Do Not Understimate Us

Ino Yamanaka was not the type of girl to put up with other people's bullshit.

She had scored the top marks of her graduating class, had good looks, tons of personality, confidence, a strong set of morals and analytical ability like no other. So it really should have been no surprise to the new batch of ninjas that she had a problem with the new four-man genin squads Iruka-sensei would assign them all.

"Alright then, everyone, you may now head over to your designated areas to wait for your supervising jonin," finished the chunin, smiling warmly at them all.

"Iruka-sensei, if I may, I have some concerns I'd like attended to," called the blonde girl, rising from her seat prompting Shikamaru to throw his head onto the desk in front of him. Now, he wished he had scored better marks during school so he would not have been placed with this girl who was so, extra. Choji munched on his food a bit more quietly than before, wondering what could have angered Ino already. After all, it had been less than three minutes since the groups had been announced.

Most of the other new graduates had on looks of indifference, like Sasuke, or polite interest, like Hinata, the main out liar being Sakura. The pink haired girl had gritted her teeth and was growling lowly in her throat. Was that Ino-pig trying to put herself on the team with Sasuke instead? No way, Sakura just could not let that happen! If it did, then she would have to speak up, for the sake of her and Sasuke's eternal love!

Iruka sighed. He had been going over these group lists for the entirety of last week and all through last night with the Hokage and the teaching jonin. He was sick of staring at the same 24 names in various different orders. Nonetheless, he smiled brightly, if not a bit tiredly, and nodded for her to continue.

"Thank you. Sensei, don't you notice a pattern in each group?" she asked, green-blue eyes scanning each table to indicate she had, in fact, checked each table.

"Yes Ino, the mark average of your group should be about the same, so, most groups contain one exceptional student, one average and one lacking," replied Iruka slowly, not bothering to look at the groups he had memorized and confirm this. However it was slightly strange; he had expected the ever-observant girl to figure that out independently, also, he himself had just mentioned it for everyone else...

"Yes sir, you're right. However, there is something else!" Ino insisted, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

"...Alright then, what is it Ino-chan?"

"Each and every team contains precisely two boys and one girl!" she cried.

Iruka frowned a bit, not seeing anything out of the ordinary. "Yes, they do. What is your point?"

"Well, is that not a bit sexist?"

"..." The classroom became deathly quiet, as all the children tried to understand such a mature word and concept.

Then the adult in the room decided to it was time to speak up and clarify their young minds. "...Huh?"

Ino glanced around the room, looking for anyone who might help her explain herself. However, after a minute of finding no one, she sighed and took another ten seconds to formulate a decent explanation.

"Essentially, sexism is the prejudices or injustices society inflicts upon those of a certain gender, particularly females."

"..." Subsequently, everyone became oddly aware of the low sounds Shino's bugs made, flying around him...

Cursing the fact that she was in a room full of twelve year olds who probably spent all their time eating and playing tag, Ino sighed and flicked her hair over her shoulder. She might as well try to explain her complete thought process regarding the matter in question.

"I know for a fact, sensei," she started, "That the girls' average in our school year was very high, almost an eighty eight percent whereas the boys' average was only a seventy four. However, there are twice as many boys in this room as there are girls, meaning that some of the girls who scored higher than some of these boys, knew more ninjutsu and had more chakra control, were not even considered to take this term's transformation and clone Jutsus test!"

Here she paused for some well-timed dramatic effect. Someone gasped in the background.

"They were made to wait another semester so that there would be a higher concentration of eligible boys in their class! Why is that? Do the senseis believe that if there were to be two girls on each team, or daresay a full girl's team, that they would not be able to manage? That they would be too weak to properly complete missions?"

When she finished her speech, everyone in the class had their eyes trained on her and their brains working overdrive. Could what the blonde be saying actually be true? If that was the case, then the organized teams were in fact, 'sexist' and nobody had even realized. The kids looked at one another and found that she was right; several competent female candidates were absent, not because they failed the test, but because they were not allowed to take it in the first place.

Sasuke raised an eyebrow. Ino, or whatever her name was, was right. He had only every heard of genin groups containing one girl and two boys, never any other combination. He closed his eyes and tried to think of any exceptions, but came up blank; both his parents, his traitor of a brother, and all of his cousins, aunts and uncles had only ever mentioned teams of 2:1.

Naruto was clutching his head and groaning softly, completely confused. Before today, he had never thought so much about anything, let alone politics or corruption, and on top of that, he did not even know what the word sexist meant!

"Well, Ino, I'm not sure what to say to that... But I can promise you that degrading women was not something we tried to do with these groupings," mumbled Iruka, searching through his clipboard for something more he could say to her.

"That does not mean it is any less true," she pointed out proudly. She smiled to herself. If she was not such a talented ninja, she would have been a fantastic lawyer.

Iruka sighed again and pinched the bridge of his nose. He was not really upset with the blonde haired girl, just frustrated that her point was legitimate enough to be brought up in front of the village elders. Then, they would all argue over it for another three days...

"Iruka-sensei, these children should be with their jonin by now!" called the Third Hokage, abruptly rounding the door into their classroom. With a pull from his ever-present pipe, he continued, "I just walked past the very disturbing image of Kakashi dancing around in circles, cheering because he was less late then everyone else, for once! What is the meaning of this?"

"Hokage-sama, there seems to be a problem..."

A/N: Ooooh... I wonder what's going to happen now! And how what's going to happen now, changes the course of history! Please review with your thoughts throughout the story and let me know which parts you liked/disliked. They really mean a lot (^-^) and help me gauge how effective I've been in making you laugh and think - and improve.

Also, check out the pairings poll on my profile and cast your vote for your favorite. I'm taking them into consideration since I'm really not sure. BoyXBoy & GirlXGirl pairings are also present, so please beware of that! We might have a mix of het/homo? (but nothing more explicit than kissing. I'm not writing 12 year old porn XD)