Akimichi Chouza smiled over at his wife who was anxiously waiting for their son's return, and news of whether or not he and his team had passed. She wasn't the most beautiful of women and never had been, but he wouldn't trade her for the world.

He had originally courted her slimmer and much prettier sister who, as it turned out, had only given him the time of day because she wanted the prestige of being associated with one of Konoha's premier ninja clans. Fortunately for him, that relationship sank when he had seen how cruel that woman was to her sister who later ended up becoming his wife. Choosing to walk over to his beloved and comfort her had been a decision he never regretted, especially after he'd heard about the scandal that other woman had caused when she had cheated on that poor wealthy bastard she'd netted after he'd broken up with her.

His home had been a happy one, and he'd never been given cause to doubt his wife's fidelity.

Eventually, after an eternity of waiting, his son came through the door with his teammates in tow. He could hear his son's heavy footsteps from where he and his wife were seated in the living-room followed by Shikamaru's slower and lazier tread and someone who was pattering around like a herd of cats at dinner who was presumably the Uzumaki boy. His anxious wife went over to greet the team which she was afraid might have been deliberately failed because the Uzumaki boy had been placed on it.

It appeared from the fact that the children, especially the Uzumaki boy, sounded happy that that wasn't the case. He didn't know exactly what the Hokage had been thinking when he'd set the teams. He'd fully expected there to be another Ino-Shika-Chou team this year, and it had looked as if it had been heading that way until everyone had been completely blindsided by the team selection yesterday. The choice to place Naruto on his son's team made a little bit of sense if you thought about it, considering the fact that Shikamaru and Chouji were amongst the very few children in Konoha who positively interacted with the Uzumaki boy on a regular basis, occasionally getting into trouble with him when they skipped class. But, Ino-chan, who really should have been on the team, had known his son and Shikamaru since birth and got along with them well enough.

The placing of Ino-chan on the same team as her crush and her former best friend turned rival was worrisome as well. Considering the rivalry they held for the Uchiha's affections, it was quite possible that one would push the other into doing something that couldn't be taken back in order to "win". It was quite possible that that something could result in a baby that either girl would not be ready for. He, Inoichi, and Shikaku had warned the Uchiha boy of what would happen if he did anything that might hurt the future of either of the girls, and the boy had seemed to take the lecture to heart, but with teenagers, you never knew.

When he reached the kitchen where the boys were snacking on the food that Kimiko had made in order to comfort Chouji over the potential failure of his team, the Uzumaki child was chattering away a mile a minute like a certain redhead he'd barely known but had met on a couple of particularly memorable occasions. He'd never really gotten close enough to the boy to really study him before, and had mostly seen him in the distance when he was calling Chouji in for the evening. Aside from coloring, the boy clearly took after his mother. He didn't know who the boy's father was, but if he didn't know any better he was willing to swear that...nah, it was completely ridiculous, and if it was so, Shikaku would have told him, right? Right?

"...And then I used my Oiroke Jutsu on him and he fell over and we got the bells!" the Uzumaki boy said loudly, completing the story as he happily munched on the food Kimiko had provided.

Someone would have to teach the Uzumaki boy some manners, and based on Kimiko's expression, it looked as if it would be his wife who would do it.

&!&!&!&!&

"Team 7 Pass." Kakashi said upon entering the Hokage's office.

He had seriously considered not passing the team, his debt to Obito be damned. The three of them completely lacked teamwork, and the Uchiha boy was an arrogant prick. However, he didn't want to be raked over hot coals by Inoichi for failing his precious daughter, and the village as a whole for failing the Uchiha who was supposed to bring back the prestige the village had lost after the Massacre. Life would be easier for him if he just passed the brats, that and he would be able to get his revenge on two of them without anyone interfering now that they were his students.

He was originally supposed to have Naruto on his team instead of Ino. What had happened, as the Hokage had explained when he'd gotten his team assignment and Naruto's name wasn't on it, was that the Hokage had seen Naruto being mistreated by the Uchiha boy and the Haruno girl, and had decided to place him on a team that he would be able to actually work with without being the team punching bag. Since the change had been practically spur of the moment, the Hokage had thought that leaving it at just that change would be best rather than causing a great deal of last minute chaos as paperwork was refiled in order to re-order the senseis of the teams. Up until the last minute, the rosters for the teams were mutable when it came to students due to the possibility of last second drop-outs and injuries that might prevent a student from joining his or her team, or the sudden declaration of a blood feud between clans who each had a child who would have been on the same team as a child from the other clan. The teacher selection was almost always made at the beginning of the final year, and most of the paperwork was filled out in advance with just a few blanks where the student names and numbers went.

Thanks to the Uchiha boy and the Haruno girl, he wasn't going to be Naruto's sensei like he had promised Minato-sensei before he died. He would be taking that out of their little hides over the coming years.

"Good." the Hokage said in response to his statement when he entered the office, as he marked Team 7 down in the Pass column in which Team 10 which held the boy he was supposed to be teaching was already marked. "I've received reports that Uchiha Sasuke has been showing more emotion over the last two days than he has in the last year. Perhaps this team is exactly what the boy needs to draw him out of his shell."

"Either that or drive him insane." he muttered as he left the Hokage's office, remembering the look of dawning horror on the boy's face and the wail of utter despair when he had realized that the team had passed and he was stuck with a pair of girls who were reportedly his most rabid fangirls.