Changing Stance

Chapter 2

By

Archerelf

Author's note: Yeah, last chapter I said Sasuke has a kusanagi, he actually has a chokuto…sorry…

Sasuke was having a staring contest with himself. The slivery glass showed his reflection perfectly: spiky black hair, dark eyes, and pale skin, eyebrows furrowed into a perpetual stoical expression. Stoic mixed with anger. Rage, he was full of. He had always been one to fly off the handle but usually it had to be good, otherwise it was a waste of his time. He looked downwards toward his feet. The moonlight was playing with his already milky skin. His bare calloused hands softened, even momentarily. He was sick of himself already.

Leaving a messy bed behind him, he stalked into his kitchen. He was running low on food. Again. Sasuke weighed the options of going out to get something in the morning. Oh wait, it was morning. 12:35 shown on the clock. He was too….something to sleep. Incensed? Depressed? Insulted? Whatever the reason was, it didn't matter. He was used to small amounts of sleep anyway. He just thought of it as more training.

The thought of the Hokage's edict put him into a mental tizzy. No matter what angle he thought of it at, there was no upside to this. Sakura was right, there were too many things that could go wrong with it. Too many variables. He collapsed back onto his bed, still irritated. He thought of himself and who he was stuck with. The girl who followed in Neji's footsteps had designed her own attacks based on his strengths and weaknesses. They said her accuracy was legendary. That remained to be seen of course. And the fat blob. A bloated butterfly? That was a laugh.

If Sasuke had ever gotten that unhealthy, his father would have starved him for months to bring his weight down. Even now, he adhered to a strictly healthy diet. It worked out for him anyway, simple traditional meals with no real sugar. Getting back to his mental tirade, he scanned the ceiling. It looked the same as before. His logical side brought up another point. Then there was that Yamato freak. Another one of Orochimaru's experiments gone bad. Infused with the DNA of the first Hokage, that was nothing to scoff at though. The First's strength was legendary. Though if he tried to bond with Sasuke, or talk to him about his time with the snake freak, Sasuke swore he'd put a well placed Chidori right through Yamato's experimental heart.

Sasuke thought of his teammates, his real teammates. Sakura, Naruto, and even Kakashi. Sakura's team was of Hyuuga Neji and the bug kid, Shino. This thought was reoccurring and jabbing, the thought of Sakura being on a team with that pretentious, sanctimonious hippie who thought he had an edge up on the Sharingan. It was more of the user itself that vaguely sent a convulsion through his stomach. Neji was too cocky, too sure and too damn smug for his own good. Ignoring the 'pot and kettle' thoughts, he focused on the other one.

Shino. Always hidden, with more than a million bugs crawling inside of his body. The thought was sickening. Allowing hundreds of thousands of bugs to dwell inside of your body. Everywhere. Surrounding your skin, heart, head. Pets or not, it was repulsive. There had to be a level of the unsanitary about it as well.

From what he knew, both Hyuuga and Shino were smart and practical. He hoped it would be good for her. She should fit in fine. There was a matter of the over exuberant idiot who claimed to be Kakashi's rival. That was funny, considering that Kakashi could beat him with one hand tied behind his back. He smirked thinking of it. At least she could heal herself if she got hurt. Though, he could think of a better place to put that chakra scalpel of hers.

Naruto had been placed with the annoying Yamanaka girl, who had clung to Sasuke like a plague and the idiot who depended solely on his mutt. At least Kakashi would be supervising them. Actually, that too was funny; he'd probably be reading the whole time. All three seriously needed someone to gag them. He was used to the dobe's speeches about becoming Hokage and his way of the ninja. What would be more than a constant irritant was the screechy Ino-pig, as Sakura called her, and smelly mutt.

They needed serious lessons in meditation. He had vaguely considered ripping out or paralyzing their voice boxes, but he'd end up in jail for sure.

He had to watch himself. One false step and one bruised bottom too many and the blob and twittering girl would have the Hokage chuck him in maximum security, ANBU guarded, rat infested, psycho surrounded, hellfire-was-on-the-breakfast-menu prison. The block for treason and traitors was particularly notorious. He really had no desire to visit it. She had picked that block for two reasons; it would be harder to break out there. Not impossible, but hard.

His training with Orochimaru had brought him some useful skills after all. He could pick a lock in under 15 seconds, could break out of a guarded cell and could hit any target in the room blindfolded and with his ears blocked. The other reason Tsunade so tactfully brought it up was to subtly remind him that he was there for the sheer purpose of whim. Hers.

He didn't really see how they considered him treason or traitorous in the first place. He had had a goal in the first place. He told everyone about the goal. If anything, he gave them set notice. He set out, and then he filled it.

No shame in that. He had to kill the thing that kept him attached to his family. He was considering selling the estate. He didn't know what to do with it.

In the time he had missed a couple of funerals, a couple of births and big announcements. Did Sasuke really care about any of them? Nah.

12:59.

Simply awesome. It was always his dream of staying up all night obsessing over something trivial.

