Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or else the forth shinobi world war would find an end someday.

Hi...Umm...Sorry?

I was quite busy the past months between helping with renovating my parents' house and learning for my oral Bachelor exams. Thankfully both efforts payed off and I now have time to write again.

I hope that I can start posting new chapters more regularly again and with less time between updates and want to reach the chapter per week I had originally aimed for although it might turn into two weeks per chapter if each turns out as long as this one...

On a completely unrelated matter, I'm really happy that I get in my opinion many and mainly positive reviews. Your feedback is really appreciated and helps me keep on track and the story coherent. Sometimes I don't know what I have written down yet what not and your reviews help me find if I forgot to mention something or intentionally left it out.

So keep it up and review! :D

It also makes me really happy that even throughout the long time without a new update people kept following and faving the story. Every time I get a notification about it is a confirmation for me that people are still interested that I continue this story which in turn motivates me to do just that.

That's it from me, so enjoy reading.

Reviews:

vampyaoifan123:

Thanks. I hope you'll continue to love it ;)

ladygoddess8:

Close, but not exactly. I will explain what happened later on but apparently I have an unconscious love for leaving things as noodle incidents at first. Only noticed it when writing this chapter but makes me actually fell like I'm kind of a jerk...

The other points are mentioned in this chapter but I'll just answer them quickly. Yes, there will be more interaction between Naru and Anko/Kurenai/Gai, but there are reasons that there isn't any at the moment and it will probably take a few chapters before those reasons can be circumvented.

Concerning the trust thing, this chapter should make it quite clear, look closely at how the things are worded.

movielover312:

Planned to, didn't work. Laptop didn't work and I had to spend the majority of the past two months either learning for the most important exams of my Bachelor or working at my parent's place, far away from a computer *sob*

ScorpionsBane:

Noticed myself that it wasn't optimal and changed it. I hope you like the new way better.

Nargus:

The responsible ones will get what they deserve, some earlier, some sooner, but they will reap what they sowed decades ago.

For the topic of being sealed, reading the chap will help :)

schnookums:

It will come to light in time, hopefully not too much, but it will come.

SMALL SPOILER

Concerning Kakashi, he will seem a bit more cheery in this chapter than he really is. The team actually working together shows him what could have been and gives him a bit hope.

The reason for his actions are mainly because his many losses made him unable to actively reach out to other people to form a bond with them and hold these bonds if the other person doesn't actively reaches out to him.

SPOILER END

I'll probably give spoiler free answers in the next chapter or the one after that, depending on whether I cut wave in two or maybe even three chapters or make one gigantic one.

ameranthus13:

She did indeed, but you won't see it again for quite some time.

Soutrick:

This chapter should answer your question. The exact happenings will follow in one of the next chapters

Here is my legend/key for the text:

"I was lost on the road of life." - speaking/shouting

"YOU DEMON!" - loud shouting

'Why do they all hate me?' - thinking

"You puny little human" - Bijū/Summon speaking

"RAWR!" - Bijū/Summon shouting

'Hmm... I think, I'll take a nap' – Bijū/Summon thinking

Kagebunshin no Jutsu – all sorts of jutsu

Chapter 6 Team 7

Arriving at Konoha's main gates, Naru, Iruka and the unconscious Mizuki were expected by a squad of unhappy looking shinobi. Thankfully the third Hokage had already informed his subordinates of the happenings, including Mizuki's betrayal and Naru's sort of innocence – she only did what her superior ordered her to do, even if the order she followed should have made her at least suspicious – so they quickly went on to escort the three ninja to their respective destinations:

Naru together with the scroll of seals to the Hokage, Iruka to the hospital for treatment, and the group that enjoyed their task most dragged Mizuki none too careful to Ibiki's doorstep in the Torture & Interrogation department. No ninja is very fond of traitors and being used in the scheme doesn't help.

A short travel via Shunshin later and Iruka was already at the hospital where the medical staff quickly checked his injuries and proceeded to bandage him. Luckily the cuts he received were fairly shallow and missed anything of importance, so after disinfecting and stitching the cuts he just got an IV of salt water to compensate for the blood he had lost and was good to go home. The iryō-nin told Iruka that he shouldn't overexert himself or go on missions for a week, but it wouldn't impact his teaching job.

The ninja that had brought Mizuki to Ibiki shuddered when they saw the black clad man grin eerily. Seriously, the man's scarred face is scary enough on its own and combined with that expectant grin nobody envied what was about to happen to Mizuki. Those that where more familiar with Ibiki's violet haired subordinate just offered him a small prayer. Anko did have a slight dislike of traitors.

Just like one of the Sannin was slightly perverted or like another one liked to drink slight amount of alcohol.

The last group appeared in the corridor in front of the Sandaime's office with a swirl of leafs, one jōnin holding the scroll of seals while another had his hand on Naru's shoulder. The one holding the blond's shoulder then proceeded to knock on the door.

"Hokage-sama, we have brought Uzumaki Naru and the scroll of seals."

"Enter," a wizened voice answered.

The jōnin opened the door, revealing the Hokage sitting behind his desk, smoking his trusty pipe. Entering the room, the azure-eyed girl smiled brightly while the other two just looked somewhere between annoyed and irritated. After closing the door, the jōnin joined Naru and his colleague in a row in front of the Hokage's desk.

At an unspoken command from his leader, the scroll-carrying shinobi stepped forward, placed the scroll of seals on the desk, and after receiving a confirmatory nod from the Sandaime stepped back in line.

The aged leader then nodded once more to himself.

"Good work you two, dismissed."

"Yes, Hokage-sama." the two jōnin answered in unison and vanished with a Konoha shunshin, leaving a pile of leafs behind.

With his office now empty except for himself and Naru, his expression softened considerably and he let out a sigh.

"What am I going to do with you, Naru? Stealing the scroll of seals could have lead to serious consequences, not to mention the danger its contents pose for the reader..."

The radiant smile on the blondes face was more than enough of an answer to his attempt at scolding the girl. He slumped over slightly and let out another sigh at the newest addition to his forces fidgeting about while fingering her hitai-ate occasionally.

"Yes, Naru. That is your hitai-ate and yes, since your instructor gave it to you, you are now officially a kunoichi of the Village hidden in the Leafs. You will have more than enough time to be fascinated by it before the team placements, so concentrate on what I'm trying to tell you, okay?"

Folding her hands behind her back, Naru replied cheerily:

"Okay, jiji."

"Still no respect for a poor old man?"

"I'll get that hat soon enough, so no use in getting used to calling you something you won't be anymore soon enough." she retorted with a foxy grin.

"You little rascal... but we're straying off topic."

He coughed in his hand slightly straightening his posture before continuing.

"You are now a kunoichi and as such are under my command. You are now officially responsible for your every action giving you the same status as an adult with all rights and duties. Furthermore you will follow orders from your superiors... well unless they are traitorous towards Konoha. Failure to do so will result in punishment.

Those are the most important rules you should already know. The details and other common knowledge concerning your life as a ninja will be taught to you by your jōnin-sensei. The team placements will be announced two days after the genin exams, so tomorrow, in your academy classroom. There you will be told who your teammates and jōnin-sensei are."

With the formal part of his speech over, the third Hokage relaxed slightly.

"Congratulations on passing, Naru. It was rather rough and unrefined, not to mention reckless, but I think you will lose that with some experience and become a fine kunoichi."

His smile was mirrored by the blonde who threw a fist in they air and cheered.

"I did it! Finally I'm a ninja! Next step Hokage, believe it!"

"Now, Now, Naru. One step at a time. If you really want this head then there's still a long way ahead of you. And the first step on that road is the team placement, so prepare yourself for tomorrow and let this old man have his rest after all the commotion."

