Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Kishimoto-sensei.

Thank you all who reviewed :3

This chapter is all about Naruto's team, to get to know them better. (It has become a real long chapter 0.0 because I didn't want to devide it in two)

-oXo-

Chapter 2: Team 9

5th of April

Naruto could hear the bells jingle in his pocket, though someone else would have never noticed. He was on his way to the training ground. He still had ten minutes to get there before it would be eight o'clock, so he took a small detour to Sakura's apartment, but she wasn't at home.

Arriving at five past eight he saw the kids were already there standing in front of the wooden stumps, looking a bit nervous.

"Ohayo!" he greeted them, "Ready for the life changing test?"

"Sure, I will easily pass this test."

"First I have to see that for myself, Kenji-kun." Naruto took out the two bells. "As you can see I have two bells." He jingled them as he was being watched closely. "You guys will have to take them from me."

"But there are only two bells," Eri said.

"How perceptive of you," Naruto grinned. "It means that at least one of you will not succeed this test. The losers will be tied to that pole and be sent back to the academy." His grin became a tad more evil and he swished his tail.

"No-no way," Ryomaru said disbelievingly.

"It's up to you. You have up till ten." He turned around, but halted. "Oh, and you better mean it, or else you won't even come near me." He walked on and held up his hand. "You can start."

Kenji looked rather angry and charged forward, grabbing a kunai and jumping to Naruto. Naruto didn't even turn around and just side-stepped him. "Miss, but I like the attitude. You really go for it, or is there something else going on?"

Kenji tried to punch him and threw shuriken, but it didn't help. Finally Naruto just shoved him away and he halted seven meters from Naruto. He came to a stop in between Ryomaru and Eri, breathing hard.

"It's not working like this, moron," Eri said harshly. She got a foul look from Kenji.

"Haha, Eri-chan is right," Ryomaru laughed. Kenji growled and Ryomaru stopped laughing and shrunk a little.

Naruto turned around again and jumped out of sight behind the bushes, making a Bunshin. The three kids cleared the open ground and went into the bushes as well.

"Alright, what do we do know?" Ryomaru whispered.

Naruto's Bunshin suddenly appeared right in front of them.

"I don't have these ears for nothing, you know," the clone said as he pointed to his fox ears, "Next time better be quiet," and he threw some shuriken to the trio.

"You moron!" Kenji called to Ryomaru before he jumped to Naruto and began fighting hand-to-hand again. Eri sighed but decided to help him, since her taijutsu was definitely better than his.

She took one of her twin wakizachis and attacked Naruto as well. Ryumaru just stood there for a moment. He was a medic ninja, all he had learned from Sakura was how to heal people, what could he do?

Walking back and forth watching his teammates, his hands went up his hair, what to do? He would not be able to get a bell and then he would be send back to the academy. He was slowly beginning to panic.

Suddenly he clasped his hands on his cheeks. He decided he needed to do something. He wasn't right about that he didn't know how to fight and so, finally, he joined the other two.

Eri now was using both her small swords and Kenji had a few cuts in his clothing. It almost looked like Naruto wasn't doing any effort to fight them (which was true of course). Ryomaru jumped into the fight as well.

Finally Eri was fed up with the fact she could not even scratch Naruto and began making hand signs.

"Katon Haisekisho!" She blew ash out of her mouth, covering a small area around Naruto and Kenji.

"Kenji-kun, get out!"

Kenji jumped out of the ash-cloud and then Eri set it on fire with a zippo. When the smoke had cleared, nothing was to be seen. Naruto was still in the bushes, watching how his clone came back to view as the last smoke disappeared. His doppelganger had not even remotely been caught in the fire.

"Good job, doing such a fire jutsu on your age, but it wasn't good enough," he said, smirking, they were starting to work together, but still not really with the motive of being a team.

"No way!" Eri stepped forward. "Ryomaru-kun, please help me out." She ran to Naruto's left as Ryomaru went to his right. Kenji just waited for the right moment to use his family jutsu, not knowing the danger that may lie ahead if he would actually succeed, for he did not know of the Kyuubi's existence inside Naruto (although there were some giveaways, none of their generation had ever been told).

Finally seeing his chance he made the hand signs and directed it to Naruto. Naruto would have easily dodged it, but it was his Bunshin so it didn't really matter anyway.

The moment the jutsu hit, Kenji opened his eyes again. "What the-?" The clone dispelled as Naruto emerged from the bushes. "A clone?"

"Good eye, Kenji-kun, but I would advise you not to try it again against me, not that you would succeed anyway."

Kenji balled his fists. Slowly he opened them again. "Eri, Ryomaru, come over here."

Somehow they complied, probably because they knew he had a plan. He took an empty scroll from his pouch and started scribbling things down. Naruto was impressed he came up with it, instead of just telling them his plan. Naruto would have easily been able to hear. Of course in a real battle you could not just take it easy and gather people and scribble things down, but still, it was a start. So he decided to just wait and see what they had planned.

A moment later, Eri and Ryomaru nodded and they proceeded to the bushes. Naruto grinned; finally, they had a plan. He did not know what they wanted him to do, so first he just stood there, but nothing happened. Then he decided to move around a bit. When he jumped on a tree branch, he came to know that that was what they had wanted him to do.

