Chapter 3

"Wake up." I groaned and pushed Kakashi's hand away. "Wake up or else I will get the water again." This got me up and I turned to glare at him.

"You wouldn't."

"Do you really want to test that statement?" I shook my head furiously. "Well," he sat on the edge of my bed, "let's talk about a certain Uchiha boy." I groaned.

"We are seriously not going to have the 'talk' already are we? I am not even dating anybody!"

"Well, I wasn't going to give you the 'talk' as you put it until much later but if you want it to be sooner that's fine by me. Now-"

"Lalalalaaa! I can't hear you!" I said while covering my ears and rolling on my bed. He laughed. But I stopped after a while. "But seriously, there is nothing to talk about. He is just a boy...that is cool, quiet, and not annoying. That's it. Nothing more." I finished, I hope that I didn't show my interest in him. He gave me a questioning. "What?" He shook his head. "Tell me!" I shouted at him. "Now!" I jumped onto his back. He then turned me around and threw me over his shoulder. I started kicking him and pounding his back with his fists. "Let me down!" Which, of course, he didn't. I gave up after a minute or so and he started walking to the kitchen and sat me down in a chair. In front of me was a bowl of cereal. I stared at it for awhile. "Am I supposed to eat it?" He nodded his head. I pushed it away.

"Why aren't you going to eat it Amaya?" What's his problem?

"It's because you said for us not to eat." He patted me on the head.

"Good job Amaya. You actually listened to me for a change." I smacked his head away and looked out the window. The sun was pretty high in the sky. I moved my head to the direction of the clock and it read 8:30. "What is up with you and being late all the time?" I flew from my seat and went to get everything that I needed and to change my clothes. I rushed past Kakashi's room but then back tracked and looked inside. I saw something that was so incredibly ridiculous that it wasn't even funny. I saw a miniature shrine of the 'Make-Out' series. Wow...it was shining...

"What's up?" I looked down and saw Masuru stretching his back. I ignored him and ran to grab one of the many copies of the book he had and ran back out of the room. "Hey! Am I going with you to the exercise thingy?" I shook my head and was jumping from foot to foot. "Fine, be that way then." He stuck his nose up into the air and strutted away. I rolled my eyes and saw Kakashi eating the cereal. My jaw dropped, why wasn't he on his way?

"Get. Up!" I shouted at him. He jumped and shook his head. I smiled at him evilly. "Get up or else."

"Hmm?" He looked up and his eye widened when he saw the book hanging from my fingers. "What are you going to do?" He watched me carefully as I walked over to the sink and turned the water on. "You wouldn't."

"Do you really want to test that statement?" I mocked. I smiled wider, I edged a corner of the book to the streaming water. I stopped about a centimeter from the running water and turned to look back at him. "Now, get up off of your lazy butt and head to the training grounds with me, or else the book gets it." I threatened.

"Okay, geez, just, put the book down. Please." He pleaded I gave him back the book which he quickly kissed, hugged and started to mumble things to it. Can he be more obsessed? After his little, thing, he got up and headed for the door with me following closely behind him. Which, to make sure he didn't go anywhere I jumped onto his back with which he sighed. We jumped from roof to roof and we finally got to the training ground.

"You're late!" Of course that would be Naruto and Sakura. I got off of Kakashi's back and went to stand next to my team.

"Sorry, but a black cat crossed our path so we took the long way around." He said while rubbing the back of his head and I kind of laughed at the black cat thing. But nobody was listening to him, they were just staring at me.

"Okay, what is wrong with you people?" I yelled at them, I hate it when people stare at me.

"Uh, Amaya," I turned to Kakashi, "I think you forgot to do a few things this morning." What is he talking about? I put my hand on my head to scratch it, but instead I scratched my cat ears. "Now do you see?" I sighed and nodded. Of all the random times...

"Can you please stop star-" I was cut off by someone rubbing one of my ears and petting my tail. I pulled away from Naruto and Sakura and hissed at them. "Don't touch them!"

"But why? They're so soft!" I growled at Naruto.

"I don't care what you think, I don't want to be petted by you!" I snarled at him.

"So, what you're implying is that you don't want him to pet you, but you wouldn't care if someone else did?" I blushed, of course Sasuke had to put in his two cents.

"Kakashi, can we just get on with this?" I begged to which he gave a little nod.