With a gentle smile and a wave of his unoccupied right hand, the other holding his pipe, he shooed Naru from his office.

"Just keep that seat warm for me, jiji, I'll soon let you rest as much as you like."

The fresh-baked kunoichi replied before she sprinted out of his office.

As soon as the door had closed, Sarutobi Hiruzen's face hardened slightly before relaxing again. While watching Naru beat Mizuki quite easily he had feared for a moment that the seals might have stopped working and that his plans would be in danger, but it seems his worries were unfounded.

Naru was still the simple, easy-going kid that aimed for his hat. She hadn't shown anything worrying.

Sure, he was surprised that she learned the Kagebunshin in such a short amount of time, but she was an amazingly fast learner, if she had the choice to. Her stealthiness was nothing new either, so the whole thing was just a lucky combination of her hiding a few Kagebunshin prior to Mizuki's arrival thanks to an attempted prank and sneaking up on a monologing villain. Even a child can kill an unsuspecting ninja, kunai don't differentiate after all.

And it partly Mizuki's fault too. You don't start a monologue if your enemy can still move or you don't use it for something practical like distracting them. This killed far too many strong ninja already.

Still, one can never be too cautious. This would have to be taken in concern with the team placements.

"Why can't anything be easy?" he asked himself before taking a deep puff. What would he do without his pipe?

The 27, including Naru, new graduates were, aside from the clan heirs and the Haruno girl, mostly from non-ninja households. According to Iruka's reports on them, the civilian-born ninja's, although some showed promise in an academic sense, all severely lacked when it comes to chakra.

Not in the sense of Gai's student who lacked the ability to perform Nin- and Genjutsu because of a medical issue, but rather lacked the amount needed. None even reached the Haruno girl's level, and her chakra reserves are already considered miniscule by ninja standard.

The children would tire far too fast and the use of any ninjutsu above the most elementary ones could prove fatal to them. Sure, you could relentlessly train them, but even then it would take years just to end up with a mediocre ninja at best. To shorten it, training them wouldn't be economical at all. The resources their training would use up are simply spent better elsewhere.

He would throw them together randomly and assign them the jōnin as sensei who posed the more difficult, or rather chakra intensive, exams and let them fail honorably. Those which Iruka mentioned were academically suited could still be useful in the cryptography department or as secretaries. Who was he to waste otherwise perfectly fine resources?

That still leaves him with the clan heirs plus the Haruno girl. Three of them were easily grouped together as the next generation of the Ino-Shika-Cho trio.

Uzumaki, Uchiha, Hyuuga, Inuzuka, Aburame, and Haruno. How should he combine those six into two teams?

He couldn't put the Hyuuga girl and Naru together or those eyes might see somethings that could disturb the impressionable children. Same for the Aburame and his insects. Those two would have to be on a different team than Naru which just leaves one spot open for debate.

Uchiha, Haruno or Inuzuka, what would fit in best with the other two. Uchiha would be a waste since Kakashi will be his sensei and neither Hyuuga nor Aburame could make use of his proficiency in ninjutsu.

The third Hokage then decided that the Inuzuka would be the better addition to the team. A good nose, the Byakugan and the Kikaichu could be a good tracker team. This means that the last team will be Naru, the Uchiha and the Haruno girl under Kakashi.

"Good, he can keep an eye on her." he mumbled."Who should I assign as the other two senseis?"

He flipped through a list with all ninja that had signed up for a genin team or were forced to take one. His son should be good for the Ino-Shika-Cho trio as he'll probably get along well with the lazy Nara and the gentle Akimichi. The Genjutsu Mistress should be fine for the tracker team since she would be able to hide her team while tracking and teach them how to do it themselves.

"And another task for the future of Konoha's Branches finished."

Satisfied with his work he returned the scroll of seals to its proper place and turned in to rest for a bit.

The city only just started to awaken as the first shops opened their doors and only a few people were out on the streets. A yellow and orange blur sprinted over Konoha's roofs with an innocent grin on her face. Landing on the porch of her home, a quite useful entrance if the occupant fancied roofs instead of roads, Naru messily discarded her sandals before entering. As soon as the door closed behind her, her innocent, childlike smile stretched wider, taking on a vulpine quality.

'As much as you like and quite some time longer if it's up to me'

She had played her hand, showed a small bit of power and now she would wait. Wait for the reaction. Was it too much at once? Was she subtle enough? Will the old man buy it?

She was confident that yes, he would buy it. He couldn't leave her in the academy infinitely and not having her trained as a kunoichi would be potentially hazardous to the village as well as a waste of her military potential. She didn't stray from the way her mask behaves and tried to take Mizuki out as plausible as possible. Flat out beating him in any discipline would be fishy so it had to be sneaky. Stealth was something they knew she could do, at least enough to fool a preoccupied chuunin. Combine that with Kagebunshin and a quick assault from behind and you have a plausible way for a genin to defeat a chuunin.

Now she could only hope that the sensei she will get will be beneficial to her plan or at least not detrimental. That and useful teammates.

The jackpot concerning that would be the last Uchiha. Not for himself per se, although he is on the top of the class and his arrogance makes it easy to push him into the direction you want to, but rather because he will without fail get a certain sensei.

Kakashi. That lazy bum filled with enough traumas to make his hair stand without any aid. He was the only one the old man hadn't plotted against and he still left her. If she gets him as sensei that would have to be rectified and he would suffer retribution, in some way.

A shiver ran down the spine of a certain silver haired shinobi who wondered what fate would put him through next.

On the other hand that would bring its own share of problems and would make a certain someone grumpy.

"Too many possible outcomes to plan something more concrete."

The possible combinations of genin and probable jōnin-sensei simply were too numerous to predict where she would end up, but at least she had basic knowledge of all her possible teammates and a few jōnin that seemed plausible. On a couple of them she even had a little bit more "dirt".

Sadly the number of people didn't allow for much more depth than the level of Kurenai's "secret" admiration of Sarutobi Asuma, who seemed genuinely nice for being the old man's son.

With the stream of events out of her hands for the moment Naru decided to call it a day for now and catch some sleep and maybe visit her residents before preparing for tomorrow. She took of the orange jumpsuit and the clothing she wore under it until she was only left with her panties and the piece of cloth she used to bandage her growing chest.

Plopping down on her bed, not bothering to cover herself she quickly entered the familiar state between sleep and meditation.

The familiar smell of salty water and the sensation of wet feet greeted her as they always did.

No matter what she did, her arrival was always the same, landing in a warm stream of water, the representation of her chakra. Still the changes that had manifested themselves over the years were undeniable.

No longer was her mind the dark sewer it had been in her childhood. The gloomy surrounding walls had changed into a vast gravel plain dotted with leafless Sakura trees and a mountain opposite to the ocean she had just emerged from. The sky was filled with a uniform blanket of gray clouds, wrapping the world into a monochrome shell, only disturbed by a patch of color.

The murky water that had been flowing in the darkness and the pipes had changed into small channels winding their way through a garden where the gravel had been arranged in artistic shapes and the cherry trees were in eternal bloom.

Naru followed a pathway made of stone plates through the garden towards her destination, a big, traditional one-story building at the foot of the mountain. Surrounding the building's outside was a walkway elevated about a foot off the ground and made from the same dark brown cherry wood as the rest of the mansion. Behind the walkway were sliding doors made of white rice paper, allowing entrance in regular intervals. The roof was tiled with shining dark blue tiles and decorative ornaments at the corners resembling a tiger and a dragon.

Reaching the walkway, the blonde stepped onto it and waved her hand in front of one of the sliding doors which promptly and with a clacking sound opened, revealing a small room, as did a seemingly endless number of similar doors behind it, forming a corridor leading into the interior of the house. Naru walked into the house following the corridor of opened doors until she reached a slightly bigger room with decorated sliding doors - depicting a nine-tailed fox hunting in this monochrome world - at the opposite end.