Eri came forward, her two small katana's pointing at him. Naruto dodged and at the same time Ryomaru kicked him against his shins. He had probably aimed higher, but was nonetheless a bit surprised when he actually made Naruto fall. This was probably due to the fact Naruto almost weighed as much as he did, probably less.

Naruto of course recovered fast, but saw Kenji and Eri came hurtling to him and Ryomaru from above. Naruto really liked where this was headed. They were working together. Still he didn't want to practically hand them the bells over. And who would be the one without a bell, just the one last to get it?

They fought on for a while, slowly becoming more and more tired. Ryomaru could tell, for he was feeling it himself too. Besides he was the medic ninja, he had to keep an eye on the health of his teammates. Suddenly he stopped in his tracks, Eri and Kenji not really noticing.

Hadn't Sakura-sensei told him that his teammates came first? He should take care of them. Sure he could help them in a fight, but his main goal was to keep them healthy and make it possible for them to fight on.

Earlier, when Kenji had told them his plan, he'd said that it might be a good idea for one of them to sneak up behind Naruto and create a chance for the others, but none of them really wanted to sacrifice a bell for that. So all they were doing now was making attempts of creating a chance, without hurting themselves in the process. Kenji's brilliant plan was not working because no one wanted to really start it, but now Ryomaru would.

He charged forward and did exactly as Kenji had described. He let the other two keep Naruto busy. He saw his chance, glided underneath Naruto, who looked a bit surprised as he saw the boy slide between his legs, and stood up behind him. His hands went forward and grabbed, just as Kenji had said, Naruto's tail and pulled.

Naruto yipped and out of surprise stopped moving, accidentally making the kids think this is what happens when you pulled his tail.

Kenji and Eri grabbed the bells and happily jingled them in their hands, high-fiving Ryomaru. "Thanks Ryomaru-kun!"

Naruto smirked and moved towards them. "It appears you have succeeded, except-" he turned his head to Ryomaru.

"No, you can't fail Ryomaru-kun! Without him, we would not have gotten the bells, right Kenji-kun?"

Kenji just stayed silent for a while, but when he looked over to Ryomaru. He couldn't deny it and so he nodded.

"Great!" Naruto said, "Then I think I don't need to tell you guys about teamwork anymore."

"What?"

"You obviously know now this was all about teamwork. Without teamwork you wouldn't have been able to get the bells."

Sudden realization appeared on Eri and Kenji's faces. Ryomaru just nodded.

"When did you realize?" Naruto asked.

"When I thought of what Sakura-sensei had told me; a medic ninja is placed in the team to help his teammates, not only in health but also in battle and making them able to succeed the mission, without losing them."

Naruto gave a big smile. "I should have known Sakura-chan had taught you something like that."

"Sakura-chan?" Ryomaru mouthed silently, but it was soon forgotten because of Naruto's next words.

"That means you guys have passed. You are now officially team 9, making you real genins. Congratulations."

Cheering could be heard from Eri as she hugged Kenji, who pushed her off, and next hugged Ryomaru.

"We passed, we passed," she chanted. Ryomaru gave a small smile, which slowly became bigger; especially after seeing Naruto's big smile.

Kenji just stood a bit stupidly, not being able to decide if he wanted to celebrate or act like he had known all along he would pass.

"Come on, we'll grab something to eat. You guys must be hungry."

"You should be buying us, since it was your fault we didn't eat anything this morning," Kenji told Naruto.

"What? When I told you to do eat something?"

"We thought it was a trick," Kenji murmured.

"Hahaha!" Naruto ruffled his hair and turned around. "Okay, I will. Let's go, I'm hungry."

-x-

That evening, Naruto sat on the couch writing his report about his new team, when Sasuke entered the house. He walked up to Naruto and dropped next to him. Naruto just kept on writing as he was almost finished. Sasuke bend forward to read what he was writing while planting a kiss on Naruto's cheek. Naruto smiled and finished his sentence.

"So the team passed the bell test then." Sasuke didn't really ask. Naruto's smile just widened and he leaned back against Sasuke's shoulder; his mouth awfully close to Sasuke's.

"Only got one thing to say to that," he said as Sasuke leaned in to close the last few centimetres, making their lips lock.

"I think I don't really understood that," Sasuke said as they parted, playing dumb.

"I'm not telling you again, you should pay more attention. I thought you were a genius," Naruto said grinning while he stood up, stretched and yawned.

As he did so his shirt went up a bit and Sasuke took his chance. He laid his hands on Naruto's skin around his hips.

"Don't get cocky with me," Sasuke said as Naruto yipped.

"Ah! Get those cold hands off of me!"

Sasuke just gave a small grin. "You're such a good heather, I'll keep them there for a while."

"Ne, Sasuke~, I want to go to bed, let go of me." He tried to pry Sasuke's hands off, but not really making any progress as Sasuke held them tightly in place.

"We can walk upstairs like this." Sasuke began pushing Naruto towards the stairs.

"I'm being used," Naruto mumbled as Sasuke just smirked all the way upstairs.


"We just finished our fist mission EVER!" Eri yelled, high fiving Ryomaru. "Up to the next one."

