A/U: Alfa here. GAH. I uploaded the wrong document last time...here's the real one. Sorry. x.x
This is just a little idea I had...out of many...anyways. xD
Disclaimer: Unfortunately, I, Alfawolf, do not own Naruto, soup, or sushi. Sadly.
Summary: The four genin squads of Kakashi, Gai, Kurenai, and Asuma have been acting mysterious...however, they're here to intervene in Konoha's latest misfortunes and set things right. The mission? To eradicate the Fourth Great Shinobi War before it starts.
CHAPTER ONE: Time of Genesis
Hatake Kakashi had a problem: his genin team. Ever since they'd returned from their C-ranked-turned-A-ranked mission to Wave Country a week ago, any teamwork they'd displayed had pretty much gone down the drain. Naruto and Sasuke had all but stopped talking to each other, taking great pains to avoid even standing next to their teammate. Sakura, of course, had been no help whatsoever, always defending her crush and whaling on Naruto at every given chance. The masked jounin ran a hand through his shock of gravity-defying silver hair and sighed. 'Oh well. A few teamwork exercises should do the trick,' he decided optimistically, forming the hand seal for a shunshin.
A swirl of leaves later left Kakashi perched atop the red bridge that served as a rendezvous point for Team 7. Raising one hand in a lazy wave, he glanced up briefly from his deluxe edition of Icha Icha Paradise to greet his team and did a double take. The genin were all present-no surprise there considering Kakashi was three hours late-and were leaning on the railing next to each other, talking quietly amongst themselves.
Talking. Quietly. Next to each other. Not squealing, fighting, or otherwise making a lot of noise. Talking. The former ANBU immediately felt his guard go up several notches.
Kakashi closed his gaping mouth...not that anyone would notice under his mask...and more or less arranged his facial features back into his trademark bored expression. "Yo."
Naruto waved back cheerfully. "Ohaiyo, Kakashi-sensei!" he chirped.
"Hn. Kakashi." Sasuke gave him a small smirk.
"Kakashi-sensei!" Sakura grinned at him.
The jounin nearly fell off the bridge. 'What the hell? No complaints about being late? And is Sasuke actually smiling at me? Who are you and what have you done with my genin?' Kakashi stared at the trio. These were definitely not the cute little twelve-year-olds who'd been squabbling the day before.
"So, Kakashi-sensei!" Naruto called up to the silver-haired jounin. "Do you have a mission for us? Are you going to train us? Teach me a super-awesome-kick-ass-jutsu, dattebayo!"
Sakura and Sasuke sweatdropped.
"You already know a ton of powerful jutsu, dobe," Sasuke deadpanned quietly.
"Shut up, teme!" hissed the blonde. "Kaka-sensei doesn't know that, remember?"
"How could we forget?" muttered Sakura. "Rav-Sasuke just meant you could, you know, ask to train in Taijutsu or something."
"I never really did ask to train in Taijustsu," insisted their teammate. "Besides, I can't actually show him what I can do, so what does it matter?"
"Point taken," conceded the 'last' Uchiha, fixing his onyx gaze back on their sensei, who was staring at the trio with narrowed eyes, though Sasuke doubted he could hear them.
"So..?" prodded Sakura, after the silence had gone on too long.
Kakashi gave them an eye-smile. "Nope!"
The genin stared.
"We'll have a free day today. Meet me back here tomorrow, same time!" He shunshined out of sight amidst a swirl of leaves.
"Yes! Day off! Let's get wasted!" cheered Naruto.
Sakura smacked her teammate on the head. "Baka! We're twelve!" she admonished.
Sasuke smirked. "Dobe. We need to sort out our living arrangements."
"Teme! Let's walk through town first," argued Naruto. "We need to report, anyways."
"I'll go with, until I see Deer," offered Sakura. "We should get our squads together."
"Not in public, Sakura!" hissed Naruto. "C'mon, let's go. I can't wait to see the village again!" He trotted off towards the market as his friends deadpanned.
"'I can't wait to see the village again', huh?" quipped Sakura with a twitching brow.
"Hn. So much for not in public," muttered Sasuke, sauntering after the blonde.
"Baka!" Sakura yelled at Naruto, running after her teammates.