He pulled on a shirt and went outside to meditate.

Yamato sighed in relief as all three members of the newly formed team took the field. He didn't want to have to go to the different houses of the three shinobi. He especially didn't want to have to drag Sasuke, but apparently, the threat of prison was enough to get him motivated. It could have been something else that got him there, or someone. He didn't know and didn't frankly care.

When he woke up, he knew it was going to be a bad day. The day was overcast and looked like rain, and he had no real interest of being there. But he was technically 'on a mission' and only laziness and a sense of duty really prevented him from walking back home.

He really hadn't expected Sasuke to show. His temper was legendary, second only to his skills. He really hadn't expected less of the Uchiha clan. First hand reports said Itachi had been a real piece of work. Oh well, now he was dead and the only reason Sasuke wasn't dead or imprisioned was because of that fact.

The girl was leaning up against a tree, accompanied by a scroll that was almost as big as she was. Oh yes, the weapons mistress. And the other one….eating. Again. They'd been there a grand total of five minutes and he was on his third bag of chips?

"Girl and fat one, front and center." Sasuke almost laughed; so he wasn't the only one who thought that the other kid needed a diet.

Immediately the flames went up in Chouji's eyes.

"I'M NOT FAT, I'M PLEASINGLY PLUMP!" he roared.

"No, you're clinically obese." Yamato stated with a sigh. Chouji, enraged, started to charge the older ninja. A few quick hand signs and Chouji was in a wooden cage with a deadly spike pointing only inches away from his neck.

"Look, if I'm looking over you three, there will be changes. I gotta report to the Hokage at the end of the week and she needs to see," he put his fingers in quotation marks, "improvements."

Tenten had been watching the display quietly. She had seen Chouji blow up over his weight before but no one had ever really had him on a diet. No one besides Ino had tried.

"You two, show me what you got. I want to get a sense of what I'm working with here. So, you two," he said while pointing at Tenten and Chouji, "then you two," pointing at Sasuke and Tenten, "and then you two", he said while pointing at Sasuke and Tenten.

"There will be a break in between the battles. And the limits of this battle are the tree areas."

Sasuke watched as Chouji and stepped forward. He could sense nervousness radiating off the boy. Could he really be afraid of that girl? Apparently so. She had a more hardened expression on her face, a mix of determination and….disgust? Interesting.

"Go."

With a bite of her thumb and a simple poof, Tenten was suddenly armed to the teeth with weaponry. Chouji's eyes expanded wide.

He wasn't prepared for this…maybe Tsunade was right…if anyone like her ever came after him like this again, he wouldn't be as completely screwed as he was now.

And completely screwed he was.

Chouji knew he was partially the weakest link on the team. He wasn't great at taijutsu or genjutsu, in fact, he only really ever used his enlarging techniques. From what he could tell, Sasuke was, well, great at everything and at least Tenten could do hand-to-hand taijutsu along with her weapons. If he lived through this match, he would have to take on a prodigy…

A barrage of curse words forced their way back down his throat as Tenten shifted out of sight and looked down as she fell from the sky with a load of kunai aimed straight for her opponent. Once he had moved out of the way in time, a giant Fuuma Shuriken went whizzing straight for his head.

Sasuke almost started laughing. She had him pinned almost anyway he went.

Chouji started with the handseals for his Multi-size technique. Once enlarged to more than twice his size, he tried to take swipes at Tenten. It didn't exactly work. One time, she narrowly missed and hit the dirt hard. But that was more luck on Chouji's side. He didn't really know how to attack someone who wasn't used to big sized battle.

After ten minutes of Chouji being abused by the weapons mistress, Yamato called it off.

Why did they stick him with this team? Why? He could have dealt with the smart team of Shino, Sakura and Neji.

"You both need work," he commented dryly. Tenten gave a slight bow of respect but in actuality, she was perturbed. She was used to more unending praise on the part of Gai and Lee…maybe this is what a real team was supposed to be like? She picked up a good number of her weapons and went to sit down by a tree.

"Uchiha," she called out. He looked up in mild interest. "Go all out."

He gave a sort of snorting huff. "You'd be dead within ten minutes."

She shot him a scathing glare but actually, she wanted to see what the famed wonder boy could do. It had been a miniature brain block but then she quickly reminded herself that this was the man who has taken down S class Criminals.

Yamato sighed again.

"Uchiha. During the course of the upcoming battles you can't kill anyone, or permanently maim them. And you aren't allowed to exceed ten minutes."

"Might as well take out all the fun out of it," Sasuke replied sarcastically.

Chouji's stomach dropped into a weak pit. He'd be killed.

Tenten once again summoned her giant swarms of weapons. Sasuke just stood lazily in the center of the ring.

"I'm used to keeping up with Lee's speed. You know, the one you copied from him."

What was she talking about? Oh, the green spandex freak.

"Don't lie, you're not good at it. I was always under the impression that you couldn't keep up with them so you and the white eyed freak trained separately."

