Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto and I have no intentions of profiting from this story.

Chapter Three – The Mission/Library Visit

"What do you mean it's a test!" Naruto angrily shouted, "We already passed Iruka-sensei's test! Why do we have to take another one?"

While Sasuke could have done without the yelling, he did in fact agree with Naruto. They were already genin. Why bother with another test? Hadn't he proven his worth already?

Sakura was quiet, which was rare. Sasuke watched her out of the corner of his eyes, as she carefully observed their new sensei. Had she seen something he'd missed? She had been to one to realize something was up with the mission, something that he should have seen himself. Of course no team would take a real mission on their first day. It was entirely unrealistic, as they knew nothing of each other's skills. Even if it were an easy mission, they'd likely fail it miserably, even with him there.

"You may have proved yourself to the Academy that you can become genin, but you have yet to prove that to me. So far, you three haven't impressed me much, and I see no reason to give you the benefit of the doubt." Said…Ibiki-sensei, Sasuke supposed. This man impressed him. He wasn't cutting them any slack. When they passed, he might prove to be a worthy teacher.

"I'm a busy man, so I'll make this mission simple. By the end of the day, you must find me. To make things a bit simpler, I'll be in my office." Ibiki-sensei sighed, and suddenly look tired, the first time he'd really changed his expression that Sasuke had seen. "I suppose it'll give me time to catch up on my paperwork, if nothing else." Ibiki suddenly smiled. "Well, good luck." Before any of them could say another word, Ibiki had brought his hands up in a seal, and had disappeared into a cloud of smoke.

The three of them were silent for a second, staring at the space where their sensei had stood. He had certainly left them all hanging. And what kind of mission was finding his office? How was this a test? Finding someone couldn't be that difficult, could it?

After a moment, Sakura spoke up, "Well, what do we know about him?"

"What do you mean?" Asked Naruto, as clueless as always.

"Well, we need to find his office to complete this mission. So we need to know who he is so that we can find it." Sakura said with unusual patience.

"All's he told us was his name," muttered Naruto.

With that comment, Sasuke finally realized the enormity of the mission. Finding someone wasn't difficult, assuming that you had enough information to go on. All they had to work with was a name. One name in a village of fifteen thousand people. And on top of that, that person was a ninja. Perhaps this task was not quite as simple as he had originally thought.

"How are we going to find him?" Sasuke asked. He had little knowledge of finding people. If anything, people often came to him, not the other way around.

Naruto appeared to think for a few moments, before he finally spoke up again. "The best way to find people is to ask the ones who know them! Hey, I got it! I'll go ask around the village about him!" He nodded to himself in apparent self-satisfaction, and before the other two could stop him, he had run off in the direction of the busier areas of the town.

"He's such an idiot." Sasuke didn't bother to say it quietly, and Sakura nodded in agreement. "Do you have an idea where to start?" He asked.

She blushed, and Sasuke rolled his eyes. She'd been doing so well, too. "Uh…Well, Sasuke…I thought well…you and me…could try…" He braced himself for the usual request for a date. "…the library?" She asked nervously.

He blinked. "Huh, wait, what?" That was not what he had been expecting.

"Well, the library has lists of all the active shinobi and their positions. We should be able to find Ibiki on it." She said, as if it was something that everybody should have known.

"Oh," said Sasuke, somehow feeling disappointed and relieved at the same time, "I didn't think of that." He hadn't even known the library carried such lists, though, now that he thought about it, it made sense. There had to be a list of all active shinobi somewhere in the village, and beside the Hokage's tower, the library was the most likely place.

Sakura had blushed even redder, if that were possible at his last comment. "Well…we should get going…Umm…We only have till it gets dark." She was twiddling her fingers and refusing to meet his eyes again.

"Alright, lead the way, Sakura." Said Sasuke, rolling his eyes yet again, when she continued to blush.

Sakura was ecstatic. She finally had gotten Sasuke all too herself. Even though it was only for the mission, and the library was perhaps one of the most unromantic places in Sakura's book, it was a start. Optimism was a byword of Sakura's. She'd take whatever she could get when it came to Sasuke.

She'd been surprised when Sasuke hadn't come up with a brilliant plan to complete the mission first. He was usually the one to come up with good ideas. Maybe being around Naruto was contaminating him. She shivered at that thought. She'd kill him herself before she let that happen. She didn't want damaged goods, after all.

The Konoha Ninja Library was a building that Sakura had spent a great deal of time in during her academy years. She'd spent hours reading through the various scrolls and books detailing the history of the Leaf village, ninjutsu, genjutsu, taijutsu, stealth…well, pretty much anything that had to do with being a ninja. She knew almost every book and scroll on its shelves, and she knew exactly where to look. Wouldn't Sasuke be so impressed! She felt dizzy just think about the look on his face, and the attention he'd shower on her, and maybe a declaration of his eternal love…

She shook her head to dispel the idle thought. Sasuke was, of course, the ultimate goal, but for now, passing this test was the important thing. If they didn't then they'd be sent back to the academy, and she'd lose her chance to be on a team with Sasuke, maybe forever! Determined to succeed, she walked up to the front desk with Sasuke trailing behind, rang the bell and then sat back to wait. She knew what to expect from Honya-san.

