Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto and I in no part own the franchise

'Naruto'=thoughts

Naruto=normal

*Naruto*=sound effect

OoO=short cut XxxxXxx=long cut

Chapter 1: First impressions

Deidara eased back in his chair, fingers fiddling with his pockets and face winded down. A sharp contrast to the excitement infecting all the other crazed students, he seemed to be the only one immune. 'Today is officially the day everyone becomes full-fledged ninja, big deal, we'll just be stuck saving lost cats or something.'

His pale blue eyes locked onto the nearest clock. 'It's about time for it to start...but I don't see Iruka any...' He lost his train of thought when he was suddenly faced with a kid near inches away from his nose. "...Get out of my face already, hm." He grumbled.

Naruto always found a way to blow Deidara's infamously short fuse and today was no different. 'I don't get what's the big deal about him, he acts smug like all the time I don't think I've ever seen him without that stupid smirk on his face!' Naruto stuck his tongue out. "Why would I listen to an idiot like you?!"

"Then listen to my foot."

"Hu—" He got cut off when Deidara planted his face then tipped him over the desk.

*bam*

"Naruto! Get your ass off me!"

"S-sorry Sakura-chan it was an accident! It's all Deidara's fault!"

"I don't wanna hear it!"

Normally, Deidara would've enjoyed watching Naruto get pummeled Sakura, but was distracted by Iruka's rrival. "Even though all of you have become real ninja, you are all still Genin, so the road head to becoming top shinobi is still very far ahead."

"Since you'll be starting missions soon, you'll be assigned three man teams with each team having a jōnin as their leader. Following your sensei's instructions will be key to completing each of your missions successfully."

Naruto droned out most of what Iruka said as usual and only listened to bits and pieces. 'I'd hate to be the loser stuck on Deidara's team, that'd suck.'

Deidara chewed on a cuticle. 'Three-man teams? Well, I don't care who it is,' He peered at the spiky blonde. '...just anyone but him.'

'Eh, a three-man team,' Sakura went through a mental list of all her classmates. 'There's no one I especially want to be with, anyone would be fine except for Naruto and Ino-pig!'

Iruka wavered a piece of paper in the air, "This small paper will decide all your future. We tried to balance each team's strengths to ensure the likelihood of success."

*several disappointments later

"...ok and next is Team 7. Haruno Sakura, Uzumaki Naruto and Deidara."

"WHAT?!"

OoO

'Knock on wood for me, I guess,' Deidara tore off a chunk of his lunch, he leaned onto an old building's railing and watched the sun slowly approach the horizon. 'I can't complain about something I had coming for me.'

Deidara dropped off the building and onto the soft ground. He looked around for a moment before homing in on his target. 'There she is.'

Sakura finished the last bites of her lunch and sulked for dessert. "I'm fine with Deidara, he's nowhere near as annoying as Naruto, he's strong too, and won't be lagging down the team like—"

"Like you?"

Equipped with his usual smirk as always, Deidara walked from behind the flowering trees. "Just because we're on the same team now, don't expect me to save you like some kind of damsel in distress, hm."

The coldness of his words struck a nerve in Sakura. "What's that supposed to mean?! I won't ever need help from you!"

"Are you kidding me? You're no better than Naruto, both of you are the same level of weakness...well no I take that back, he's a little bit weaker, hm."

"Hey! Shut the hell up, you're the weak one!" Deidara and Sakura's heads turned to find another Deidara with a hand over his mouth. 'Shit, I spoke too early.'

"What the-who do you think you are?!" Deidara yelled.

"An idiot! Ha ha I'm such a loser!"

'That has to be Naruto, pathetic.' "Whatever."

"I'm gonna go run across the entire village!"

"So what?"

"And say how much of a loser I am for everyone to hear!"

'Great, this jackass is about to ruin my entire image, I can't let that happen!' Deidara ran after his doppelgänger. "If you do that I swear I'll kill you!"

Sakura could still Deidara's vivid yellow hair flying wildly against the wind, a sigh escaping her breath when she went back to staring at her feet. "I'm hopeless with those two on my team."

XxxxXxx

"Naruto, sit down already or something," Sakura grumbled.

"Yeah yeah," Naruto grumbled back. "Just why is our teacher so damn late?!"

Deidara was sitting in his seat so long he practically melted into it. 'Can't complain with him on this one.'

"All the other teams have gone out and did cool stuff with their jōnin, but we're stuck in this room with nothing to do, not even Iruka's here!" Naruto harshly leaned back on the thin boarded wall, putting a large crack in it and a glare from Sakura. "Shit, can we leave this place already?!"

"...I have an idea," He grabbed an eraser from the chalkboard and leaped onto a table leaning by the door.

"Hey! Naruto what're you doing?!"

He wedged the eraser in between the doors. "Giving sensei what he gets for being late!"

"What a dumb trick," Deidara said.

"So?! Do you have anything—" Deidara threw him a small, white ball. "What's this?"

"Stick it on the wall, hm."

Several legs popped out of the ball and it scaled the wall. It's spider-like movements captured Naruto and Sakura's attention as it moved from the frame to in between the sliding door's opening where it positioned itself.