"Can't we just get a D-rank mission each? This was so easy, why do we need four people for such a mission. It's such a waste of time this way," Kenji complained.

"Just wait till you see what the next mission is," Naruto said sternly.

"Hn. I bet I can handle it on my own."

"I would like to see that," Eri exclaimed.

"I'll race you there and be the first to finish the job."

"Okay!"

Ryomaru just stared at the two arguing teammates. When he looked up to Naruto he shrugged. Naruto gave him a smile in return.

"That's nice of you two, to be so enthusiastic."

"Naruto-sensei, what is our next mission," Eri asked, suddenly wondering if she hadn't done something foolish. Kenji probably had the same thought, by the look on his face.

"You'll see. Go left here."

They turned the corner and were now standing in front of the Inuzuka veterinary practice. Hana, Kiba's older sister, was just putting the garbage outside. Naruto waved at her.

"Ah, Naruto. I was already wondering when you would get a genin team."

Naruto just smiled back. "Aren't they cute?" He got some angry stares from some level below his own and just grinned.

"They are. I'll get Kiba." She turned around and bellowed into the direction of a dog kennel, "Kiba! Get over here!"

Naruto's ears were still ringing when Kiba showed up with his always present and loyal Akamaru.

"Yo, Naruto." He looked down to his team. "Ah, you're the genin team that are to take care of the nice chores around this place." He gave a nasty grin, which even made Kenji wince. He wasn't so enthusiastic about doing this alone anymore.

"Where's your sensei." Kiba looked around the team, past Naruto, looking for their sensei.

Eri giggled and Naruto scoffed a bit. "Naruto-sensei is right over here."

Kiba turned to Naruto. "Really? She gave you a team?"

"More than I can say for you."

Kiba fell silent for a moment. "If you will follow me," he began, like they were customers, "than we can get started."

Naruto grinned as he pushed Kenji forward to follow Kiba. "Didn't you say something about completing this mission on first?"

The answer was a filthy glare. Oh, Kenji still had to learn that Naruto was quite immune to his level of glaring, thanks to Sasuke.

They walked to a place where all sorts of open cages were where dogs were sitting.

"You have to clean these places up, you can find the stuff to do that with over there," Kiba vaguely waved his hand to a small corner where brooms and buckets stood, "You have to clean these places up while the dogs are in the cages, because you can't mix them with others and they are to ill to be moved. Those over there can all be moved to the spare cage over there and-"

Kiba explained very shortly, very fast and very unclear what they had to do. Of course it wasn't a very hard job to understand, but still.

"I'll check on you later to give you the next chore." And with that Kiba left.

Sometime later Eri was scrubbing the floor with a broom together with Ryomaru as Kenji was cleaning another cage. He was grumbling. Naruto was a good distance away from his team.

"Sensei?"

"Yes, Eri-chan?"

"Is the smell too much or something?" She looked up a bit suspiciously her far away sensei.

"No."

"Then why are you standing so far away? Can't you help us?"

"As a matter of fact I think it's better if I not." Naruto looked up to Eri as she turned around to face him, leaning on her broom. Kenji and Ryomaru turned as well. "Because you see, most animals don't really like me. I appear to sent some negative things to them they don't like." Naruto thought it was better not to say that the animals just didn't like his chakra signature since it had changed.

Since the fox had been resealed two years ago, Naruto's and the fox's chakra had slowly began mixing together as they had partly merged. It wasn't like they had become one, but their chakra's sort of had. Although the fox was still producing his own chakra, as was Naruto, it fused together as soon as it was made inside his body. The yellow and the red had mixed to an orange colour.

This partly demonic chakra however was what upset the animals. Naruto hadn't really minded. The frogs he summoned where big enough animals to be okay around him. It was mostly the wild animals or smaller (summoned) animals that scampered away from him.

"Sure, everybody can say that animals don't like them. Come on, sensei. You are partly animal yourself, how can they not like you?"

Ryomaru stared at Eri as she had been so blunt about their sensei's appearance, which never had been a part of the subject before.

"I can show you, but the consequences are all yours."

"Deal."

Naruto pushed himself off from the wall against which he had been leaning and walked up to the first cage that had already been cleaned.

As he came into a five meter range the dogs began to snarl and bark. At three meters he stopped. Some dogs were attacking the fence viciously, others were barking and some tried to crawl away as far as possible.

Naruto stepped back again, not wanting any trouble with Kiba. Eri was convinced however, by the look on her face.

"Okay, I believe."

"You must always believe what your sensei tells you."

"Ha!" Eri mocked. Naruto grinned back.

Ryomaru left the cage they were cleaning to calm down the dogs.

They just finished the cages when Kiba came back. "Wow, your team actually did a good job." Kiba looked at Naruto standing a bit away at the wall. "Still can't come close, hah?"

Naruto shook his head.

"Well, let's get inside, there are some more cages to clean there."

"What? No~…" Eri ended her sentence silently.

"They're smaller cages, for animals after an operation." Kiba turned to Naruto. "You can get into the house, my mom would like to have a talk with you while having a drink." He grinned evilly.

"Why do I feel like I wouldn't want to?"

"Because I wouldn't want to either, but I can't have you inside the veterinary practice."

"I know. I guess I will have a talk with your mom then."

"Good luck," Kiba called after Naruto.