Sliding open the decorated doors Naru stepped into an even bigger room with walls stretching upwards indefinitely and a sheet of darkness for a ceiling. The room was illuminated by simplistic oil lamps consisting of a cup filled with oil and wick, giving it only a subdued lighting.

In contrast to the rooms before the walls and floor of this room were made of polished wood instead of sliding doors on each side and tatami mats on the ground.

But catching the most attention was the big gate on the far side of the room and what it held behind its bars.

"Seems like everything worked out so far, kit, but I don't really appreciate your thoughts about the Uchiha brat."

The nine-tailed fox commented from his place, sprawled out sideways upon a gigantic purple cushion, one of his hands supporting his vulpine head while the other held a lit pipe.

"Why that?" the blonde asked while walking to one of two simple cushions laying just in front of the cage and sitting down on it in seiza.

"They are annoying and I would love to end their line with my own paws, but that one especially isn't on the sane side of things."

"But that's what makes him easy to manipulate!" she playfully pouted at the fox.

With a slight sweat drop at her behavior Kurama answered: "Just don't let it blow up in your face, kit. I can say from experience that it sucks."

Her expression hardened instantly, "I know." before returning to a more childish expression.

"I won't do something as stupid as put him in the center of my plans or depend on his existence for them to work." Naru dismissively waved with her hand. "Rather keep him expendable."

After a short silence Naru turned serious once more.

"So, what do you think, will he still set his dogs on me when I start taking missions?"

"If I wasn't familiar with your mind I'd say you're bipolar... But as for your question, kit, I don't think he will have someone additionally following you. Your sensei will be the one."

"You think so too, Kurama?"

"Considering his past actions he doesn't like attracting too much attention to his workings."

Sighing, Naru shifted her position and stretched her legs out while supporting her upper body by placing her hands on the ground behind herself.

"Time will show."

A comfortable silence settled between the giant fox and the blond girl, prisoner and his jail, beast and human, accomplice and accomplice. Azure eyes gazed into blood-shot ones. Unwillingly bound together. Neither allowed to live freely as long as the other is alive.

Yet both knew that the other wasn't responsible. And following the motto "the enemy of my enemy doesn't have to be my enemy" they could reach an understanding.

Closing her eyes Naru threw her head back and let it rest facing upwards.

"I'm going."

The closing of crimson eyes and a low rumble were all affirmation she needed. Opening her eyes again the ceiling of her bedroom greeted her.

"A quick shower and then on to preparing for tomorrow."

The classroom brimmed with life as the fresh-baked genin conversed about their experiences of the past day. Of parties in honor of their graduation or just a humble meal in a better restaurant than normally. Almost all of them were excited in the face of the team placements.

Just a few such as the Nara heir were able to stay relaxed, but even he had to wonder what was going on when the class clown entered the room in her orange jumpsuit with a hitai-ate around her head.

Naru walked up to her place and anyone save the brooding Uchiha fixed their eyes on her. This was enough to make Shikamaru more curious than lazy and he had to ask.

"What are you doing here Naru?"

She just pointed at her hitai-ate and replied cheerily.

"I'm a kunoichi, so of course I'm here."

A stupid answer befitting of a class clown thought everyone but Shikamaru and the ever stoic Shino. Both were aware that her grades didn't do her skill justice, especially after the last exam, and if the glint in her eyes had anything to say it was that the hidden meaning of her statement was in fact the case.

"I knew I would end up here even if I failed the exam."

"Troublesome" was the lazy genius only answer to her goofy smile that conveyed a hidden challenge.

A murmur of "Indeed." too faint to hear was Shino's comment to the situation.

'Messing with those two is always so fun.' Naru thought as she happily went to her seat which was followed by the restarting of the previous conversations.

A few minutes later storming footsteps along with two screeching voices neared the classroom, heralding the arrival of the resident fangirls. Naru ignored their petty squabble for the right to sit next to Sasuke in favor of feeling out for dogs and Iruka-sensei.

'No dogs and Iruka-sensei is on his way.' she remarked inwardly and decided to adapt Shikamaru's hobby of cloud watching to pass the couple of minutes.

"... your sensei is Akabane Suzaku. Next on is team 7." Iruka droned on reading out the names of the team members and their sensei.

So far nothing interesting. As far as Naru could tell the teams up until now were unbalanced and unfit for their respective sensei.

'So that are those who failed to become heroes...'

"Uzumaki Naru"

She instantly listened up. Who would be her new teammates?

"Haruno Sakura"

'Could have been better but at least one of the malleable ones.'

"and Uchiha Sasuke."

A shrill shriek of the pinkette reverberated through the classroom, causing a ringing in everybody's ears. A grin snaked its way onto Naru's face, hidden by her folded arms.

'That means...'

"That's a year less of good hearing." Iruka mumbled before continuing with his explanation.

"Your sensei is Hatake Kakashi."

'And Bingo.' Naru's grin was threatening to split her face reaching almost the level Sakura's smile was at the moment though for more sinister reasons.

The rest of the team placements weren't much of a surprise to Naru as only six other students were left after her team was announced, including the kids of the Ino-Shika-Cho trio which made it quite obvious how they would be placed. Their sensei Asuma seemed to be a laid-back guy and would probably get along nicely with his new students. A good choice for that team in her opinion.

What shocked her for a short moment was team 8's sensei: Kurenai.

She would be able to get close to her again under the pretense of something inter-team related nonsense, but how she would have to go about mending their relationship...

She would have to think that one through in more detail.

Soon the sensei began to show up one after another, calling out for their new genin teams and leaving with them. This led to a bit of additional complication with her plans concerning her old friend as she apparently was still quite pissed at what had happened and only shot her a glare before ignoring Naru.

'Seems like I have to set things right with Anko-nee first...' thought while letting her shoulders sag slightly. Getting on the scantily clad kunoichi's good side again wouldn't be easy, not to mention painful...

As the blonde had expected, Kakashi was late.

Naru, Sakura and Sasuke still waited in the classroom even after all the other teams had been escorted out by their respective sensei and even Iruka-sensei had left by now. If she'd have to make a guess based on the silver haired jōnin's usual tardiness he wouldn't show up here for at least another hour.

"He is late."

An irritated Sasuke broke the string of questions and fantasized rabble Sakura spouted. There was only so much a brooding avenger could take before he was forced to stop brooding. An answer to his more statement than question was delivered unto him in an unexpected fashion from the person he would have suspected the least.

"He'll come soon." Naru, staring into space, answered absent-minded.

"How come you know?" the Uchiha inquired with a raised eyebrow and a slight tinge of genuine surprise in his voice. "And how come your not jumping around like usual doing something stupid?"

Her simply sitting on her bottom without doing something for any amount of time was almost unprecedented.

"Just thinking about something."

"You haven't answered my first question, Uzumaki." the black haired boy stated, more than slightly irritated by the combination of being stood up by their sensei and being treated this dismissively by the dead last.

"Common knowledge."

This just served to further enrage Sasuke, as the dead last had just implied he lacked in knowledge, even if it was just common knowledge, while she possessed it. The pink haired kunoichi that had pestered him non-stop for the last two hours didn't help either.

But before his rage could rise to higher levels and reach level's that would have compelled him to act on his rage, his pride as an Uchiha kicked in, made him dismiss his rage with a characteristic "Hn." and proceed to just sit down and ignore Sakura again.

'What would be fitting?' Naru considered. She had to balance it just right. 'Dying all his face-masks pink? Too easy and he can hide it with a henge.'

