– Inside the sphere –

Naruto was surrounded by a red aura that was thick enough for the visible eye to see. Behind him a single tail began to form. However, Naruto was losing control. The sly fox was screwing with his mind. Naruto was now regretting his decision. He was at fault for taking more than he could bear. A second tail began to sprout. As soon as Naruto thought it was over, a seal suddenly flashed through his mind and supressed the fox's aura.

Naruto nearly collapsed after the having the ninetail's chakra forcefully supressed. He could no longer maintain his Domain any longer as well. He could only open reinforcements arrived in time. Then, Naruto fainted.

– In an unknown place –

"You idiots. To think that the two of you could not even capture one kid who did not even graduate yet. How useless can you two be? Now they'll be alert for any enemies. The two of you have set back our plans for quite a long stretch now."

"Sir, he was unexpectedly strong…"

"STRONG? He's only twelve. A mere twelve year old was able to slip through your hands. If this got out, our reputation would plummet. Thanks to your failure, we have to lie low for a while now."

– Back at Konoha –

The third Hokage who had his battle armour on had a relieved look on his face when he found Naruto safe. Other ninjas around him were simply glad that the ninetails wasn't stolen from them. Only the old man thought of Naruto's safety and importance.

'He must have been in contact with the ninetails,' thought the Hokage. 'If Naruto could control the ninetails, then it would be great for both him and the village. But alas, that seems to be quite difficult. The ninetails seemed to have helped Naruto. Should I tell that pervert to come back and teach this guy or let him develop on his own for now? He hasn't made many friends yet. A kid should be in contact with people his age. Ah, I'm really getting too old for this job. I need to find a replacement. Why did I even come out of my retirement? I'll just let Naruto develop his own skills while increasing the security around him.'

Naruto woke up at the hospital two weeks later. When he circulated his chakra around his body, he found that his chakra was thicker and stronger. Clearly, using the fox's chakra earlier also benefited him. After stretching to relax his muscles, Naruto jumped out his window and towards the academy.

Not long after, a team of comprised of three people walked into room that Naruto was previously in. They were looking for the fourth member of their team. As they entered, their eyes went from the empty bed to the open windows before connecting the dots.

A few seconds later, a nurse walked by and came to the same conclusion. "Hello, was this fellow part of your team?"

"Yes," replied the team leader. "I am responsible for him and was supposed to see when he would wake up. Since he woke up, I will have to look for him. I'll see you later."

"Wait," cried the Nurse as the team leader began to quickly walk away.

"Yes?" asked the team leader? He was quite confused as to why the nurse would stop him.

"That patient who left earlier did not pay his hospital bills. Since you said you're the team leader, shouldn't you be responsible?"

'Damn,' thought the team leader. 'Oh well, how much can it be.'

When the nurse handed the bill to the team leader, his eye almost fell out of his socket. "Isn't this robbery?"

The two other team members took a glance at the bill in their leader's hands secretly gloated. The past two weeks, their leader barely participated in the D-ranked missions and hardly put in any effort in training them. The heaven's truly had eyes.

"The Hokage said to give the patient the best treatment. Do you see this?" The nurse pointed to the legs of the hospital bed. "The wheels are made of gold and the plates that serve snacks are made of silver. This is our most luxurious room in the hospital suited for the most important guests. If it wasn't for the Hokage who personally requested for him to be treated well, do you think this room would be given to your team member? Because it was the Hokage's request, I've already discounted the price to 50%. We are certainly not cheating you at all. Now please hurry up and pay it, I still need to attend to other patients."

The nurse gave an impatient look to the team leader and even scolded him. The team leader felt wrong. Naruto was part of his team but he hasn't even met him officially. In the end, he gave in. Although it was a large sum that he paid, it didn't amount much to him. "Let's go to the Hokage tower."

"Kakashi, have you seen Naruto yet?" asked the third Hokage. Kakashi was the team leader who was visiting the hospital earlier.

"Yes, but he seems to have escaped already and left me with the bill," said a dejected Kakashi.

"Bill? The hospital bill? I paid that in advance already. Looks like you got duped."

Behind Kakashi, the pinked hair team member couldn't hold it in and giggled out loud.

"Ahem." Kakashi cleared his throat and the giggling behind him finally stopped.

"Alright, let's get serious here," said the third Hokage. "Your new mission is to find Naruto and integrate him into your team."

The three people left the tower and didn't know where to start looking. Previously, finding dogs and cats were pretty simple. But this was Naruto! If Naruto doesn't want to be found, who can find him? Kakashi was especially worried about this mission for if Naruto were to hide in his clan's mansion, then he can forget about looking for him.

"Any suggestions?" Kakashi asked his team.

"Let's try the academy?"

"Ramen stand."

In the end, the team decided to head towards the academy first. But when they got there, it turned out Naruto had already received his headband and left. Thankfully, Iruka notified Naruto that he had to meet up with his team. Naruto, who was very eager to meet his team when he received his headband, went out to look for them.

After a series of running all of Konoha, Kakashi and his team finally found Naruto.

"Now that you are all gathered, we will be doing a test. Failing the test will result in D-ranked missions for the next three months," Kakashi told his team with little emotion.

"WHAT?" Two voices cried in unison. The two other team members, Sasuke and Sakura, could not believe that if they failed the upcoming test, they would have to bear the burden of doing D-ranked missions.

Naruto, on the other hand, had no idea what D-ranked missions were. But judging the reactions of his two new teammates, he knew that it was nothing good.

"There's this bell at my waist. Your goal is to steal it in an hour. I will be around this training ground. The hour starts now." Without another word, Kakashi disappeared.

The three team members looked at each other. Naruto had no intention of working together to complete this test. Before saying a word to his teammates, Naruto left. He was determined to pass this test all by himself. Working with others would just drag him down.

Hidden in a tree was none other than Kakashi. 'If they don't work together, I won't lower the difficultly. I may have to look out for Naruto since the reports say he specializes in Fuinjutsu, but that shouldn't be much of a problem. That report of a rasengan appearing two weeks ago is a little concerning. According to the damage report on Sasuke, it doesn't seem the rasegan's full power was unleashed. Then again, this slimy kid might be hiding his true strength.'

Sakura ran around the trees. She wanted to follow Sasuke but couldn't catch up. Already ten minutes have passed.

Right above Sakura was Kakashi. If the three of them did not work together, he was going to make them pay a price one by one. Just as Kakashi was to strike out at Sakura, he stopped and realized something was wrong. He couldn't tell exactly what was wrong but the problem didn't arise from Sakura. Rather, it was the surroundings at concerned Kakashi. Theoretically, he could just use his other eye to see what's going on, but that would be overdoing for this test.

'Although Sasuke has his own strengths, the one behind this should be Naruto. It seems he's using Sakura as bait. But that would mean he has already detected me? Does this even count as teamwork?'