After ten minutes, with Sasuke looking increasingly impatient behind her, Honya-san finally made her way to the front desk, with a book in her face as usual. Honya was a young chuunin, who due to her passion for books had requested a posting at the ninja library. Her father, a village councilman, had vehemently agreed, for it kept her safe, both from dangerous missions, and the wandering eyes of men. Her short black hair, well developed curves, smiling face, and preference for short skirts had drawn crowds of boys and men and had caused her father endless grief.

Sakura had heard that the girl now almost never left the library, some saying she had undertaken the task of attempting to read every book in the library. It was apparently due to this that the crowds of admirers had stopped gathering, which made Sakura happy, since studying while hordes of dreamy-eyed men were about was difficult. Sakura was also glad for another reason. It was incredibly irritating to see a girl only a few years older than her receiving so much attention, when she couldn't even attract the eyes of the one guy she liked. The world was so unfair!

Honya seemed to rather reluctantly put down her book, and focus her attention on the pair. After a moment of a rather unhappy, but perfectly acceptable expression for most patrons, she saw Sakura and broke into a wide smile that instantly seemed to light up the room. Sakura felt even Sasuke, who even the Sasuke Fanclub on bad days openly speculated about his sexual preference, react and Sakura almost cried in utter despair. Though, it was incredibly hard to cry while being the subject of so much…cheerfulness. "Sakura-chan! It's been almost a week! Where have you been! Those scrolls you've been waiting for from Cloud have finally come in!"

Sakura found herself unable to not smile back and respond in the same cheerful manner, "I'm so sorry, Honya-san! There were finals this week and graduation, and I've just been so busy! I'll grab those scrolls on my way out."

Honya laughed and looked at Sasuke, and a shrewd look entered her eye. "Not just busy with exams were you, Sakura? A boyfriend at last, huh? Why don't you introduce us!"

The library was absolutely quiet for a few moments while both Sakura and Sasuke stared slack-jawed at the girl. Then Sakura blushed from head to toe, and Sasuke began spluttering refusals. Honya threw her head back and laughed. "Your new teammate, right, Sakura-chan? Well, what can I do for the both of you?"

When Sasuke finally lapsed into a quiet silence, which was not sullen, Sakura refused to believe it, and Sakura returned to a relatively normal color, she explained why they were there, and Honya, as always, was more than willing to help. Within a few minutes, she was back with the scroll they requested, and with a parting remark that left both of them blushing, wandered off with her book, again.

Sasuke was muttering things to himself as they headed for a desk to study the scroll, but, for once, Sakura was doing her best to ignore him. She had looked over the scroll several times before, just to familiarize herself both with the various ninja and their jobs and specialties. She didn't remember seeing Ibiki's name, but the list was large, and even with her impressive memory, she couldn't recall everything. She shivered slightly. Some things were better forgotten anyway.

"Sasuke, help me unroll this. The list is in chronological order and we'll probably need to go twenty or thirty years back, I think. I mean, Ibiki-sensei looks pretty old, don't you think?"

Sasuke nodded in agreement and moved to help her unroll the massive scroll. It was very old, dating back to at least the beginning of the Nidame's tenure as Hokage, and possibly older. Sakura had checked many of the names on the list, mostly out of curiosity, but as expected of ninja, there was little if any information available on most of them. Still it was the best source they had, at the moment, and Sakura would go over it with a fine-toothed comb.

They spent some time looking through the scroll; trying to find the years they thought Ibiki might have become a ninja. The scroll was very disorganized, which Sakura had always found a little strange. If it was the official list, why was it so…messy? Plus there were many ninja she knew that did not appear on it. She wondered…

"Umm…Sasuke…Do you…well, recognize…any of the names on the list?" She said, still blushing, despite such a simple question. She sighed to herself. It was so hard just to talk to him…

Giving her a strange look, Sasuke picked up the scroll, and began scanning. She watched him patiently, giving him plenty of time to look over the list. After a minute, a small frown appeared on his face, and with each passing moment, the frown grew. Eventually he looked at her, an angry look on his face. "This scroll is fake, Sakura. Either that, or whoever made it knew nothing of my family."

He drew her close to the scroll with him, and she blushed again, they were so close…But then he began to point to various names on the list. "These names are all Uchiha. But I know for a fact, that no one in my clan ever bore these names. There is also the fact that all of them are dead, and these ones are still listed as active. Also, I see several large clans listed here that do not and have never existed. This scroll is a dead end, Sakura. It's a tool to fool enemy ninja. Its a fake."