Tenten's heart sank. He knew…not to mention, he had insulted her and Neji all in one.

She was used to seeing the Byakugan but the Sharingan was different. Then again, he didn't actually activate his bloodline trait.

"I'm not good enough to fight with your Sharingan?" she taunted sarcastically.

"No." Tenten was struck by his arrogance. In her frustration, she started throwing weapons like no tomorrow, and less than a ¼ of a second later, he disappeared from view and from the second the last kunai left her hand, a sword was being pressed up against her throat. His signature chokuto was sharpened to a deadly point and in any other situation she would have been dead. Then again, he couldn't kill. And that was just such a pain.

It was at that moment that she really couldn't see two things; how Sakura could like that man, or how much trouble their team was in.

He was close enough so that she could smell his musky scent. Confidence rolled off him in waves, as did a distinct afterthought of something incredibly dangerous. She didn't know how the newest medic nin could like him. At all. Warmth of a polar bear, sharpness of ice slivers.

Sakura had to be nuts. Naruto as well. Sasuke was clearly out of his mind.

Chouji shuddered. He had been on the receiving end of Sasuke's sword in the Hokage's office yesterday. It wasn't pleasant.

Yamato stepped in gingerly.

"I've seen what I have to. Go on home."

It had only been twenty minutes or so.

"The Hokage said we had to train a minimum of 3 hours a day. Otherwise, she'd make our lives hell for the next year. Trust me, I'd rather go through the training," called Tenten.

Yamato sighed. Again. He'd been doing that in increasing amounts since the start of the session.

"Clearly you three are on different levels."

Tenten raised a thin eyebrow. "Yes, and that's how we all started off in our original genin teams, on different levels. Then we learned teamwork."

"I only see one clear obstacle with that," Yamato said and pointed glared toward Sasuke.

"So, I'm clearly your biggest roadblock and whether I decided to play nice depends on the success here." Sasuke shot the words carefully. He ground his teeth together on the word, 'nice'.

"Basically."

"I'm going to jail." Sasuke turned and started to walk away.

"Ugh! How do they PUT UP with YOU?" Tenten was livid. "You're cocky, arrogant and a gigantic pain! Instead of sucking it up like the rest of us, you decide to make it harder for everyone! How hard it must be for you to mingle with us commoners again! You know, technically, you're still a genin! We outrank you!" she sneered.

"And obviously trying to insult me will change my mind." He kept walking. "If you were referring to my real teammates, we get along fine. It's talent-less, useless people like you who aren't fit to be real ninja." All of this said with a straight face and all of it pent up from his old genin days. He considered it though. He actually was still a genin. Only in name however, he decided, he was good enough to surpass jounin. At least.

"No, it's ninja like you who give the rest of us a bad name," spoke up Chouji. "Yeah you're good, but what happens when you're all alone and outnumbered? Then you need other people to bail you out. I don't like you. I can only think of three people who do like you. But unfortunately, the Hokage is right. She gave you the choice of jail. We weren't so lucky. But instead of walking around with a stick shoved up your butt, why don't you try to train us, if we're so bad."

Yamato looked mildly amused. "I'd like to see that."

Sasuke stopped. It was an interesting proposition. So either he got to break them mentally, or physically. Awesome. He turned to face the two of them.

"Remember that you asked for this, not the other way around. I still have no qualms about sitting in prison all day." He turned to Yamato, "How far am I allowed to go?"

"You can't kill either of them, and I have veto power if I think you're going overboard." Sasuke's signature smirk came out, clear as sunshine. He was CLEARLY going to have loads of fun with this. He hadn't felt this good since…well…that time in the Chunin exams when he snapped the Sound boy's arms off.

"Fine. Then we start tomorrow."

"Wait, now where are you going?" called Chouji.

"Someone has to tell the Hokage." This was said with a hint of smugness.

When he was out of earshot, Chouji defeatedly turned to Tenten, and muttered, "Yeah, he's just trying to skip out on practice."

Shizune was surprised to see the pale youth gliding toward the Hokage's office. Honestly, the kid was like a vampire. She'd be seeing him in her nightmares.

Shizune opened the door and announced his presence. Tsunade sighed. Everyone just wanted to piss her off didn't they?

"Whadja want Uchiha, I'm busy."

"My team requested that I take over their training."

"And you intend to do it?" She was surprised. Shocked even. He nodded once.

"And Yamato is okay with this?"

He nodded affirmation once again.

"Well, it's better than you killing them all."

"I had considered it, but it wasn't worth my time." He said it with a straight face. Amazing. The Hokage truly wondered if he had emotions or not.

"Do it, but fulfill the hours. I expect both you and Yamato to report to me at the end of the week. And no killings, else you face the executioners block. Now get out, I'm busy."

Once he had left, it struck Tsunade that she never asked him why he was doing it. She didn't know. She just felt partially bad for his team. If his strength and temper were indicative of his position as teacher, they'd be dead and fried by the end of the week.

Please read and review? Next chapter will focus on one of the other teams, most likely.