Thinking up an appropriate punishment turned out to be a quite difficult task. It needed to be heavy enough, but nothing too drastic. Preferably something that would need him to move his lazy ass to undo the damage. Slightly humiliating would be a nice bonus but not necessary. But it had to first and foremost be funny for her and make his life at list a little bit miserable.

After pondering for a long time, a creepy grin adorned her whiskered face for a moment before vanishing again.

'That's perfect.'

The method for revenge devised and a fitting evil laughter resonating in her mind, Naru stretched her senses to look where her lazy teacher was right now, and to her surprise almost three hours since the appointed time must have passed already since Kakashi was just a short distance away, heading in their direction and would be arriving in the next few minutes.

"My first impression of you guys is..." Kakashi let his single-eyed view roam over his three new students. Sakura was mustering him while stealing glances of Sasuke all the time, giving off squeals from time to time. Sasuke was pointedly ignoring Sakura and mustering and gauging his new teacher while Naru was sitting apart from them, friendly grinning at him.

'Naru...' he thought as a pang of guilt crawled up in the back of his mind. Nonetheless, he had an image to uphold.

"... you're annoying."

This caused Sakura and Sasuke to facefault as he had expected. His blond student on the other hand only grinned even wider which served to unnerve Kakashi greatly. That smile was somehow creepy.

"Meet me on the roof in five minutes."

After giving this short instruction he promptly vanished in a signature swirl of leafs, leaving the three genin alone in the classroom.

"That's supposed to be our sensei?" was all Sakura could bring out at the moment, while dumbly staring at the small pile of leafs on the ground. Sasuke just sat in his chair, mentally cursing his fate for giving him a crazy sensei.

"Yup." Naru cheerfully replied while pushing herself from her sitting position and walked to the door but stopped before leaving the room. She turned to her new teammates and asked innocently.

"Are you two coming?"

This seemed to bring the two other genin back to reality and on their feet to follow their teammate to their new sensei on the roof.

"For the beginning you lot should introduce yourselves, tell the others about you likes, dislikes, dreams and stuff." Kakashi ordered the kids in front of him. One looked happy, one like a fish out of water, and the last one made the best impression of being constipated he had seen in a long time.

"What do you mean, sensei?" Sakura asked with a genuinely confused expression on her face causing the urge to facepalm in her teammates and a slight tick in her sensei's visible eye.

'That one will need some serious work.' the ex-ANBU thought, lamenting being forced to teach a kid like her.

Not wanting to waste her time because of her teammate's apparent lack of the ability to comprehend easy orders, Naru decided to help her out.

"Maybe you could go first as an example, sensei."

Letting out an audible sigh Kakashi proceeded to introduce himself.

'I better get this over soon so I can go and continue reading the new Icha Icha.'

"My name is Hatake Kakashi, I don't feel like telling you my likes and dislikes and my dreams are nothing for children."

'He told us nothing but his name!' Sakura and Sasuke thought in unison while looking at their sensei with an incredulous look.

'Still the old Kakashi.' Naru mused without losing her grin, succeeding in unnerving Kakashi further.

"You're up, Pinkie."

"My name is not Pinkie! I'm Haruno Sakura. What I like is... or rather who I like is..." her glances drifted of to the dark haired boy sitting next to her and she gave of a squeal before continuing. "My dream is..." was followed by an even louder squeal than the one before and her eyes losing focus showing that her mind was going of on a tangent.

"And? What's with your dislikes?" the copy ninja asked, irritation leaking into his voice.

"Ino-Pig!" Sakura shouted almost fast enough to count as a reflex.

'Great...'

"Next. Your turn Broody."

Without changing his posture, which included removing the hands from their position in front of his mouth, the last Uchiha replied.

"My name is Uchiha Sasuke. I dislike many things but don't really have any likes. I don't intend to let it stay a dream so it is more of an ambition. I will restore my clan and kill a certain man."

His introduction caused Sakura to stop her swooning for once and look slightly disturbed by the conviction in her crush's words and whom he would want to kill so badly. The other two ninja looked at the black haired ninja with understanding eyes.

'As I feared, the hatred for his brother has only grown.'

Wanting to end the oppressive atmosphere Sasuke's introduction had built up, Kakashi quickly directed the focus of the conversation to his last student.

"You're the last one, Blondie."

Cheerfully Naru offered her sensei a mock salute before beginning her introduction.

"I'm Uzumaki Naru. I like ramen, the colors orange and green, roses, dango and dogs. My dislikes include the time it takes for cup-ramen to finish cooking, monkeys, and unfaithful and lazy dogs. My dream is to take Hokage-jiji's hat and let him have the rest he deserves."

'She sure has grown up to be... interesting?' Kakashi thought, unsure what he was supposed to make of the girl. Her reactions weren't quite what he expected and her introduction seemed to be more than just that. Either that or her tastes were quite unique. Or weird, he wasn't so sure concerning that yet.

"Now that we're over with this, go scamper back home and get ready. We will have a short survival exercise tomorrow."

"A survival exercise? But we did enough of those in the Academy!" Sakura shouted indignantly.

"Oh it's not just any old exercise." Kakashi retorted while waggling with his finger and giving his turned-U eye-smile. "This exercise is also the real genin exam. If you fail, you will return to the Academy or drop out completely! And the rate of success of this exam is only a meager 33%, meaning out of the 27 graduates 18 won't be genin by the end of tomorrow."

"But we already took the exam!"

"Oh that? That was just to weed out those without the potential. This exam is there to test whether you have what it takes to be a real ninja."

A shell-shocked Sakura stared at her sensei with eyes wide and mouth open. Equally shaken but a lot more controlled in his reaction, Sasuke's hands tightened their grip on each other to the point where they began shaking slightly.

'If I fail this, I'll be separated from Sasuke-kun!' was one train of thought.

'I can't let this hold me back. I don't have the leisure to waste my time in the academy till the next exams!' was the next.

'Still loves riling up other people.' was the last, considerably less panicked one.

"Well then, meet me at training ground 7 tomorrow at 5 o'clock. Come prepared, which includes your whole set of ninja-gear."

The jōnin turned away from the trio and looked like he was going to leave before he turned back to them and added in a flat tone:

"And don't eat breakfast, you'll just throw it up. Bye then."

The last syllable was already omitted by the sound of rustling leafs as the man had left his dumbfounded students standing on the roof.

Shrugging, Naru gave the other two a small wave and a quick "See ya!" before jumping over the railing and onto the nearest roof.

Seeing his blonde teammate disappearing into the distance, Sasuke decided that staying there any longer wouldn't serve any purpose and turned to the staircase and left. He had intensive training to do, jutsus to learn and generally improve himself to catch up to and surpass his brother, and then, when he had him at his mercy, he would force him through torture even worse than he had been put through and kill him afterward. That sounded good in his ears.

Sakura didn't mind either way and followed Sasuke, who was still ignoring her to the best of his ability, for a while until they reached the surroundings of the Uchiha district which was inappropriate enough for her to enter, that even she had to give up for the day and return home. Maybe she should visit Ino-Pig on the way and rub being Sasuke-kun's teammate in her face. That way the bad impression her sensei made wouldn't ruin the wonderful day of getting on Sasuke-kun's team.

She also got lucky that the other girl on her team was one of the two girls in probably the whole academy that expressed no interest in Sasuke-kun, even if it was the class clown. It would only make her self seem more desirable to Sasuke-kun.

The girlish squeal she emitted at that thought caused several people on the street to cringe and all cats in the surrounding area to run away.

Sakura was in a good mood this morning even though she had to get up a lot earlier than usual. Her mother had helped her pack her tools while she had payed more attention to ensuring her outfit and hair looked perfect. She had carefully cleaned her crimson cheongsam for this special occasion, using scented detergent to make it exude a pleasant aroma. She had used scented soap to wash her hair this morning, too.