Naruto held up his hand. "Thanks. And watch the kids."

"We're not kids," Kenji said and he looked to the other two. "Perhaps they are." Eri gave him a slap on the back of his head.

"You guys are funny." Kiba led them inside to the cages and told them what to do.

Naruto had a very… interesting talk with Tsume, to say the least. Kiba's mother sure was enthusiastic when she talked. Naruto was glad when two hours later (that had meant he had spent two whole hours with that woman!) his team came in, looking worn out and happy to leave too.

"Thank you for the… eh tea?" Naruto hadn't seen a single tea pot during the two hours, just some alcohol. To be very honest Naruto hadn't been that uncomfortable with Tsume, she could actually be quite funny, but overall Naruto was of the opinion that she was crazy.

"What now?" Kenji asked as they had left the Inuzuka compound.

"Back to Tsunade no baa-chan for-" Naruto stopped as he saw Ryomaru stare at him, quite angry to be exact.

Naruto raised his eyebrows. "What's wrong Ryomaru-kun?"

"You can't call Hokage-sama baa-chan?"

Naruto blinked. That was his problem? "Why not, she is quite old, you know."

"And our Hokage." Ryomaru crossed his arms at that.

Naruto was stunned. "Okay… We'll go to," he glanced at Ryomaru, "the Hokage to tell her we finished our last two assignments and get a new one." He stressed the word Hokage on purpose.

"Yeah, new mission!"

"Eri, please…" Kenji glared at her.

As they entered Tsunade's office she looked up from her work to them. "Already finished the first two missions?"

"We did!" Eri smiled.

"Got another mission for us Tsunade no-," Naruto stopped as he glanced at Ryomaru, who glared back at him again. "Eh, Tsunade?" he decided to finish his sentence.

Tsunade looked up from her paper, quite surprised by Naruto's sudden change of the way of addressing her. "I got-," Tsunade slowly moved her hands over some papers on her desk while still looking at Naruto, narrowing her eyes a little, "a few D-rank-," she blinked and finally was able to look at what she was grabbing for, "missions left."

She scanned the documents for a moment. "This one looks good for you." She handed Naruto a paper with the mission and waved her hand for them to leave.

"Let's go. Tsunade n… still has some paperwork to do."

Ryomaru smiled and Tsunade thought she might know what was going on here and grinned.

As they had left the Hokage office Naruto read the mission and sighed. "That thing is still alive?"

He handed the paper to Ryomaru and he read it out loud for the rest to hear.

"-find the missing cat Tora. She's recognized by the red ribbon on her left ear," he finished. Looking up to his teammates and beginning to fold up the paper very neatly.

"What did you mean by 'is that thing still alive'? Is it that old?" Kenji asked.

"Well, let's say if it's the same cat I had to catch when I was a genin, this will be a very easy mission."

"Cats can get about 18 years old, even older when-"

"Ryomaru," Eri warned Ryomaru to refrain him from giving them a lecture about cats.

"Sorry."

"I didn't know that." Naruto put his hand on his chin. "I feel sorry for that cat."

"Why?"

"You'll come to notice."

Twenty minutes later they knew.

"Here you go, oku-sama. Your cat Tora."

"Oooh, Tora-cha~n."

Ryomaru hurriedly backed away after returning the cat to its owner.

"I think I know what you meant, sensei," Ryomaru whispered, feeling very compassionate for the cat, as he shuffled behind Kenji.

"Yeah."

-x-

Four missions later and Eri almost fell against Kenji as she tripped.

"Get out of my personal space," he whined.

"Sorry, I tripped," Eri said a bit irritated.

"Guys, I get the point, you're tired. We'll call it a day, okay? Seven D-rank missions on one day is a nice number."

Ryomaru nodded and Eri gave a silent 'Yeah'. Kenji didn't say anything.

"Guess I'll have to write some reports then, see you again on the training ground tomorrow."

"Bye sensei," Ryomaru and Eri murmured.

Naruto smiled before he took a right turn. He felt very happy to have his own team. He'd never thought it would make him this happy. Sure he had thought Konohamaru some things, but this was different.

He wondered what Sasuke hated so much about the idea of kids. He shrugged. He just didn't know what he was missing.


Naruto was leaning against one of the wooden logs as his team stood before him, their eyes on him as he had just explained what they were going to do.

Eri had a mix of confusion and excitement on her face. Ryomaru was ever quiet and staring at the ground again and Kenji... He didn't seem to be very happy.

"That's just stupid. I'm not going to do that."

"Fine, you can just leave us, not being able to work in a team and end up doing D-rank missions for the rest of your life," Naruto said, trying to scare the orange haired boy a bit. It worked as Kenji crossed his arms, but didn't argue.

"Good." Naruto made a few hand signs and slammed his hand onto the ground. Markings appeared, than a puff of smoke and three small frogs stood in front of him. They were no bigger than a melon. "Okay, team, good luck in catching them, no matter which one," he smiled. His team and the frogs immediately jumped into action.

Naruto had fun watching his students move around. Maybe this felt like a mission, like catching the lost dog, but Naruto wanted to see their weaknesses and strengths and be able to point them out immediately, without a mission depending on it.