"This exercise is to pretty much cut the members of your graduating class down to 10 people. The exercise we're going to do has a 66% rate of failure. If, by chance, you do fail, you will be sent back to the academy for more training." He said bluntly. Naruto's jaw was hanging open with his wide eyes, Sakura looked depressed, while Sasuke looked on edge. Good job on scaring them. "Now then," he walked over to a tree stump and set a timer on it, "I have set this timer for noon." At that moment, he held up a few bells. "Here in my hand I have three bells, the objective of the exercise is to get them from me before time runs out." I am kind of hoping that they realize the purpose of this exercise. "Those who don't get a bell are going to get tied to a tree stump and they have to watch as I eat their lunch in front of them." At that moment, our stomachs started to growl. "But, since there aren't enough bells to go around, one of you will definitely be tied to a stump and be sent back to the academy." He said with a smile, a few of my team members gulped. "You can use anything you want against me to get the bells. You can use shuriken, kunai, or any other weapons. You just have to attack as though you are going to kill."

"B-but Kakashi-sensei, you could get hurt or even killed!" Really Sakura? He's not you, he doesn't stand around and follow people like fools.

"You couldn't even dodge an eraser! How do you expect to dodge an attack from us?" Naruto chirped. He saw the eraser, he just wanted to see how mature you were which was obviously not a lot.

"Those who do stupid acts like that, are lacking in skill so they try to make up for it by doing 'clever' stunts." This got Naruto angry and he whipped out a kunai and headed for Kakashi. But of course, he failed in his little endeavor with Kakashi putting a hand on his head and twisted his arm around so the kunai was aimed at his neck. "You've got the right idea, but I haven't even said start yet." I heard Sakura gasp, probably at the speed he stopped his attack. "I think that I'm starting to like you guys." He said with a smile. "Now, go!" Everyone flew off in different directions. I could tell that Sakura was quite a ways to my left and Sasuke was pretty close on my right. As for Naruto, he was being the idiot that he was, was out in the open in front of Kakashi. I put my hand over my eyes and shook my head. I didn't think I could handle what was about to go down, we had a set time limit so we had to get to work instead of watching the idiot. I first went off to find Sakura, thinking that I could 'girl talk' her into working with me.

"Naruto get out of there! You're going to die!" I heard Sakura yell, I started to move even faster. She is such a fool! She just gave her location away. When I got to where I heard her voice, she was still there.

"Sakura, you need to move from this spot. You've already given away your location." Okay, I can't do 'girl talk' it's kind of hard when you're frustrated. "We need to work together to get the bells." She shook her head.

"I am not moving! This is my hiding spot! Besides, if we work together and we only get one bell, it will totally belong to me! You can go back to the academy while I stay with Sasuke!" I rolled my eyes and jumped away. I was going to have to try my luck with Sasuke. I found him on a tree branch watching the little showdown between Kakashi and Naruto. I poked him and he jumped.

"Hey listen, we need to work together on this or else none of us will get a bell." He stared at me for a little bit. But then he shook his head.

"I understand what to do, it's to use our own skills to get the bells. He's testing our skills." This was when I sighed and jumped away. I sat in a clearing for a little bit. I heard yelling, screaming, and one explosion. Then, everything was quiet. I heard a rush of air behind me and I knew that it was Kakashi.

"Are you even going to try the exercise? I mean, I realize that you tried to give most of your teammates clues but are you really giving up?" He asked. I stood up and turned to face him. I made a few hand signs and he raised his eyebrow.

"Art of the Cat: Cat's Eye." He gasped and became rigid. I smirked, my eyes glowing and my pupils dilated. "Now, give me the bells." I said slowly. He reached down to his waist and grabbed all three of the bells and handed them to me. I guess the saying is true, 'all things in a cat's eye belong to the cat.' I released the jutsu and he gasped again.

"How did you-" That's when I took my chance and leaped away. I found Sasuke talking to Sakura.

"Hey guys where's Naruto?" They both shrugged. I pulled out the bells and they both had wide eyes. "Before you say anything, just take them and be glad." They shook their heads.

"No way! We are not taking them, we can get them ourselves!" At that moment, the sound of the timer filled the air. They groaned. We started to head to where there were three stumps, which took about ten minutes because some people are pretty slow. Once we all sat down with the expectation of Naruto who was tied to the middle stump, there was a bunch of stomachs growling.

"Would you hear all of the stomachs. It would sure have been nice if you guys had some food this morning right?" Quit teasing us! "Now, I have some news for you, none of you, with the exception of Amaya, don't need to go back to the academy." All of them cheered in their own special way and Sakura stuck her tongue out at me. I had to keep myself from laughing. "You don't need to go back to the academy because you guys will never be able to be shinobi!" He finished with smile. That's when I burst out laughing. I must have been laughing for a while because Kakashi had to put a hand over my mouth.

"What do you mean by 'never be able to be ninja?'" Shouted Naruto, why must he yell? "I mean come on! Who cares if none of us got any of the bells!" That's when I held up the bells and gave him a smile. "None of us besides Amaya, but why should we just stop being ninja?"