After all, today she would establish herself in Sasuke-kun's eyes and conquer his heart. As such it wouldn't do for her to be in less than perfect condition and neither would it do for her to be late, so she decided to leave earlier than necessary.

Arriving 5 minutes before the appointed time the pinkette was greeted by an unexpected and unpleasant sight.

Not only had Sasuke-kun arrived before her, but her other teammate was already present too. He was leaning against a tree with his eyes closed, surrounding him with a mysterious air, making him look absolutely gorgeous. His black hair glistened in the morning sun giving him an ephemeral feeling. The white sleeves that where slung around his forearms perfectly complimented the blue shirt with a high collar he always wore, and the white shorts showed of his porcelain-white legs. What she'd give to have them all to herself...

Anyway! She might have been last to arrive but that wouldn't ruin her plans! Today would be the day she'd get him to be her's. She wouldn't be deterred from her goal by small setbacks! Seeing that he had his eyes closed and probably just hadn't noticed her yet, she decided to take the initiative and walked toward him.

Sakura's other teammate just sat on a thick wooden pole reading some scroll.

Sasuke had been surprised when he had arrived at training ground 7 only to find his blond teammate sitting atop a pole, reading a scroll. Her calm behavior yesterday and now she started reading. It certainly confused him a little bit, but in the end it was of no consequence.

'She can't get stupider by reading and that means she will hopefully drag me down a bit less. At least she isn't as annoying as the other one.'

Five hours later the members of the recently formed team 7 were still waiting for their silver haired sensei.

Sasuke, unable to bear his currently more talkative teammate any longer, had earlier swung himself onto a thin branch of a nearby tree, which would break under the weight of two people, resulting in a reprieve of the pinkette's attempts at starting a conversation.

Sakura had spent most of the time with trying to get her crush to talk to her which had failed spectacularly as he fled onto a tree. After staring at him from the ground for a while her boredom and curiosity won over her affection and she went to her other teammate, interested what the usually energetic girl's lecture was, that could make the blonde sit quietly for such a long time.

"Hey Naru. What are you reading there." Sakura asked while peaking over the girl's shoulder.

What she saw confused her as the whole scroll was completely filled with squiggly, black lines. Some of the lines equaled symbols she'd seen in a book before but she didn't have an inkling as to what the scroll was about.

"The instructions for an S-class kinjutsu." Naru replied nonchalantly without taking her eyes off the scripture.

"I just asked, no need to make fun of me!"

Sakura looked slightly angered as she stomped away, getting pissed off further by a small giggle coming from behind her. She had just asked out of curiosity for what her teammate was reading and the blonde, the dead last, had made fun of her.

After her stomping had taken her about ten meters from the wooden poles, the tardy sensei of team 7 arrived with a Shunshin.

"Yo." was his only greeting, coupled with an eye-smile and an unenthusiastic wave using only his pointer and middle finger.

Instantly Sasuke and Naru were in front of their sensei, right next to Sakura. The blue-eyed girl's scroll had vanished as had the lethargic look on the Uchiha's face.

Encouraged by her teammates arrival, Sakura decided to tell their teacher off.

"You're late!"she practically screeched at him

Only for the copy-ninja to reply in a happy voice: "Gomen, Gomen. A black cat crossed my path so I had to make a big detour to ward off the bad luck."

This earned him two looks that translated to "Are you kidding me" and one grin. That grin really made it hard for him to enjoy giving stupid excuses to his little genin, or rather anything he usually did to tick people off. Why did she have to smile like that?

"Oh, well."

He walked over from their small group towards the wooden poles Naru had sat on and placed a black clock onto the pole as well as a bundle wrapped in white cloth. Kakashi then turned to his students and pushed a big button on the clock.

"Okay, it's set to 12 o'clock."

The genin students looked at the clock unsure of what to make of their sensei's action who in turn pulled two bells on red strings from a pouch on his waist, making them jingle.

"You will have to get one of these bells until noon. Get one and you pass, get none and you fail. Those who don't have a bell will be tied to one of these poles and I'll force them to watch me eat lunch in front of them. Easy, right?"

As if on cue, both Sakura and Sasuke's stomachs growled loudly as a testament to their skipped breakfast. Only Naru was spared the slight embarrassment her teammates suffered at the moment.

This caused Kakashi to frown slightly.

"Naru, I thought I told you not to eat breakfast. Why did you do it?"

"I didn't, sensei." she replied in an almost annoyingly sweet and cheery voice. "I just thought that if I'd throw up what I ate this morning either way, I should just take care to have an empty stomach."

"Then why aren't you hungry right now?" Sakura asked, confused by the blonde's statement. How was she not hungry if she didn't eat anything this morning.

"I thought skipping a meal wouldn't be a good idea with today being important and stuff, so I just ate more at dinner yesterday. This way, I have nothing in my tummy I could throw up but still have enough energy for the day."

Realization dawned on Sakura and Sasuke, resulting in one being slightly awestruck while the other wanted to bash his head against a wall for overlooking such a simple way. Their sensei on the other hand wasn't happy that the starving threat wouldn't work on one of his genin.

He had expected that one of them might not follow his order, but he could always lay that out as insubordination. Using a fairly simple trick - every ninja worth his ryō knew not to go into battle hungry and tired, and methods to do just that - to avoid breaking his orders and end up hungry was something he hadn't expected.

Let it be said at this point that Kakashi had a serious lack of any sort of respect for the current young generation. While slightly justified as he was a chuunin before they even entered the Academy, this led to him expect next to nothing of the fresh-baked genin he was supposed to test, even though he used to train one of them and should know at least what she was capable of back then. Sadly, several years of similar experiences ingrained this mind-set, overruling the use of logic in this sort of situation. This form of hubris is one of the most dangerous afflictions that can befall a ninja as it makes them severely underestimate their foe, which led to the fall of many in the long course of history.

After Sakura's short moment of enlightenment ended, she noticed what the rest of her sensei's words implied and couldn't suppress the question that rose up.

"Wait a moment! Kakashi-sensei, there are only two bells for the three of us."

This earned her a roll of Sasuke's eyes at her obvious question, which their sensei promptly answered with what should have been obvious at the use of a little bit of logic.

"Only those who get a bell pass, so at best one of you fails, at worst no one of you three passes the exam. So do your best and come at me with the intention to kill, or you won't have a chance."

His eye narrowed slightly, making Sakura gulp and Sasuke stiffen.

"And start." their sensei said in a flat voice.

Sasuke and Sakura vanished into the nearby trees instantly, hiding themselves to the best of their abilities. Sasuke would wait for an opportunity to show itself and attack their sensei with long-ranged attacks targeting the silver haired shinobi's blind-spot on his left side curtsey of his missing eye. Sakura was unsure what to make of the situation and was both reluctant to attack her sensei and had no idea how she was supposed to attack a jōnin in general.

The blonde, whiskered member of team 7 still stood in the same place, facing her sensei with just a few meters between them. Her goofy grin slightly unsettled Kakashi, but he wouldn't have to need to worry about anything, would he?

"Shouldn't you be hiding or something?" he asked Naru, unsure what to make of her behavior.

Taking his treasured book out of the brown kunai pouch at the left sight of his waist, he looked as his student's goofy grin vanished and an emotionless face took its place.

"Essential Shinobi Skills #1, Taijutsu." droned a monotone voice from the blonde as her body slightly swayed forward, making it look like she was falling down. The next moment, her body exploded into motion, kicking off hard enough to create a small dent in the dirt, propelling her towards Kakashi.

When Sakura and Sasuke's eyes could make out the blonde's form, she had already delivered a straight right to her sensei who had caught it with his unoccupied hand, his visible eye open in surprise.

