Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura were waiting on the bridge for their sensei, who was once again, late. Three hours late to be exact. By now all three ninja were extremely annoyed.
"Where is he?!" Naruto shouted, pacing around the bridge. "He's three hours late! Again!!!"
Sasuke merely opened one eye and glared in annoyance at the hyperactive blond. "If he was late yesterday, and late the day before that, what made you think that he would show up on time today?" he snapped coldly while planning various ways to torture his sensei for being late again. He looked at his watch again and made a mental note to make it a very slow and painful punishment.
"Naruto, stop annoying Sasuke!" Sakura shouted, and Naruto started to pout. "So, Sasuke, what do you think his excuse will be this time?" Sakura asked in an attempt to get her crush to talk with her. Needless to say, the attempt failed miserably.
Sasuke only replied with his usual "Hn", before returning to thinking of all the different ways to kill his brother.
Naruto, on the other hand, was only too happy to talk with Sakura. "He'll probably say that he got lost on the path of life again." Naruto said loudly, receiving a glare from Sakura, though she did have to admit that it was true.
"I didn't ask you!" she yelled, hitting the blond across the head.
They waited for another half hour before they saw Hinata running towards the stadium in a hurry. All three teammates looked at each other, then all got up and ran after her before she got too far.
"Hey Hinata!" Natuto called out to her, and Hinata almost tripped and fell flat on her face at the sound of her name being called. Regaining her balance, she turned to see who had called her name, blushing when she saw Naruto jogging towards her.
"Hey Hinata, where are you running off to in such a hurry?" Sakura asked curiously, looking at the other girl. Hinata gazed at them in surprise, her mouth slightly open.
"Um, didn't you sensei tell you?" she asked tentively in her soft voice. "Our sensei's were supposed to tell us yesterday to meet at the stadium at 11:00. All of the ninja teams are supposed to meet there." She looked up at Naruto quickly before looking down again, blushing slightly.
Sakura developed a severe twitch in her left eye and got a scary look on her face. "No, he seems to have forgotten to mention that little detail." She managed to choke out between clenched teeth.
Hinata took a step back from Sakura, looking scared. "Well, um, do you want to go to the stadium together?" she asked shyly, not meeting anyone's eyes.
"Yeah, great idea Hinata!" Naruto exclaimed, patting the girl on the shoulder. Hinata almost fainted from the contact. "Let's go." Naruto called, already running towards the stadium. Sakura and Sasuke rolled their eyes and starting running after him. Hinata just stood there for a second before running after them. When she caught up Sakura turned her head to look at her.
"So why do we all have to go to the stadium?" Sakura asked, staring at Hinata in confusion.
"There is a new Hidden Village starting up in the mountains about 100 miles north of here." Hinata replied, still running. "Since the new village won't know anything about fighting or ninja training, our village has been asked to train them for a while until they can fight and develop special techniques of their own. The trainees are coming in today, so we were asked to come to the stadium to see which ones would be training on our teams and to get to know them a bit before training began."
Sakura nodded, wondering how her sensei could have forgotten to mention such an important thing. Vaguely she wondered what the new students would be like.
They finally reached the stadium after about 15 minutes, slowing to a walk as they reached the entrance. Hinata quickly ran off to find her teammates and sensei after a stammered good-bye, leaving Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura to look for their own sensei, Kakashi. They finally found him sitting near the stands, reading an all too familiar orange book.
Sakura's eyes nearly popped out her head with anger when she saw her sensei sitting there, and marched up to him, fuming. She was abut to start her rant, but was cut off by Naruto.
"Kakashi- sensei, why didn't you tell us that we were supposed to meet here today?" Naruto half whined, half shouted. "We were sitting on that bridge for over 3 hours before Hinata ran by and told us that we were supposed to meet here! If she hadn't run by, we'd probably still be sitting there!"
Kakashi just blinked slowly at his three students for a minute before replying. "I guess that must have forgot… or something." He said thoughtfully, causing all of his students to sweatdrop. Naruto was just about to start yelling at him again when a loud yell got all of their attention. They all turned around, and so did the 20 or 30 other teams there. All of them looked up at a raised podium in the middle of the stadium where the Hokage and a strange man stood. The Hokage looked at each person there before he began talking.
"Thank you all for coming here. You all know why you are gathered here today." He started, speaking loudly and clearly so that even the people in the back could hear him. "And now, the leader of the new village, Daichi, would like to speak to you."
The other man standing near the Hokage stepped forward and gazed at the assembled ninja for a moment before speaking. He was a tall, scarred man with his hair shaved off and wearing a black trench coat and sturdy looking boots. "I would first like to thank the Hidden Leaf Village for agreeing to train some of our people in the way of the ninja. We shall someday become strong enough to become a Hidden Village of our own, and when that day arrives we shall choose our village name and sign a peace treaty with you r village." He paused and smiled out over the crowd. "The students who have been brought here are the finest in our village, and we fully expect each of them to acquire the status of ninja and defend their village. Now, without further ado, the future ninja of our village!"
The gates to the stadium swung wide open to admit the new students. Naruto craned his head around the others in the crowd, expecting to see tall, powerfully muscled 13 and 14 year olds. But at first he didn't see anything at all. Sakura nudged him and Sasuke and pointed down.
Looking where she was pointing, Naruto saw……….. a large group of 7-year olds?! The girl farthest out front, a lean girl with light tawny gold hair and pale sky blue eyes looked around at the assembled ninja and blinked innocently at them. The others milled behind her, staring at the ninja uncertainly.
"Um, hi!" The girl said in a soft cheerful voice. "We're the new students!"
Everyone's jaw dropped.