"It's because none of you understand what it takes!" Kakashi exclaimed. At that, Sasuke jumped up and flew at him. But before Sasuke could land a blow on him, in a flash, Kakashi was sitting on Sasuke's back, a foot on his head, and twisting his arm behind his back. "You are all just a bunch of immature children."

"Get off of Sasuke!" He doesn't even like you so why should you care? You wouldn't say that if it was Naruto. But I think he should get off of him.

"Have you guys ever wondered why you all were divided into teams?" There was a bunch of blank faces. I sighed once again and put my hands on my face and shook my head. How dense can they get? "Judging from the blank stares, I would assume that you still haven't figured out the reason for the exercise."

"There was a reason for the exercise?" Naruto asked.

"Of course there was, that reason determined whether you would pass the exercise or not." Kakashi explained.

"But, you never explained what the reason was for this thing." Sakura muttered.

"I can't believe this, it was for me to know and you to figure out! Do you really want to know what it was?" They nodded their heads, I don't know how much longer I could stand to handle this nonsense. "The reason was-" I cut him off before he could say anything more.

"Teamwork! Geez, I didn't realize that it was that hard to figure out!" Kakashi sighed and the rest of my teams eyes widened. "If you guys would have gone after him as a team, you totally could have taken him on!" Okay, that was a lie but at least they would have been pretty successful.

"B-but, there were three bells and there's four of us! How do you expect us to use teamwork if there isn't enough bells for everybody!"

"If you would have figured it out, I would have expected one of you to put aside your selfishness to win. That way, your teammates would have at least succeeded, you should always put you teammates before yourselves." Kakashi explained. "You Sakura, were too busy trying to find Sasuke even though you didn't know his whereabouts instead of helping Naruto who was right in front of you!" She looked down in shame. "You Naruto thought you could handle yourself instead of asking for assistance from your teammates!" He gave a frustrated look. "Sasuke thought that the others would get in his way!" Said boy responded to this by scoffing. "Amaya gave hints and even suggested that you should work with her but you all thought that that wasn't the purpose of the exercise! Eventually she went to get the bells by herself but after she got them, she offered them to you guys!" I gave them a smug smile. Oh I love to be praised! "You guys are a team! It's time you need to act like one! Of course you need individual skills but teamwork is as important! When you have as low a skill as you guys have and your faced with a stronger enemy, it should come naturally to use teamwork! On some missions you're faced with an impossible decision. For example," he took out a kunai and placed it near Sasuke's neck. I flinched, I know it was an exercise but it still felt kind of real and I didn't want him to hurt him. "Sakura, kill Naruto now or Sasuke dies." Sakura and Naruto gasped while Sasuke flinched along with me. "Amaya, it Sakura doesn't kill Naruto, kill her and Naruto." I sighed for the umpteenth time and pulled out a kunai and started to walk toward them. "You know I was kidding right?" He asked with a sweat drop.

"Oh I know, I just wanted to demonstrate the action of what was going to happen." I said with a sweet smile. He shook his head and put the kunai that was at Sasuke's neck back into his hip pouch. "Oh!" I walked over to him, "Here are the bells back." He took them from my hand and put them in his hip pouch too. He got up off of Sasuke and started to walk towards the Memorial Stone. I had a feeling about what was going to happen. "Like I said before, when you're on a mission you could be faced with an impossible decision, there will always be a life on the line if one of your teammates is taken hostage." He was finally over at the stone and I quickly went over to him and took his hand in mine and squeezed it. "On this stone are names of ninja heroes." He said sadly, but apparently only I could detect it.

"That's awesome! I want to be on that stone some day!" Yelled Naruto. I turned to growl at him but Kakashi pulled me into his chest to muffle the sound.

"These, aren't just any kind of heroes, they are special in a sense." Kakashi started again.

"Oh! What kind of heroes are they?" Naruto inquired. I looked up at Kakashi's face, his eye was showing that it had hurt in it. "Come on, tell me!" He persisted. I growled again. He needs to know when to stop and shut up.

"They are the kind that died in battle." He finished sadly. There was a moment of silence until he started to speak again. "Some of the names of my best friends are on this memorial." There was another moment of silence. I looked up at him and he had determination in his eye. "Okay, now listen closely. I will give you one more chance. This time however, it will be harder. If you want to continue, you need to eat one of the bento boxes. But you can't give Naruto any food because he tried to eat some during the previous exercise." He turned around and gave them a hard glare. "If you go against my word, then you will pay." With that, he disappeared. I sighed and took one of the bento boxes and started to eat along with Sakura and Sasuke.

"This is no biggie! I can go for days without food! No problem!" Right after he said that, he stomach growled loudly. Please, he can't go a few hours without food. At the same time, Sasuke and I offered our food to him.