'What's with that speed? I couldn't see her move towards Kakashi-sensei at all!' thought Sakura.

Trying to free himself from his attacker, the silver haired jōnin spun clockwise, using the momentum of the attack he received to try to throw her into the river behind him. Just as his hand let go of the orange clad girl's fist, her unoccupied left hand firmly gripped onto his wrist, using it as a pivot. Her lower body swung upwards as her second hand gripped onto his arm, using the combined momentum for a right kick at his temple.

Using the left hand he had just emptied after the unexpected first attack, Kakashi blocked Naru's left leg by catching the limb. Following it's left counterpart, the blue eyed girl's right leg shot towards her sensei's body, but instead of a wide kick aimed at his head, she aimed a stomp at the area directly under Kakashi's right armpit.

Not wanting to take the hit, he pushed her leg away from him, snaked his arm from her grip, and let himself fall backward to avoid her foot. Using the push he had given her, Naru performed a backflip in midair to land firmly on her legs, sliding a few centimeters backwards. Facing each other, the two combatants steadied themselves again with around 3 meters between each other.

Reaching for a kunai from the holster on her leg, Naru threw it at her sensei a moment later. Easily catching the projectile between two fingers, he flung it aside, only to reveal that the kunai had been a feint while the blonde aimed an open palmed strike at the opening she had just created. Her left palm almost made contact with the right side of Kakashi's abdomen before he twisted himself away from the path of her attack, bringing his left hand down for a chop to the side of her neck, hoping to painlessly knock the girl out.

Seeing the incoming attack, Naru let gravity pull the top of her body towards earth while she started to turn sideways. As the chop was about to connect she grabbed the hand and used her right leg to push herself off her sensei's slightly angled knee. Her body was now perpendicular to the arm with her left foot, drawn back, facing Kakashi's body. She used her other hand to grab onto his arm too before once again trying to stomp him.

This time, her foot connected, resulting in the masked shinobi flying backwards, only for him to poof away and reveal a log in his place.

'What's up with this fight!? I can barely follow the idiot's movements and sensei's are even faster!' Sasuke thought as either clash had taken four seconds tops.

'She has never shown that speed or technique in the Academy before. How can the dead last be that fast?' his thoughts circled around the mysterious new powers of his teammate, making him forget his original plan of waiting for an opening for a moment.

Mesmerized by the ever shortening time the clashes would take before both fighters flew apart and the increase in their frequency, he didn't notice the figure that was sneaking up on him before it had pressed a hand onto his mouth and pulled him deeper into the tree he had used as his hiding spot.

Whipping his head around in shock, he was greeted with the face of Naru grinning at him while placing the index finger of her free hand over her lips, signaling him to keep quiet. After a confirmatory nod from Sasuke the blonde moved her hand away from his mouth and motioned for him to follow her.

Unsure what to think of what was probably a clone, whether it was really Naru's or a ruse thought up by their sensei, Sasuke followed it, away from the clearing where the fistfight was still going on. He would nail a kunai between its eyes the first moment it behaved unusual. Sadly though, the supposedly real thing had just shown him previously unknown skill and something akin to a second personality.

Validating or refuting its authenticity wouldn't be easy.

The clone(?) led him through the trees, jumping from branch to branch, making it difficult to keep up to its speed. At a seemingly random location it descended from the trees and landed on the ground. Seeing nothing special at their destination, Sasuke felt compelled to question his guide.

"Why did you bring me here? And what's up with that speed you showed back there?"

"I'll tell you when Sakura arrives and years of training." was the short answer he received, creating more new questions than it solved.

As if on clue, another Naru arrived through a couple of bushes, dragging a slightly reluctant Sakura behind her. Seeing her crush, Sakura overtook the Naru that had brought her here and stormed towards Sasuke who in turn turned impatient. He would get his answers, preferably right now. His inquisitive gaze didn't go unnoticed by his Naru clone who began to speak as soon as Sakura had arrived at the black haired teen's side.

"First of all, this exam is a trap, you can ask the other questions later, but this one has to go first. Time limit and so on, okay?" asked the clone.

"Hn." was Sasuke's reply. She was willing to give answers, he wouldn't be picky where she began, as long as it ended with all his questions satisfyingly answered.

Sakura was stressed out by the whole situation and was more than happy to have someone explaining the whole thing to her, so she simply nodded.

"Great," their teammate replied "now to explain what I meant just now. The exam's goal is not, as Kakashi-sensei stated, to get a bell from him. If a single genin that just came from the Academy has a realistic chance to best a jōnin and steal something he actively protects from him, Konoha couldn't work, right?"

Receiving nods that showed her audience was still with her, the blonde continued.

"So what could he aim for with this exam? The Academy already tested us on our basic abilities in Tai-, Nin- ,and Genjutsu as well as knowledge and chakra-capacity, although the last one more by looking at endurance and use of nin- and Genjutsu. They aren't having us kill somebody to see if we're able to do it neither can they really simulate a life or death scenario, as we'll still somewhere know that there won't be any real danger to our life.

This means they test something that is important in the field that isn't our singular abilities, so..."

"...they want to test our ability to work together." Sasuke stated as the gears inside his head fell into place. The seemingly impossible task. The absurdity of having to send back one of the trio even if everyone had been on the level of a genius.

Even starving them and threatening them with no lunch was intentional. Their sensei did his best to discourage teamwork at almost any possible point.

"Correct! They want to see if we can work together as a group. Whether we can actually get a bell or not is of no consequence aside from it being a noteworthy accomplishment."

"What's with all the big words, Naru? You never spoke like that before and when you began fighting you seemed different from usual" asked the pinkette having noticed the use of words she would have rather expected on someone like herself, who had spent more time reading books.

"That and your new speed are something I'd like to know about as well." added the slightly interested Uchiha. If the dead last had gotten stronger by this much in the span of a few days, he would get her secret to this growth and use it to overcome his brother and restore the honor of his clan.

Their teammate's Cheshire cat like grin already indicated that they wouldn't like their answer.

"As I already said, later. Now, we have an exam to pass."

After she was sure that her two teammates where away far enough, Naru stopped her assault o Kakashi after their latest clash. Both opponents stood a couple of meters apart and closely watched the other.

"Now that all spectators are gone..." Naru began in an icy, almost mechanical tone, making Kakashi tense up slightly, before her emotionless face vanished as sudden as it had appeared, to make place for a smirk.

"How have you been, Kakashi-nii-tan ." the blonde said in a cutesy voice while making use of the infamous puppy eyes every woman possessed inherently.

This made the silver haired shinobi almost literally facefault. Brutal and inappropriate changes in atmosphere were his job for crying out loud!

"Umm... Okay, I guess?"

"Oh. So you have been fine. That's a relief Kakashi-nii-tan ." the blue eyed kunoichi answered with a sweet voice while interlacing her fingers in a girlish manner. Nodding to herself, she continued, using the same tone of voice: "I had feared that you might have felt guilty for leaving a small girl all alone for years after all of her other friends were taken away through schemes. But now I'm relieved that you don't feel bad for abandoning me to solitude because of your laziness."

Even with his face-mask on, you could see Kakashi slightly flinch at that statement and the disturbingly sweet tone. He was sure that he knew it, but where had he heard that tone of voice before?

'Urgh...' They old memory of a certain redhead and her quite monumental temper resurfaced in his mind along with what those smiles promised. Pain and/or humiliation.

Given the situation he'd guess it would be the first one.

"Naru-san, let's talk about this like civilized ninja." he tried to placate his student. Were the ends of pigtails rising upwards behind her?

"Sure, let's talk."

The blonde's smile turned even sweeter while now cracking the joints in her hands.

"With our fists."

