focus suddenly shifted to me, everyone else moving carefully away as Naruto suddenly appeared before me.

"I know, I know, but we're finally going to be real shinobi! D-ranks are just the first step, 'dattebayo! Once we breeze through these, then we get to go on C-ranks, then when we make chuunin we're gonna go on B-ranks, and then next thing you know I'm going to be Hokage!" He shouted, and I immediately clapped a hand over his mouth as people turned to look at us.

"Maa, Naruto-kun, it doesn't go exactly like that," Kakashi-sensei tried to point out, but I was suddenly yanked forward as I struggled to keep my hand on Naruto's mouth as he whirled around and immediately began a muffled tirade. "All right, never mind. That's exactly how it goes." From what I could sense, his chakra was baffled and a little overwhelmed. He definitely wasn't used to interacting with anyone as hyperactive as Naruto. I wasn't sure anyone could be prepared for prolonged exposure to him.

"Team 10!" A harried sounding voice called out, and we realized that we'd managed to get to the front of the line while Naruto had distracted us. Ino stepped forward imperiously, hand out, as the chuunin began shuffling through papers, Grandpa looking pleased as he watched us.

"Naruto-kun, you seem to be in a good mood today," He said, leaning forward and propping his chin on his hands, his pipe dangling from one of them. Naruto nodded enthusiastically, and I carefully removed my hand once it looked like he wasn't about to explode with sound again.

"Yumeko-chan, you're officially in charge of wrangling," Kakashi-sensei said, clapping a hand on my shoulder, and I gave him a despairing look as Sasuke snorted in amusement. The bastard had his eye closed and crinkled at the corner like he was beaming at me, and I pouted as I turned back to face the front desk.

"Thanks for the mission," Uncle Asuma said, almost grinning at the crestfallen looks on Chouji and Shikamaru's face and the triumphant look on Ino's. It looked like she'd picked their first D-rank, and knowing her she'd picked something there was no way for her teammates to get out of doing. They made their way out of the thinning crowd, and then it was our turn.

"Well, Team 7, there are three D-rank missions you could probably handle," Grandpa said, a twinkle in his eyes as he took over for the chuunin who'd been helping Team 10.

"We'll handle anything you throw at us, Gramps! Just you wait and see!" Naruto boomed, and I winced at the volume.

"Indoor voice, Naruto!" I hissed at him. "Are you trying to become another Gai-san?" He turned around, spluttering in denial, as we both knew exactly who the real miniature Gai-san was.

"What are the missions, Hokage-sama?" Sasuke gritted out, stepping forward and between us before we could start actually arguing.

"For a rookie genin team, I have a babysitting job, a gardening job, or a construction job," He said, and I could see the twitch at the corner of his lips as he struggled not to laugh at the sight of me having placed Naruto in a headlock to get him to shut up. He was still struggling and whining, no longer at top volume though, so it was starting to work at least. I wasn't going to hit him, not like Sakura would have if this had been canon, but either me or Sasuke wrestling with him a little bit usually helped calm Naruto down. I didn't mind; it was honestly kind of fun to get caught up in his rhythm on occasion. We'd both stilled at the sound of the available missions though, our eyes meeting, and burst out in unison before Kakashi-sensei or Sasuke could speak.

"Gardening!" We shouted, disengaging, and darting forward to the front of the table, hands held out for the mission scroll. The chuunin, who'd still been sitting there just letting Grandpa speak, leapt backward in surprise with an undignified squeak. Grandpa let out a bark of laughter at that, rummaging through the papers in front of him and pulling out the requisite scroll.

"Of course," Sasuke grumbled, rolling his eyes, but I could tell that Kakashi-sensei was baffled at our enthusiastic response. To be honest, I was only picking gardening because watching Naruto work with plants was a treasure. He got so into it, frolicking through the dirt and coaxing plants to life through his own brand of wild energy and magic, that sometimes I wondered if he wasn't actually part woodland fairy or nymph or something. Grandpa tossed the scroll to Kakashi-sensei, who easily caught it, saluted a quick greeting to him, and herded the three of us out of the office. 'If all of our days are going to be like this, I could get used to it.'

(Why did I have to jinx it?)