He moved up to Ryomaru, who just failed to catch the frog by a few centimetres, and gave him some advice. He did so to the others as well and finally, two hours later they had all caught a frog at least four times.

Naruto dismissed the frogs, seeing they were quite tired and slowly scampering away from him, and turned again to his team.

"Now let's go on to the next training." He grinned as he saw the faces of his genin. "But for that I would like to move from our usual training ground to another one. I heard from your old teacher at the Academy, Fudo-san, that he liked to take you to this training ground."

Ryomaru immediately lit up and a smile appeared on his face. "The training ground with all the wild animals?" Kenji and Eri seemed less enthusiastic and sighed.

"Great," Eri said without enthusiasm, "this means I will be sowing pants tonight."

"I thought you liked sowing?" Naruto asked.

"I do! But I don't like the scratches that come with them."

"Then it's time to learn to evade them," Naruto smirked.

"What about you, Naruto-sensei?" Ryomaru asked.

"Ah, most of those animals can handle a bit of evil chakra, they'll survive."

Some eyebrows shot up. "Evil chakra?" Kenji asked.

"Ah? Did I say that?" Naruto waved his hand as his eyes were closed. "Never mind that, let's go, I would like you to get something from the forest on that training ground I placed there yesterday." Naruto had started walking toward the other training field.

"What is it?" Eri asked as she quickly took some paces to walk next to him. She had to step out to keep up with him.

"Hmm, what shall I say?" Naruto put his hand on his chin, considering how much he would tell. "I believe it was a green coloured object, not bigger than a ramen bowl," Naruto said as he moved his hands to indicate a size a little smaller than a ramen bowl.

"Okay~," Kenji said annoyed, "And?"

"That's all I'm going to say about it. You must know that sometimes missions can be quite vague and it is then up to you to find out what you have to do or in this case what you have to look for."

Kenji sighed. He wanted a real mission or real training. He crossed his arms.

"Now, for the rules," Naruto said as he took a left turn onto a small clearing with a fence in the background.

"What?" Eri asked, a bit afraid of what kind of rules there might be.

Naruto smiled again, he seemed to do that a lot around them. "Kenji-kun," Naruto stopped walking and turned to Kenji, who almost bumped into him as he had been scowling, "I want you to hand me all your equipment and I'll give you only some wire you can use." Kenji's eyes narrowed and he hesitantly handed his pouch to Naruto. Naruto handed him the wire he grabbed from the pouch. He turned to Eri.

"Eri-chan gi-" Before he could even say anything she had given him her own pouch and was taking her small katana's from her belt to hand them over as well. "Heh. You can have some smoke bombs." Eri's face fell. What was she supposed to do with some smoke bombs in a forest? "And Ryomaru-kun," as he turned to Ryomaru he took the pouch he gave him, "I'll give you three kunai." Ryomaru took the kunai.

"I want you to find the object together as a team. As soon as I realize you're in a 5 meter radius of the object and have not been working together to get there, I will move the object to another location."

Suddenly a smirk appeared on Kenji's face. Naruto wondered why, because he knew Kenji had most trouble working as a team. But Kenji was in fact just interested in this hide and seek environment. He loved hide and seek, even as childish as some people might find the game. He loved sneaking around.

"Can we use ninjutsu?" Ryomaru asked timidly.

"Sure." Naruto walked to the fence and opened it.

There was a very small clearing behind it and he decided to wait over there and listen to what they were doing until he needed to move the object.

"Ready?" he asked. His team nodded. "Then you can go."

Naruto heard them move through the forest and they already started bickering after 20 minutes, he sniggered and went into the forest as well. He could hear animals scatter away from him, some even larger than a pony.

This forest was special as all kinds of creatures had been moved here from all over the world. Animals lived here that no one had ever seen before. But because of this the forest had been divided into another training ground as it became too small. The bigger and more dangerous animals had been replaced to another training ground; training ground 44, a.k.a. the forest of death. In this forest, training ground 43, resided only the less dangerous animals and was used by this Fudo person to take the last-years of the Academy to train.

Naruto had to replace the object several times, but in the end Ryomaru had had enough of Kenji's and Eri's constant bickering and acted up as best as he could.

"Perhaps we should not use the equipment we were given individually, but as a team?" He started angry, but at the end the sentence, his words were almost inaudible. Kenji stared at him with an angry look on his face and Ryomaru almost shrunk a little.

"Okay, we can try that," Kenji suddenly said.

Eri was surprised, but if he thought it might be a good idea, she would praise Ryomaru some more. "Great idea, Ryomaru. I think you are a way better ninja than Kenji."

Kenji stared angrily at her, but didn't say anything to that. Instead he laid his wire on the ground in front of him and the others followed his example. "I got an idea."

Lucky for them, Naruto was somewhere further away and had some trouble with some animals that were trying to attack him, so he didn't really hear their plan.

Those fucking, stupid monkey's, he thought as he was finally able to kick one of them away. After another struggle to remove one more monkey from his sandal, as it had attached its sharp teeth into his foot when he had tried to kick it away as well, he suddenly heard Kenji and Eri bicker again.

He shook the last monkey off, swore never to return to this damn forest and wondered what had come to his mind in the first place to even think of coming here. He took off to the object, which was in fact a small green can with dried pears, to once again remove it.

