Disclaimer: The Naruto and Sonic the Hedgehog characters do not belong to me! I could say I owned the Naruto Characters and the Sonic the Hedgehog characters but I won't for three obvious reasons. 1) Everyone would know otherwise and I would be flamed until I burned to death, 2)I don't imagine their creators would be too happy, and 3) I'm more or less an honest person and do not wish to steal from others. So there you have it.

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Naruto waited impatiently as the minutes slowly ticked by, each second agonizingly slow as his stomach rumbled and pleaded for food. "One minute…" he mumbled, "A minute fifteen seconds…a minute twenty seconds…" He slammed his hands down on the table and yelled, "HURRY UP AND FINISH COOKING ALREADY! I HAVEN'T ALL DAY!" The bowl of instant ramen obviously didn't heat up any faster.

"I'm soooo hungry…" He complained to himself, grabbing his leaf-blade protector from the table and strapping it on his forehead. He scratched his head, slightly messing up his own yellow hair which stuck up anyway, then stared at one of his Anti-Sasuke Posters for the next two minutes. Finally the ramen finished cooking and he grabbed the cup, slurping the noodles down greedily. In a matter of seconds, he was finished and was racing out the door.

Keeping up his relentless pace, Naruto sped through the village streets, knocking over a few carefree villagers. He skidded to a halt in a grass clearing not too far away from the last signs of inhabitance, almost knocking down a small sapling just beginning to spread out its leaves to the sunlight for spring. Naruto laughed to himself as he thought, "For once, I'm actually on time!"

He nearly jumped out of his skin as he heard a quiet voice behind him, "Finally come, Naruto?" The Ninja-in-training whirled around in surprise to see Sasuke, Sakura, and Kakashi all standing with their arms crossed.

Sasuke smirked then taunted, "You're three minutes late…what have you been doing, making Ramen?"

Naruto laughed, trying to hide his embarrassment, "No, of course not…heh heh…why would you think something like that!"

Sakura smacked him upside the head as she yelled, "BECAUSE YOU HAVE NOODLES ALL DOWN YOUR FRONT, IDIOT!"

Naruto rubbed his head, looking down at his chest, and quickly wiped the noodles off as he thought, "They could have told me quietly…that stupid Sasuke…"

"Settle down, settle down." Kakashi ordered, "Now that we're all here, we need to discuss our newest mission. It's a rank higher than what we've normally done before but I think you're up to the challenge." He watched the interest enter Team seven's faces as they stared at him eagerly, awaiting the instructions. Kakashi smiled under his mask. "There have been reports of strange happenings on the outskirts of our village…it's up to us to figure out exactly what's causing these events and put a stop to them." He didn't wait for questions, instead, reaching in his pocket and pulling out a book, reading to himself as the members of team seven spoke in soft whispers.

Naruto didn't seem impressed by their assignment. "Yeah right, above our level!" he scoffed, "All we have to do is watch some area…not too difficult!"

Sasuke offered some input, "Whatever it is must be powerful enough to cause enough worry for it to be assigned as a mission…"

"Yeah, Sasuke-kun is right!" Sakura chimed in, "Besides, stopping this thing will be an adventure! And if it gets too dangerous, Sasuke-kun will protect me!"

"Sasuke-kun will protect me!" Naruto mimicked, annoyance flashing on his face. "It's probably just some dumb animal scaring little kids!"

"Naruto, you're just afraid!" Sakura answered.

Sasuke smirked and turned his back on the pair, walking off. He didn't turn as Naruto yelled, "WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU'RE GOING TO! I'M NOT THROUGH WITH YOU!" Without looking, Sasuke sidestepped as Naruto came charging towards him. Naruto couldn't stop and ran straight into the sapling, this time knocking it down in a shower of splinters.

"Hmph…" Sasuke said as Sakura giggled, hands over her mouth.

Naruto glared at him indignantly as he thought bitterly, "Why does Sakura-chan even have to like him? He's so annoying!" He stood up, yanking a few splinters from the palm of his hand, blue eyes full of annoyance, verging on hatred.

Kakashi looked up from his reading, "Guys, a part of being on the same team is teamwork so stop trying to kill each other and get along! Besides, I can't concentrate on my book!"

"Yes, Kakashi-sensei…" They answered simultaneously, still glaring angrily at each other.

Finally Kakashi asked, "Why are you all standing around here for? Can't you see I'm trying to read! Go home, rest up, and prepare yourself for tomorrow's mission."

The three students walked their separate ways. Naruto reached home as he grumbled to himself, "All that getting ready just for one short meeting!" He sat at his table where he shoved the empty ramen cups out of his way and began sketching another bad picture of Sasuke. He sprawled a nasty slogan underneath before hanging it up and scowling to himself. "That Sasuke…he just gets on my last nerves!"

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The third Hokage sat peering into his crystal ball, watching the group carefully as he muttered to himself, "If they ever want to move up to higher missions, they need to learn to work together…"

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Well…it was short…but I usually write what I like to call Manga-chapters…which are really short. Don't sue me cuz the writing quality isn't the best it could be…I just haven't been in a writing mood lately and I'm suffering a painful loss. This was to cheer me up mostly…but I decided to post it anyways b/c I haven't been updating my other stories. Read and Review…I wanna get some emails other than the sad ones I've been receiving lately. And please no flames.