Hyuuga Neji narrowed his pale eyes at the wave of incoming projectiles headed his way. Juuken! He thrust his chakra outwards, spinning to create an impenetrable defense. A blur headed his way, almost to fast to see, and he ducked under Rock Lee's attack. Fast as lightning, he closed several points on his opponent's arm before being forced to Kamawari out of the range of several kunai and a fuuma shuriken. He nodded to his teammates. "We're done," he monotoned.
"YOSH! What an incredibly YOUTHFUL display!" cried Mighto Gai, crying manly tears of joy against a sunset beach backdrop. The green-clan ninja paused as none of his students, not even his protege joined in. He tried again. "LEE my most YOUTHFUL student! What an AMAZINGLY YOUTHFUL assault that was!"
He was met by several blank stares.
Neji coughed something that sounded surprisingly like "Cough-Lee!cough!" But it couldn't be, because Neji never, ever, acknowledged his fellow teammate, let alone said his name.
Lee stared at Neji, puzzled. What am I supposed to do?
Tenten made a few discreet signs to cast a genjutsu and make their sensei see what he expected; Rock Lee hugging him and crying his name before turning on her teammate. "Look, Lee, even if you outgrew that little quirk of acting and dressing like Gai-sensei, you still have to go along with it," she reminded.
"Oh...right...Yosh, Tenten! Most Youthful and Precious Blossom of our team! If I fail to fill my role again, I will run around the village walls 1000 ti-"
"Enough, Lee," droned Neji. "Tenten, dispel the genjutsu. Lee, act like you're doing what the illusion is doing.
Lee nodded and saluted, bounding up to Gai and hugging him and crying like a mini-me. "GAI-SENSEI!"
Tenten released the illusion, and breathed a quiet sigh of relief as the self-proclaimed Beautiful Green Beast of Konoha continued with his antics.
"YOSH! My most YOUTHFUL team! We have no missions today so we will have a most YOUTHFUL day off!" he proclaimed.
"YOSH!" echoed Lee. "NEJI, I will have a most YOUTHFUL race with you to see the village once again! And I will be victorious or I will do seven hundred pushups!" he declared, oblivious to Tenten's sudden intake of breath at his slip of tongue.
Neji stared impassively at him. "Hn." He shunshined away.
Lee blinked, then sprinted after him, hollering about the 'power of youth'.
Tenten smiled awkwardly, then ran after them at a considerably slower pace.
Mighto Gai blinked. Since when did Neji know Shunshin?
It was a lazy day for Team 10. Sarutobi Asuma surveyed his three students as he took a drag from his always-present cigarette. Shikamaru was lying flat on his back, watching the clouds. Ino was alternately combing her hair and switching her mind into passing birds. Chouji was sitting next to Shikamaru, munching on a bag of chips. The jounin sighed and scratched the back of his head. They'd just finished a D-rank with remarkable motivation, and so were several hours early. Shikamaru, for once, had done everything by binding the devil-cat Tora in his shadows until he handed her off to the Fire Daimyo's wife...and his teammates hadn't at all seemed surprised.
Asuma didn't dismiss it as a fluke. Something was up.
"Oi, Shikamaru. Taijutsu spar with Ino," he ordered lazily.
The dark-haired boy didn't glance over, preferring to mutter "Troublesome," under his breath.
Ino, however jumped up immediately. "C'mon, Shika-kun!" she challenged. "I'll beat your lazy ass into the ground!"
The dark-haired boy just sighed. "Do I have to?" he muttered, hauling himself laboriously to his feet.
"The sooner you get this over with, the sooner you can leave," muttered the chain smoking jounin. "And Shikamaru..." he trailed off, thinking of a suitable incentive for the lazy Nara "...if you don't try hard enough, you get to pay the bill next time we have barbecue," he threatened.
Said genin blanched and faltered a bit as he walked out into the clearing. "Troublesome jounin," he groused, giving Asuma a pained look. He slouched to the middle of the sparring area and sank into a beginning Taijutsu stance.
Asuma noted that Shikamaru had first assumed an unfamiliar, more advanced stance, seemingly by habit, before switching to a more common stance used by Academy students and rookie genin. Likewise, Ino had started out with what the bearded jounin noted as a more graceful form of Taijutsu, before copying Shikamaru with the more clumsy Academy version. "Haijame!" he called, narrowing his eyes..