When he got closer he almost hadn't seen the wire that had been spun between a couple of tree's, as his mind was still on those stupid animals. He avoided them, but when he landed on the ground he was just in time to see Kenji jump at him. A smoke bomb was thrown, right before Kenji grabbed his leg to slow him down.

"It's here, it's close!" he yelled.

Eri and Ryomaru quickly came to him and Naruto started coughing, and tried to clear the smoke. He actually for the first time since two years hated his light weight as Kenji easily held him down by hanging at Naruto's leg with all of his own weight. Naruto thought it would be rather crude to just kick him away, but he would really like to get out of the smoke.

Just as he was able to drag his leg with added weight out of the slowly clearing smoke, Eri and Ryomaru landed in front of him, holding up the can.

"Found it!"

Naruto looked at them and then started laughing as Kenji let his leg go and stood up. Soon his team followed his example and even Kenji couldn't keep the grin off his face.

"I must say that this wasn't what I had imagined with this training mission." As he looked around he noticed they had spun the wire and set other traps around this place, had lured him here with their quarrelling to pinpoint the more exact location of the object.

"Didn't you once say that your sensei told you to look underneath the underneath?" Kenji asked.

"You actually remembered that?" Naruto was impressed, he was sure he himself would have forgotten by now. "Good, let's get out of this annoying forest and never come back."

"You had some trouble on your way, sensei?" Eri sniggered.

Naruto pursed his lips. "Nothing I couldn't handle, just some crazy monkey's."

"And a bat," Ryomaru said as he pointed to Naruto's back.

"A what?" Naruto looked over his shoulder and saw Ryomaru had been right. A small bat had attached itself to his vest. It's gleaming eyes stared at him.

"Weird..." He tried to grab it, but it shifted away from his hand every time he made a snatch to it. After a while he growled in frustration. "Stupid..." His voice drifted off and he turned his back to his team and hunched down. They tried to grab the bat, but failed at catching it as well. It was very small and quite agile for a bat.

Naruto stood up again. "You know what, never mind. If he is so brave to hang there, he can stay there." It wasn't like the creature was bothering him.

Ryomaru smiled as he looked at the cute black creature and that it could come with them. Eri giggled all the way back to their training ground as the bat seemed to have trouble holding on to Naruto's vest on their way out of the forest and comically dangled on one claw, making some cute noises. Kenji again tried to appear like he didn't see anything.

Finally arriving on their own training field again, Naruto was glad the bat wasn't squeaking anymore. He twitched his ears some times and finally looked down at his team once more.

"I hadn't really planned any other specific things for today, so what would you like to do now?"

"Sparring," Kenji said.

"Practicing medical jutsu."

Eri and Kenji looked at Ryomaru. "We can't do that together," Eri stated. Ryomaru blushed a bit.

"Perhaps you can practice it after the sparring," Naruto grinned, already foreseeing some minor injuries.

"Two against one? Or all against each other!" Eri sounded more exiting as she said the second option.

"You can say. Next round Kenji-kun can say and then Ryomaru-kun."

"Okay, all against each other it is!" Eri yelled as she ran up to the spot where they always sparred. Kenji and Ryomaru slowly followed her.

Naruto walked over to a tree and sat down against it. He heard a squeak and realized he had almost squashed the small bat by accident and quickly sat up straight again.

"Sorry," he quietly said, "You better move over for a bit." The small creature slowly complied, looking suspiciously to the back of Naruto's head, trying to find out if he was up to something. Finally he was out of the way and still thought it seemed to be save from Naruto's hands. Naruto leaned back against the tree.

As he watched his team fight against each other he started feeling quite sleepy. He hadn't slept a lot that night. Sasuke had a cold and had snored all night. He didn't even saw his team's first round ending and changing the formation for the next round. As he drifted off, the bat finally found it safe enough to move onto Naruto's shoulder and watch the genin fight.

When he woke up again, it was because someone was pulling at his ear. He suddenly jolted up and Eri fell onto his lap. Naruto looked around and finally realized what had happened.

"I fell asleep?" He tried to sound innocent as his hand moved to the back of his head, the bat hanging at his arm and moving amusingly with it.

"You did!" Eri said accusingly. Ryomaru was fidgeting with his fingers as he looked over to Eri and his sensei. Kenji stood still as he observed.

"Ah, sorry. You didn't have to pull at my ears though."

Eri smiled. "That was because I just wanted to do that. They're very soft." She didn't bother to move off of Naruto's lap.

"Ah. You didn't draw on my face or something, did you?" Naruto touched his cheeks.

Eri raised her eyebrows. "Why would we do that?"

"Never mind." Naruto pulled his hand away, he knew he certainly would have grabbed his change at that.

"You already have whiskers, why would we add something to it?" Eri said as she grinned evilly. Ryomaru's fidgeting got worse.

"I guess so," Naruto said. "Is it time to stop training or are you just having a break?"

"We were deciding how we could punish you for sleeping during our training," Kenji said.

"Huh?" Naruto lowered his hand and glanced at the bat on his arm. He was about to try to remove it, when Eri grabbed his arm.

"Please don't." Naruto looked up to Ryomaru, The boy was too good for animals and all living things in general.