A second later Naru appeared inside Kakashi's guard, right arm drawn back, ready to deliver a powerful punch to his stomach. Blocking the fist with an open palm he slid back slightly from the unexpected strength behind it.

'She got even stronger! That one would have stung if I hadn't caught it.'

Taking the offensive, the older shinobi delivered a kick to her right side, connecting with her defending left hand, but succeeding in throwing the smaller and lighter genin, high up into the air, away from him.

Naru righted her self in midair and formed a single, cross-shaped hand seal, summoning a Kagebunshin in the space right above her. To Kakashi's surprise it was flipped upside down, facing away from him.

'What is she doing?' he wondered as he prepared for whatever the girls had planned.

The blonde stretched her arms upwards which were promptly grabbed by the clone's hands. A slight widening of Kakashi's eyes indicated that he knew what would probably follow and made him strengthen his guard.

"DYNAMIC"

Twisting it's body, the clone flipped around, dragging Naru behind before releasing her at the right to throw her legs first towards her sensei. After successfully hurling the original off at a blurring speed, the clone poofed away, enjoying the look on Kakashi's face.

Right feet stretched, Naru performed a signature move of the silver haired jōnin's nemesis, who stood ready with a cross-armed guard in place.

"ENTRY!"

The gravity powered kick jarred his right arm slightly and pushed him backwards, making his feet slide on the dirt.

Using the last bit of moment she angled her leg, closing the distance between their faces to less than a half meter. The bright smile on her face wasn't reassuring Kakashi in any way concerning this battle's eventual outcome. He might be a jōnin and the girl a genin, but she was apparently fueled by feminine fury.

"Essential Shinobi Skills #2..." she spoke while still crouched horizontally against his arms before using them as a springboard to push herself off. Doing a back flip, she finished her line in midair.

"Ninjutsu."

On that cue, four hands erupted beneath his feet, two each grasping one of his ankles, holding them in place. Kakashi couldn't evade them in time as he was still slightly off balance from being used as a foothold.

'When did she hide these!? I didn't see her making one before that on in midair.'

Knowing what would inevitable come next he prepared his escape in advance and formed the necessary hand seals before his body began to be dragged underground with the obligatory call of the jutsu's name:

"Doton Shinjū Zanshu no Jutsu!"

His preparation using Doton Moguragakure no Jutsu allowed him to easily escape his earthy prison in the ground and kick the two Kagebunshin that had dragged him down, causing them to pop.

Hopping out from the hole he was in, he landed a few meters beside it, facing a grinning blonde whose next attack soon followed.

Deciding to evade this one rather than block it, he stepped out of the punch's path, the copy-ninja was once again greeted with a pair of hands breaking through the dirt, trying to grab his feet. Only this time he stepped onto one of the hands before it caught him, popping the clone that had tried to grab him.

This short gap in his attention was used by Naru to go straight over to her next attack, forcing his slightly unbalanced form a bit backwards. And again was he greeted by grab-happy digits aiming for his ankles.

Kakashi's eyes widened in realization at his current situation and position. Right in the middle of the big open patch of dirt that made up the center of training ground 7 with no safe ground until the forest around began. The blue-eyed girl smirked at his realization and had to comment on it. Talking mid-battle wasn't the most intelligent thing to do but apparently quite addictive.

"Watch your step."

He had to continue evading attempts to bury him alive and punches that were not on a level he would like getting hit with repeatedly as they'd probably leave bruises. Everywhere he stepped, a new pair or two hands emerged form the ground, making the battle seem like a weird version of some horror movie with Zombies crawling from the ground.

'How many Kagebunshin has she buried around here? What crazy amount of chakra does she have!?'

And to make things worse, some of the clones he didn't destroy would rise completely from the holes, cooperating with their maker, to put more pressure on him, even with him destroying them regularly.

If number of clones until now had something to say he definitely didn't want to make this into a battle of attrition, so he used the next chance that presented itself to jump high into the air and in the direction of the forest. He touched the ground only with swift steps before jumping again to escape the buried clones and reached a branch on the nearest tree without getting caught.

Catching his breath for a second, he turned around to find his student standing a few meters from his tree, slightly pouting.

"You shouldn't skip essential skills. Traps were supposed to be number four."

The characteristic sound of sizzling made him aware of what the blond had meant as he leaped away from his position, which turned to charcoal in a relatively small explosion. And his landing point turned out to be no better than the one before as he was welcomed by the sound of an exploding note igniting, forcing him to jump away again.

With tears of desperation in his eyes he mentally cried out:

'She couldn't have planned where I escape to! Did she rig the whole fucking forest!?'

To his misfortune, yes, apparently his student had either the devil's luck or had turned the whole forest into a minefield as everywhere he stepped soon met a fiery end.

'When did she have the time to set this up!?'

He had to abandon facepalming in favor of making sure his feet weren't singed as his mind brought forth the answer which expressed itself in the form of an easy equation:

5 Hours of time + many Kagebunshin + Kushina's temperament = Minefield

Sasuke, Sakura and Naru's clone could hear faint bangs in the distance, which confused the two really present genin and made the clone smile. A big smile. One of which both her teammates knew meant that whoever was the target of the blond haired kunoichi would be unhappy very soon or was already.

Neither had the urge to know what exactly the blonde was doing as long as they didn't end up on the wrong end of it.

"Now for the plan..."

'Where is she?' the silver haired jōnin thought as he landed in a small clearing. The last five minutes he had constantly been evading explosions and had lost sight of the blond girl at some point.

He slowly scanned his surroundings with a kunai propped in his right hand to deflect anything that could come flying at him. It was too quiet for his liking.

A soft breeze blew through the trees around him, rustling the leafs.

The next moment the assault started.

Five blond girls came running at him from all directions, forming a circle around him. They all had a kunai in one of their hands, probably to counter his. But something told him that this couldn't have been everything.

The Narus closed in on him without giving away which one was the original.

When they were just two meters away from him, his instincts informed him about what he had expected as two clouds of shuriken targeted at him whizzed through the air. And at the start of their trajectory he saw his other two students hidden in the trees.

'When have they coordinated this?'

Cutting his thoughts short, Kakashi now had to parry the weapons flying at him, creating an opening the Narus could exploit. A passable display of teamwork but not quite enough to get the bells as far as he's concerned.

His arm blurred as he batted down each and every shuriken with his one kunai, deflecting them into the ground. In the meantime the blond girls had shortened their distance to him to merely one meter. Now he just had to find out which one was the original and pop the clones.

A punch to his right and one clone went pop.

'One'

A kick with his right leg behind him and another pop.

'Two'

The clone behind him on the left side successfully grabbed his leg to keep him in place before he could pop it. His left hand went for the last clone who came at him frontally. His punch caught the clone right in the solar plexus.

'Three'

Kakashi was caught off guard by the sudden weight on his left arm when he tried to move it to backhand the original away. Glancing back at it, the blond he had just punched didn't vanish in a pop of smoke but instead had caught his arm with a pained grin.

'The one that's going after the bells is a clone! She used herself to block me from attacking it.'

Twisting slightly the cyclops used his unoccupied right hand to attack the clone going for the bells on his left side, crossing his right arm underneath his outstretched left arm in the process. It would leave him in disadvantageous position but the opportunity wouldn't be enough for the clone gripping onto his leg to capitalize on.

His punch once again hit the blonde perfectly, but to his dismay, this Naru took his hit without dispelling too, and clamped down on his overstretched arm despite the spittle flying from her mouth, signaling that having an empty stomach was indeed a good thing.

In the split second before he could shake off both blondes, the last one that had been holding his leg acted and snatched the bells from his side before jumping backwards which was mirrored by the other two Narus who each threw a smoke bomb on the ground the moment they had let go of his hands.