Naruto muttered something under his breath, then took the eraser out.

'That jutsu was so cool! How'd he do it?!' Sakura broke the awkward silence with an equally awkward cough. "That justu was..."

"Totally lame!" Naruto cut in. "What was the point of that, so you could act all smug with your stupid jutsu?!"

"Ameatur, you wouldn't understand." Deidara formed a quick hand seal. "I'm an artist, and what the clay will produce is my form of art!"

"There's...more?!"

"You haven't even seen the best part yet, hm!"

'He ruined his own speech with those weird grunts. Weirdo.'

'Does he grunt like that on purpose to look cool or does he do it subconsciously?'

"Why are you two looking at me like that for?! I'm telling the truth, hm!"

'There he goes again with the grunts.'

'Maybe he grunts more when he's irritated, that's probably it.'

"Ugh, then you'll have to see firsthand what I'm talking about whenever he comes through!"

Kakashi poked his head out of the door. "See what?"

"This; katsu!" The clay peeled off and landed in Kakashi's wavy silver hair.

'It...failed?!'

"Hmm first impressions...I don't like you guys."

OoO

Kakashi led them to the rooftop of the classroom, outside was surprisingly stagnant, the clouds were motionless and the wind could barely make a scratch on the surrounding trees. "How about we start off by introducing ourselves," Kakashi said.

Naruto, Deidara, and Sakura seated themselves on steps that opened to the balcony while Kakashi was fine sitting on the railing.

"Like how?" Naruto asked.

"Hmm, let's see, why not we say our likes, dislikes, hobbies, dreams for the future, conversational stuff like that."

"You should start first," Naruto said.

"That way we can see how it's done." Sakura added. 'And because he's kind of suspicious...'

"Fine with me," Kakashi propped one arm on the railing. "My name is Hatake Kakashi, I don't really care to tell you my likes or dislikes...dreams for the future, haven't really thought about it, but I have lots of hobbies."

"Lame, all he told us was his name." Deidara muttered, the others weakly nodded.

"Now it's your guy's turn, you there on the right, start."

Naruto adjusted his forehead protector, overloaded with excitement. "Alright, alright! The name's Uzumaki Naruto, I like cup ramen and I like it even more when Iruka-sensei buys it for me at the shop! What I dislike is waiting three minutes for the ramen to cook and my dream..."

'Does all this guy ever think about is ramen?'

"My dream is to be the greatest Hokage of all time and then people of the village will have no choice but to acknowledge my existence!"

'He's had an interesting childhood...'

"My hobbies...I guess it's pranks."

Kakashi scratched the back of his head. "Alright then, next."

"My name is Deidara, I like art, I dislike anyone who disrespects my art, my hobbies are developing new techniques to express my art and my dreams for the future is to find a way to become my own passion, it'll be the ultimate dream!"

'Just like Naruto he obsesses to death over one thing.'

Sakura and Naruto stared at Deidara.

'He...he wants to become clay? He's weirder than I imagined...'

'Does he ever shut up about his art?'

'I figured as much.' "And last, the girl," He nodded in her direction. "Go ahead."

"My name is Haruno Sakura and I like...hm...well I like hot guys, my hobbies are, uh, shopping I guess, dreams for the future...I want to be a strong kunoichi that way Deidara can eat his words! Oh and what I dislike is Naruto!"

Sakura stuck her tongue out at Deidara while Naruto wallowed in sadness.

'A strong kunoichi? That's a good one.' "So far with the introductions, tomorrow we'll start with a special shinobi duty."

"Duty?! What kind of duty?!" Naruto chirped.

"It'll be something for just the four of us..."

"What is it, what is it, huh?!"

"Survival training."

"What the hell are you talking about, that's why we went to the academy in the first place, hm."

"It's not any of that low level academy training, I'll be your opponent this time around."

"Then, then what is it?"

Kakashi broke out into a low cackle, puzzling the genin even further. "What's so funny, sensei?" Sakura asked.

"It's just that, you guys'll all freak out when I tell you."

"Tell us what?"

"Of the 27 graduates only 9 will become genin, the rest will be sent back to the academy, this training is very difficult with a failure rate of over 66%." Kakashi humored all the genin's suddenly pale faces. "Didn't I say you all would freak out?"

"Then what was the point of the academy?!"

"Oh just to see who had the chance of becoming genin."

"What?!"

"Anyways, the exams will take place tomorrow, it'll be the perfect place to show what you're made of, so bring all your shinobi tools and skip on eating breakfast—you'll throw up." Kakashi pushed himself off the railing, a stack of papers in hand. "Details are on the paper, don't be late."

'A survival test where I might throw up? This'll be a test of my patience...'

'This is a test of my strength, I'll show Kakashi-sensei what an awesome ninja I am!'

'He must be testing my art skills, that last one was a fluke, but tomorrow I'm bringing my best clay so he can experience true art at its finest!'

A/N: Thank you for reading this I appreciate it, this is probably my third character swap story so far, but this time things will change for once. It'll be slow at first, but by the end, it's going to be its own thing so bare with me.

Second thing, Deidara is not meant to replace Sasuke in the sense that he's an Uchiha. Sasuke still exists or 'existed' in this story.