"I know how we can punish sensei," Kenji suddenly said.

"How?" Eri asked. Naruto raised an eyebrow.

Kenji grinned. "Tomorrow he will have to teach us a new technique."

Eri caught on to his idea. "Yes, a new jutsu," she grinned.

Kenji nodded.

"Ryomaru-kun?" Eri asked and both she and Kenji looked over to him. He nodded. "Then it's decided." She looked back up to her sensei and leaned forward. "You'll do it?"

Naruto's eyebrows shot up. "Eh?"

"It's your punishment, you have to!"

Naruto watched them for a second.

"Fine, I'll think up something." His team grinned at him. Naruto sighed.

-x-

As Naruto returned home he saw Sasuke just coming down the stairs.

"Hey," Sasuke greeted him with a husky voice.

"How are you?"

"Fine." Sasuke sniffed once and walked into the living room. Naruto followed.

His eyebrows rose as he saw all the tissues in a litter bin next to the couch. He certainly hoped Sasuke was better, he didn't think he could handle another sleepless night; listening to Sasuke's snoring and sniffles all night.

Suddenly Sasuke turned around. "I'll clean it later," he said as he indicated to the litter bin.

"You sure you're all right?"

"Yes I'm fine, Sakura's medicine did wonders." Naruto wondered if that was sarcasm in his voice or if he just imagined that.

Sasuke's hand travelled up to Naruto's cheek. "I promise I won't wake you tonight."

Naruto seemed to gleam a little at that. Sasuke's hand dropped again and he turned away from Naruto. Suddenly his head stopped and turned back as he stared at Naruto's side. "What's that?" he asked.

"Huh?" Naruto looked down as well. "Oh, that. The little guy attached itself to me in the forest of training ground 43. Hasn't left since. Couldn't really catch it anyway," he mumbled the last part.

Sasuke moved his hand to grab it, but Naruto stopped him. "You can let Kou–chan stay."

"What?" Sasuke's eyebrows rose. "You named it?" His eyes were very narrow now.

"Ahaha, not really, Ryomaru-kun did. Besides it's just short for koumori, bat." Sasuke just stared from Naruto down to the bat named Kou and followed it as it moved up to Naruto's shoulder and started glaring back at Sasuke.

"Are you just going to let it stay there?"

Naruto shrugged, the bat moving with the gesture. "Why not? It's quite cute." Naruto stroked the small head of the bat with one finger and its eyes closed a little in pleasure. "See?" Kou almost seemed to smirk.

Sasuke just glared at the bat and Naruto as if he had gone crazy, which he wasn't sure yet if it really had happened.

"Never has an animal clung to me like this since my chakra changed, especially not this small," Naruto said as he lowered his finger. "Not even my summoned frogs and toads."

Sasuke moved a little closer to take a better look at the bat. "You know that it is sucking your chakra, don't you?"

"Huh?" Naruto looked to the gleaming eyes of the bat that had settled on him.

"Please tell me you did..." Sasuke deadpanned.

Naruto grinned uneasily. "Not really."

"Quite a bit of chakra too," Sasuke said as he had activated his Sharingan.

"Oh? Ah well, I have enough to go around, I can miss it."

Sasuke shook his head and was almost sure when he looked back at the bat that it had stuck out his tongue at him. He almost did a double take, but the bat had gone back to glaring at him. "Nah," he said as he turned away. "As long as you remove it when we get to bed."

"Sure will try."

"I'll help you otherwise," Sasuke said rather harshly and with that sat down on the couch, blew his nose and grabbed a book. "It's your turn to cook tonight." Naruto rolled his eyes.

Sometime later, as they sat at the table in the living room eating, Naruto decided to tell Sasuke about his punishment.

"So what shall I teach them?"

"How about to not let them boss you around?"

Naruto grinned at Sasuke. "You're so funny."

Sasuke snorted and had to blow his nose immediately after, ruining the effect.

"Perhaps I should get you some medicine right now? I can go to Sakura-chan."

"Not necessary," Sasuke growled.

"You don't like to be ill, don't you?" Naruto teased. Sasuke's eye began to twitch. "I'm sorry Sasuke. I'll go to Sakura-chan and when I come back I'll pamper you, okay?" Naruto said cutely, but the effect was undone by the bat staring over his shoulder.

Sasuke couldn't think of a good answer to that as he was distracted by the bat. "Hn." He turned away from Naruto.

"Okay, I'll be back before you know it," Naruto said before he kissed Sasuke on the cheek.

"Fine," Sasuke hoarse voice sounded sadly and he leaned back in the couch.

Naruto laid his head on Sasuke's shoulder and put his hand on Sasuke's cheek. "I promise I'll stay in the bed the whole night and won't leave, is that better?"

Sasuke grumbled, knowing Naruto would keep this up if he acted grumpy.

He could feel Naruto's other hand under his shirt and following his spine. It tickled. Naruto moved to his ear and whispered softly, "I'll sleep on top of you all night, so you won't get cold."

A shiver ran down Sasuke's spine as the soft vibration and breath from Naruto hit his ear. Naruto laid his chin on Sasuke's shoulder again.

"You'll just roll off when you're sleeping," Sasuke sniffed.