Standing in the clearing until the smoke had cleared, Kakashi was dumbfounded by what had just happened. He had just lost the bells to a ragtag group of genin.

And he didn't even know exactly how.

At least that mystery was lifted together with the smoke as the smug and too similar look on Sakura and Sasuke's faces before they vanished into a small cloud of white smoke told him what had happened.

He had been played by his students.

'I expected them to be foolish and expected them to just attack from the front without tricks. Seeing them work together, at least on a rudimentary level, took my mind of the situation a little and the body doubles finally led to me mistaking the five Narus to consist only of clones.'

It pained him to admit, that this one was mostly his fault for underestimating them. Had he become too complacent after the last years of peace? If the bells had been something important and his enemies weak enough to underestimate them like his new students...

'Enough reflection. Let's go congratulate those brats on shaming their sensei.'

He couldn't suppress a wry smile snaking its way onto his face as he slowly walked back towards the center of training ground 7. They surely wouldn't mind waiting a few more minutes after their win.

Meanwhile with team 7

Rushing through the trees with adrenaline filling their veins, the newly minted genin sprinted away from the clearing where they had pulled off what shouldn't have been possible.

Their thrown together teamwork, more intended to display that they could work as a team than actually getting the bells, had against drastic odds worked and they now had the two silver bells in their possession.

Sasuke was quite pleased with the outcome while Sakura was outright euphoric.

At first she had been against the plan as fighting against their sensei seemed just so far from what they are capable of that she was afraid of getting hurt when she'd have to face him and didn't want Sasuke-kun to get hurt either. This concern had only grown after Naru had explained her plan and that it required Sasuke-kun - and Naru herself, but that thought didn't cross her mind - to get hurt intentionally. In return she had the only role in the plan that wouldn't experience pain which made it a little bit easier for her to accept it.

After Sasuke-kun hat expressed his agreement to the plan she also felt that she had to agree or she would lose a big chance to impress Sasuke-kun and maybe even make her look cowardly.

Now though, she was glad to have accepted the plan as it had apparently pleased Sasuke-kun and since she had a big part in it he would have to notice her a bit, right?

The target of the pink haired girl's affection on the other hand was pleased because he – and partly his teammates, but mainly him – had achieved a noteworthy feat in successfully completing a seemingly impossible task which could only mean that he was at least one step to fulfilling his ambitions. Even an Avenger was compelled to at least smirk when he felt his revenge getting closer to his reach.

Now he'd just have to wring out his blond teammate to get the secret to her speed out of her and the day would be perfect.

Said blonde was content with how things had proceeded too. Leading the Uchiha to the right conclusion had proven to be better than just giving him the answer flat out as that would have probably scratched his pride deep enough to destroy any possible teamwork. His speed and strength also turned out to be acceptable and teamwork seemed to work out if his role was fancy enough, in this case catching the probably heavy hit intended for a Kagebunshin, buying the deciding instant of time for Sakura.

Her female teammate had been almost too easy to persuade to follow the plan she had decided once her crush had decided to join.

One was easily grabbed by his pride as the last survivor of a prestigious clan and the other one could be controlled through the former without much trouble. Having teammates that she is able to "cooperate" with properly will surely be useful in the future and her devised plan should have gained her a modicum of trust in her schemes in the future.

That all and she had gotten to bully the lazy dog a little and give him a wake up call.

This exam turned out to be quite productive.

"Congratulations you three." the masked ninja began his speech to his new team who were sitting in front of the wooden poles, eating the bentos Kakashi had brought with him.

"As you probably have found out, this exam was testing whether you three could work together as a team and help each other to achieve your goals."

Three pairs of eyes followed him pace around in front of them with slumped shoulders. Neither of them paused shoveling food into their mouths though.

"To make the test harder, you were faced with a problem that would make cooperation impossible... which you three simply ignored. Furthermore you even accomplished to really steal the bells from me.

Originally the point at which the two of you would have supported the third would have been barely enough to pass you, but to use a feint by disguising yourselves as each other and purposefully taking blows to create an opportunity for your comrade leaves me little choice but to pass you."

After a cheer that fell out minimal due to their meal still being in process, their sensei continued giving them their results.

"Sasuke, Naru, the two of you could take a hit from me and still hold onto the arm strong enough to impede me although it should have hurt quite a bit. Both of you would probably do well with specializing primarily in Tai- and Ninjutsu for now. I can't say much concerning you, Sakura, but judging from your current constitution and what I know from the reports your Academy sensei made, your chakra control should make you predisposed for Genjutsu and Iryō-Ninjutsu.

Sadly I haven't seen nearly enough in this exam to say anything more detailed or plan a training regime for you guys but we'll work out what's most suited to you in the next months."

He then waited for his new students to finish eating before he delivered what he considered to be the most important part of wisdom he could teach them.

"You three were the first I have tested that didn't listen to me and worked together to get the bells. You could see underneath the underneath and figure out the real meaning of this test and even use your bodies to protect the other, so let me impart a piece of wisdom my sensei gave me when I was younger:

'In the ninja world, those who break the rules are considered trash, but those that don't value their comrades are worse than trash.'

All three of you passed! That's it for the survival exercise. Rejoice and party tonight. Tomorrow team 7 will take its first mission!"

"YEAH!" Naru cheered.

"Yes, sir." Sakura replied dutifully.

The last Uchiha uncharacteristically replied with small smile "Yes."

On their way back, Naru had an issue with Kakashi that needed to be addressed, so she pulled him aside and slowed down a little, causing Sasuke and Sakura to walk far in front on them to be out of earshot for a whispered communication.

The masked jōnin inquired with a tilt of his head why the blonde girl had pulled him away from her teammates, unsure what to make of the girl after this morning. In return the girl looked into his visible eye with an unwavering stare that made it quite clear that whatever it was she wanted from him was something serious for her.

"Kashi-nii, can you promise me not to tell anyone of what I am really capable?"

This caught the silver haired shinobi by surprise. Not only did she use the affectionate nickname she used for him way back, but the request in itself made his thought process stumble slightly.

Why would she want to hide what she can do from everyone? Enemies he could understand, but it was necessary for proper teamwork that the team members knew what each other can do.

Reacting to his confused look, Naru explained in more detail what she wanted him to do and why.

"There are some people in high places here in Konoha who don't like me getting stronger and have ears even in jiji's office. If they knew what I was really capable of, jiji's orders wouldn't stop them from trying to harm me and I'm not strong enough to defend against them. So can you please keep it under wraps?"

The pleading look in her eyes made him waver. The knowledge that the threat to her was probably quite real tipped the scale further towards accepting her request.

'Those who break the rules are considered trash, but those that don't value their comrades are worse than trash.'

How could he not listen to her request when he had just preached to his students minutes earlier. It wouldn't hurt anyone if her skills were underestimated as long as he reported the level of missions the team could deal with was chosen correctly, right?

Sighing, he closed his eye and replied.

"Okay, I'll keep quiet Naru."

In return he received a brilliant smile from the azure-eyed girl which then happily skipped towards her teammates, slinging her arms around their necks which startled them greatly.

"Who wants RAMEN!?"

The sun had vanished behind the horizon, flooding the lifeless Uchiha district with a deep orange light, drowning out all other colors.

A black haired youth sat in his armchair inside his unlit living- and bedroom, intensively staring at the piece of paper in his hands. A message that had found its way into the pocket of his pants without his notice.

Hopefully this would shine some light on the questions this day brought up.

He was torn from his musings by a hand knocking against the glass door of his veranda.

The much delayed Chapter 6. I hope you'll like it and that you'll review it :)

Coming next: Revelations? Secrets? The Mission to Wave?
if you want to know, read the next chapter!