"But, Kakashi-sensei said not to feed him! We can't just go against the rules!" Sakura persisted. She could be such a goody two-shoes.

"Who cares, he's probably a mile away or so by now." I scoffed a little, he was behind a tree a few yards away. Sasuke gave me a funny look but went back and turned back to Naruto. "Besides, he needs to eat if he's going to fight along side of us." He started to feed him. It was kind of amusing to watch. Sakura looked down at her food and sighed and started to feed Naruto as well.

"Don't say anything Naruto! I am on a diet, besides, I ate a big dinner last night." Naruto's eyes started to fill with tears.

"Thank you so much!" All of a sudden Kakashi appeared before us, he was giving us a death glare. Sasuke was in a really hot- ahem- I mean in a fighting position. Sakura was on her back with her arms covering her face while Naruto was freaking out the best he could with him being tied up and all.

"YOU!" Kakashi yelled and Sakura gave out high-pitched scream. "Pass !" Sakura and Naruto gave him a dumbfounded room.

"Wait, what? How? Why?" Sakura asked.

"What does it matter? You passed!" I shouted at her, she pouted.

"You guys have just taken a giant leap forward. You were originally just listening like mindless minions. A true ninja is able to find the true meaning in between different types of meanings. In our world, there are those who break rules. These people are lower than scum. But those who desert their friends and leave them to fend for themselves in a weak state are worse that scum!" They were all looking at him in admiration. "Well, that's it for that exercise you guys pass! We are officially Team Seven now. Our duties as a team will start tomorrow." He said with a smile.

"I'm a ninja! This is so awesome! I am a ninja! Ninja!" He was trying to what looked like put his hands in the air, still not realizing that he was still tied to the stump. I went over and untied him. "Oh! Thanks! I totally forgot that I was tied up!" I just waved him off and ran up to my dad.

"Hey dad," he turned to look at me. "I think I might train for a little bit, is that okay?"

"That's fine, just be back before dinner." I nodded and turned back around. After finding the clearing that I found earlier, I sat down and stretched. I was probably going to train later, after a nap of course in the sun.

"Hey, are you really going to sleep out here all night? I thought you were supposed to be back before dinner?" I opened my eyes and say Sasuke staring down at me. I squeaked in surprise.

"You startled me a little bit." I said. I went over to a tree and leaned my back against it and I patted to the right of me to invite him to sit next to me. He didn't move. "I don't bite, I only scratch." I said cheerfully to which he chuckled at and came to sit in the spot that I patted. "So, why are you here?" I asked him.

"I came here to ask kind of a stupid question. It's the kind of question that I have no idea why I am wasting my time with." I waved my hand in a swooping motion to indicate to just get to the point. "You're not really related to Kakashi by blood are you?" That's when I busted out laughing. "What's so funny?"

"You are the seriously the first person to ask me that! Well, the answer is no, I am not related to him by blood." I replied back to him.

"So, where is your family?" I laughed a little bit but it was soon over taken by a sad face.

"They're dead. Every last one of them." His face softened.

"My family is dead too." There was a moment of silence. So he had a hard life too.

"Do you know the person that did it?" He nodded his head. "I just kind of assumed that since when we were introducing ourselves, you said 'I will destroy a certain someone' were your exact words."

"I will destroy that person, they deserve to pay for what they did." I sighed at this.

"Is revenge the only way for people to live for now? Tell me, what is the point of it? Will you feel satisfied or will there be nothing left in the world to live for?" He stared at me.

"Don't you want to avenge your family members?" He said that like I should be ashamed of myself that I wouldn't avenge them. I shook my head.

"They wouldn't want me to live my life full of hate. They would want me to be happy for as many moments as possible." I finished with a soft smile.

"That's an interesting, thought. I guess." I felt something snake it's way around my shoulder. I looked at him and I saw that he was staring at me. I smiled. "You're actually showing some emotion besides laughing at someone or being sarcastic." I giggled.

"I'm actually getting you to say more than one actual sentence." I commented back. He laughed, a true genuine laugh. I laughed along with him. But I stopped. "Why are you showing your 'true self' or whatever around me?" He stopped too.

"I guess I really don't know. I feel that when I am around you, I can be more of how I used to be. It's kind of weird." I nodded and cuddled into him. "What are you doing?" I looked up and he was blushing a little bit. I started to purr. I blushed too. "Sleepy?" I nodded my head and fell asleep before I heard what else he said.

Like usual, questions? PM me. Ideas for futrue chapters? PM me. Review? Then click that thing that says review and write what you thougt. That second one is a biggy for me, it helps me avoid writers block. But I am happyish today because I won a free gatorade at my marching band sectionals for having good marching technique. If you are reading this and are thinking 'it's just gatorade, what's the big deal?' the deal is that it's free, duh! So yeah, PEACE