Predictably, Ino charged in right away, attempting to land a straightforward punch on her teammate. Shikamaru ducked under her arm and jabbed her in the stomach. The platinum blond dropped to a crouch and swept her legs out to unbalance her opponent, but Shikamaru jumped backwards, out of range. Again, the Yamanaka girl sprinted at her evasive opponent, right arm cocked to deliver what was obviously a right hook. However, as she reached her target, she jabbed him with her left fist, doubling him over before knocking him flat with her right.
"Good work, Ino. Shikamaru, you weren't trying." Asuma frowned at the lazy genin, who hadn't bothered to move and instead stared up at the clouds above his teammate. The Hokage's son sighed and ran his hand through his dark hair yet again. "Alright, we're done for today. Shikamaru, you're paying for barbecue."
Said genin groaned but didn't move.
"Same time, same place," reminded the jounin, before shunshin'ing away in a swirl of leaves to meet his friend-not girlfriend, mind you-Kurenai, who'd probably given her genin team the rest of the day off.
"Your squad's probably waiting in town," Chouji spoke up for the first time. "Neji's too."
"All twelve of us are meeting in front of that ramen stand Naruto insisted on," Ino reminded. "Not just the ANBU squads, so move that lazy ass, Shika!"
At Team 8's training grounds, genjutsu specialist Yuuhi Kurenai watched with narrowed eyes as the only girl of the squad pointed out her hiding spot to the heir of the Aburame Clan. Kurenai darted to one side, loosing off a round of shuuriken that caused Shino to dodge, and the one that did connect caused the boy's form to dissolve into insects-a kikaichu buushin. The red-eyed jounin whirled to block a kunai strike from Izunuka Kiba, dodging under his partner Akamaru's lunge. A soft but forceful blow from behind closed seceral of her tenketsu, causing Kurenai to leap away from Hinata's Gentle Fist-right into a swarm of kikaichu. Quickly, she shunshined away and held up her hand.
"We're done," she announced. "Very good, especially you, Hinata," she complimented.
The Hyuuga heir smiled widely. "Thank-" the girl stopped suddenly, then quickly ducked her head and poked the tips of her fingers together coyly. "-umm...t-t-thanks K-kure-enai S-sensei," she stuttered, staring at the ground.
Kurenai stared at the pale-eyed girl. Does she have a split personality? "Um...okay. Time for a mission. I'll meet you in front of the Hokage's office."
Fifteen minutes later, Team Kurenai had their mission-search and rescue. Since Team 8 was specifically formed to be a tracking and retrieval team, this was definitely up their alley. The downside? The 'subject' they were to retrieve wasn't a person.
It was a cat. Tora. Otherwise known as the bane of all genin, the devil-cat.
The cat Team 10 had just captured...the cat that had just escaped its owner.
Again.
And to make matters worse, Kiba's partner, Akamaru, couldn't stand cats, and by proxy, neither could he.
"Damn demon-cat!" snarled Kiba as he and his nin-dog overshot said pet and crashed into a thorny bush. The Izunuka struggled free of the prickly tendrils and hauled Akamaru out as well. "Let's go, Akamaru!" he hollered, and said canine barked enthusiastically in agreement.
"You are supposed to be silent during a retrieval mission," stated Shino into the com-link. "Why? Because we do not want our prey to be alerted. Why? It would-"
"Yeah, yeah," snarled Kiba. "Shut it, bug boy. Akamaru and I will find the damn cat! Then we'll see who's talking!" he boasted.
"A-ano, Kiba-kun," Hinata murmured. "Shino didn't mean to insult you."
"Whatever," huffed the boy.
Hinata paused and gathered her chakra. "Byakugan!" Veins popped, surrounding the Hyuuga's eyes. "T-the target i-is f-five meters f-from K-kiba-kun. Kiba-kun, m-move in to c-capture the t-target," she ordered in a soft tone.
"Hell yeah!" crowed Kiba, springing from the undergrowth to practically land on Tora. "Gotcha, you stupid cat! Hey-ow!" he yelped, as the Daimyo's wife's cat dug its claws into his arm and clawed furiously. Said cat sprang out of Kiba's arms, who all but threw the cat away. The beribboned cat landed in Hinata's arms, who began stroking the cat. Immediately, the cat calmed and purred, rubbing its head against the girl, much to the ire of Kiba. Akamaru growled, and Hinata giggled and patted his head. The little nin-dog ducked away with an annoyed look.