Naruto planted a gentle kiss on Sasuke's soft cheek. "Then you can lie on top of me," he whispered again.

"No, I like you on top of me."

"Really?" Naruto asked softly as he was now thinking about something else than just sleeping.

"You can take control," Sasuke said mysteriously and this time Naruto felt a shiver up his spine. He couldn't deny that this idea gave him a nice feeling.

"I thought you liked to be in control."

"I do, but I'm ill and you need to take care of me," he said with a sad voice.

Naruto breathed in shakily. "I think I'll have to. If you're that sick, than all I can tell you to do is take some bed rest and I'll spoil you, can't I?"

"Hm," Sasuke hummed.

"I," Naruto whispered into Sasuke's ear as he breathed out and Sasuke cringed a bit in pleasure, "will take care of you." His lips brushed against Sasuke's auricle.

Sasuke finally couldn't suppress the grin forming on his face. And Naruto noticed it.

"Well, I'll be back in a minute, okay?" he whispered in the same ear and Sasuke grabbed his vest.

"Be real quick," he told him.

"I will." Naruto pulled away from his grasp and walked up to the door. He waved to the raven as his tail swirled behind him.

In the end Naruto met with Ino in the hospital and she gave him some medicine.

"But there is no real medicine to cure the cold, you know that right? Best thing that helps is to rest and drink enough."

"I didn't know that."

"Really?" Ino asked disbelievingly.

"I-I mean about the medicine." Naruto grinned and Ino eyed him suspiciously.

So eventually Naruto was back in 13 minutes as he had used his speed to get home fast.

Sasuke was still lying on the couch, his eyes closed. Naruto dropped the small paper back on the table and hunched down beside Sasuke, stroking his hand through his hair. Sasuke was breathing through his mouth and as he sat up, he immediately grabbed for a tissue to blow his nose.

"I'm not really getting excited by this," Naruto told him as he looked on.

Sasuke growled. Kou was watching him again from his spot on Naruto's shoulder, which didn't improve Sasuke's mood. "I can't help it you never get ill. Have you ever had a common cold in your live," he asked.

"I have... a long, long time ago, but I have," Naruto said as he pouted and looked away.

"Have you ever have child deceases like the chicken-pox?"

"I don't know, have you?"

"Of course, it's an illness all children have had."

"Do you remember?"

"No."

"Well, then how do you know you've had it?"

"My mother told me," Sasuke mumbled. Naruto couldn't help but find this attractively cute. He brushed Kou off his shoulder and hugged Sasuke.

"I've been ill before when I was younger, but I guess it got a lot less."

"I can't remember the last time you were really ill."

"I can pretend to be ill if you like, but I think you actually like it better to be ill yourself and have me take care of you," Naruto teased, having no idea how true this was and that was why Sasuke couldn't respond to it, though Naruto didn't notice. "At least with me almost never getting ill I can do anything with you when you are, without getting sick myself." Naruto started kissing Sasuke's neck.

Sasuke moaned hoarsely and Naruto liked this deep sound of Sasuke's voice. He looked up to Sasuke again as he was slightly flushed and his lips parted as he was breathing through his mouth. Naruto moved his finger to Sasuke's lips and began following them slowly, wetting his lips with his own saliva. They felt so soft.

"You're so cute when you're ill," Naruto said and Sasuke narrowed his eyes a bit, but he wasn't angry. His other hand went up Sasuke's cheek, which was warmer than usual, and slowly went up his hair.

"Does this make you feel better?" Naruto asked softly.

"Come closer, it's cold," Sasuke said as he bit softly on Naruto's finger.

Naruto sat down on Sasuke lap and they both lay down. Sasuke's face was warm, but his body was indeed shivering. "Poor Sasuke."

Sasuke grumbled and Naruto started kissing his jaw line.

"Let's see if my chakra can heal you as well," Naruto said between kisses. Sasuke had no idea what he meant when he saw orange chakra slowly coming from Naruto's hand that was still stroking his lips. It went up Naruto's arm and then started spreading over him as well.

It felt strange, tingling. He'd heard from other people it could feel vile and hurt, but it actually felt nice and warm. Perhaps Naruto's mood had something to do with it.

"Does it hurt?" Naruto asked as he retracted his finger from Sasuke's lips and looked into his eyes. Sasuke shortly shook his head and moaned huskily as the warmth spread over his body. It was hard to keep breathing steadily and he only could breathe through his mouth. Naruto smiled as he was relieved Sasuke didn't felt uncomfortable with his chakra. He had never done something like this before, so he didn't do anything else for a while to just let Sasuke get used to his chakra.

"It feels so warm," Sasuke finally said as Naruto was so quiet and still staring at him, to see if nothing changed.

"Now you know why I'm almost never cold." Naruto laid his head down on Sasuke's shoulder again.

"You think it might heal you as well?" Naruto asked after a while as now his thumb was caressing Sasuke's cheek.

"I doubt it, but please don't stop because of that." Sasuke felt Naruto's tail slowly began to move back and forth as a smile spread over his face, softly he began purring.

They lay there for a bit longer as Sasuke slowly fell asleep. Naruto stayed like this, keeping this chakra cloak around the both of them until he finally fell asleep as well, smiling.

-oXo-

Next chapter will be about team Kakashi.