"M-mission a-accomplished!" announced the Byukagun user proudly, marching back to the Hokage's Tower with the cat. Shino slipped from the shadows silently and followed her, and a cursing Kiba trailed the other two along with Akamaru.
Kurenai appeared in a shower of leaves, meeting her genin outside the Hokage Tower with a proud smile. "Good job," she said simply. "Since you've turned in your mission report, you can have the rest of the day. I have to be going somewhere, so...I'll meet you at the normal time on Training Grounds 32."
"Yes!" cheered Kiba, darting down the street.
"Kiba!" Hinata called sharply, then hesitated, eyes flicking guiltily to Kurenai. "Ah...ano sa, Kiba-kun, umm...we were going to meet the others at Ichiraku's," she reminded in a more mild tone, trotting off after the Izunuka heir.
Shino followed his two teammates, a contented buzzing surrounding him.
Their red-eyed sensei stared after the trio. What? What's going on with them?
The four teams that would become Konoha Twelve...after Sasuke returned to Konoha, of course... congregated at Ichiraku's. However, outside the little ramen stand, they split into four different groups...and not by genin squad. Neji, leaning against a tree, faced Team 7-Sasuke, Naruto, and Sakura. "Well?" he asked neutrally.
"It seems everything is as it was," Sakura stated. "The Chuunin Exams should be approaching, and I have no reason to doubt that we will not be entered, sempai."
"What makes you think that, Rabbit?" the Hyuuga countered.
"It just makes sense, Ne-uh, sir," Naruto finished lamely.
"Nothing else has changed. As long as we keep this up, we should make it in, Falcon-san," Sasuke added.
Neji nodded absently. "Very well then." He focused on the three standing rather stiffly in front of him. "Rabbit, Fox, Raven. You are off duty until I contact you again."
Naruto sighed in relief. "Geez, Neji, it's so hard to talk to you so formally," he complained.
"It's protocol, dobe," Sasuke drawled.
"Teme! I know that!" snapped the blonde. "Er, Neji? You should go back to your genin team and pretend they dragged you here, ne? I mean, no offense, but you were really an uptight bastard who hated Hinata and had no appreciation for ramen," Naruto suggested bluntly.
"Damn. That was nice," muttered Sasuke sarcastically.
Neji just sighed and rolled his eyes. "Tenten's still briefing them," he pointed out. Sure enough, the weapons mistress was talking intently with Rock Lee, Yamanaka Ino, and Akamichi Chouji. His pale eyes flicked to where Shikamaru casually conversed with Team 8-Kiba, Hinata, and Shino.
"Alright, we're done," droned the lazy Nara.
"Naruto, go over to Shikamaru and remind him how I will be behaving towards Hinata-sama," Neji ordered.
Naruto scowled. "Why me? We're off duty!" he whined, stomping over.
"Looks like everyone's done," noted Sakura. "Let's go in! Team Seven will go first-we're regulars here."
"It's the only place that will serve the dobe anything decent," muttered Sasuke with a dark expression and disdain in his eyes. "Dobe!" he called Naruto. "Let's go in already. Aren't you hungry? You said you wanted ramen, didn't you?"
"What? Ramen?" Message delivered, the hyperactive Jinchuuriki bounded over eagerly, all but dragging his teammates into the ramen stand. The trio ducked into the stand.
"WHAA-KAKASHI-SENSEI?" yelped Naruto, as Sakura stifled a scream and Sasuke jumped.
The nine genin outside stiffened.
The silver-haired jounin leveled a kunai and a glare at the three-Teuchi and Ayame were nowhere in sight.
"So, what was that you were saying to 'Neji' over there?" the Hatake growled.
A/U: Ehehe, minor cliffie there...I'd like to apologize about what I posted yesterday. I put up the incomplete chapter instead of the finished version. Oops. Sorry about all the changing points of view. They won't happen that often, and I kinda viewed it as a necessary evil here. :3
I'm not quite sure how often I will be able to update. A few days? A couple weeks? It all depends on my schedule...
Reviews, please? They help my writing and improve the quality...though you are by no means obligated to...unfortunately. Flames...no. Just no.
Alfa out~