He was glaring at her now. She could feel his disappointment and anger for wasting his time. This trip had gotten her attention from Sasuke, but it wasn't the kind she wanted. She bowed her head and sighed. They were running out of time. If this was a dead end, what other options did they have?

"Wait. Didn't Ibiki sensei also say something about something or other being classified?" Sakura suddenly thought.

Sasuke dropped his glare and seemed to consider for a moment. "I think you're right. He said his strengths and weakness were classified, I think."

Sakura sighed. "You know what that means?" He gave her a questioning glance. "Not only is this scroll a fake, but if do find a scroll with real information, his probably won't be on it." They really were going to fail.

Sasuke thought for a moment. "The librarian is unlikely to give us the information we want, considering she gave us this fake one." He looked grim. And angry. Thankfully his focus had shifted away from her.

"Well, it can't hurt to ask. Honya's a friend of mine, so she just migh-!" Sakura was interrupted by a familiar voice.

"Do you really think that information would be so easily accessible, Sakura-chan?" Honya's voice mischievously floated out from the shelves, startling both of them. "I guess I can help a little bit, but," she laughed, "you'll owe me."

Sasuke and Sakura traded wary looks. Honya had apparently been listening in. Sakura was angry with herself. Just because Honya acted so spacey, that didn't mean she really was! She was a ninja after all.

"Well, Sakura-chan, you boyfriend looks pretty strong," Sasuke looked like he was going to start spluttering again, but Sakura stopped him with a shake of her head; "So I think I'll head out on lunch break now. Behind the desk is a door, Sakura-chan. It leads to library's storeroom. In that storeroom is the scroll you are looking for! But watch out!" Honya giggled. "I trapped everything myself, so be careful!" And with that, her voice faded away.

Sasuke turned and gave Sakura a weird look. "Are all of you book nerds this crazy?"

If it had been anyone else, Sakura would have decked him, hard. Instead she just hung her head, and promised to herself that she would have a long…discussion with Honya later. Still, she had given them an opportunity…If she was telling the truth.

"Should…we go…for it?" She asked Sasuke, nervous for different reason this time. There weren't any leads other than this one. If they didn't take this chance, Naruto's stupid idea might be their only other option. She shivered at the thought. They would fail for sure.

Sasuke gave the question a few seconds of thought, before smirking. "Of course, she's only a chuunin, after all. I'll get the scroll." Sakura watched him walk towards the door with hearts in her eyes. He was so cool! She bet he could handle even jonin with ease. How could he not? He was Sasuke!

She watched him enter and close the door with confidence and sat back to wait for him to reappear. What she expected was a few minutes of quiet, followed by a triumphant return by Sasuke. What she got was several large explosions, shrieks, and loud crashing noises.

Frightened for her teammate, Sakura rushed to the door, where she waited pensively for several nerve-racking, noisy minutes. When the door finally did open, the sight of a battered and bruised looking Sasuke greeted her. She tried vainly to hold back her instinctual reaction, knowing it would not be appreciated right at that moment, but it was a failed effort. She just couldn't help it.

Still when she had rapped her arms around him and began sobbing over his injuries, despite his unfriendly reaction, which was to push her violently away and put as much distance between the two of them, she had to admit it was worth it, just to touch him,

"You almost crushed the scroll." He said accusingly, despite the faint blush she saw on his checks. Despite the remark, she allowed herself a small internal smile. Any sort of reaction from Sasuke was a welcome one, especially if he was blushing. He looked so cute with his cheeks that red. Though, his shirt half hanging off him, exposing his manly chest was a nice sight to see as well.

"What happened?" She asked, her voice still carrying a hiccup from the crying.

Sasuke looked as if he would ignore the question, but turned as he walked towards their table. "She's a better ninja than she looks." With that, he lay the scroll down on the table and rolled it open, and Sakura was instantly enthralled, forgetting even Sasuke in her rush to examine the scroll.

It was…beautiful, as strange as it was to say that about a scroll. Whoever had written it had clearly taken the time to make it organized, readable, and had even covered much of the extra space with stylized drawings, which upon closer inspection appeared to be emblems on various organizations that made up the Village. There had to be over a thousand names on the list. It looked to be the real deal this time.

"Jackpot!" She said quietly to herself in a predatory tone. She missed Sasuke's sudden uncomfortable look, as she wrestled to fully unroll the scroll, all the while not taking her eyes from it.

"If Ibiki-sensei says his information is classified, he's probably either in Intelligence or in one of the ANBU black ops units. Those are the only units I know of in Konoha that would really need to be classified, I believe. Everyone else just keeps their own secrets." She quickly moved through the units, stopping when she came across a familiar name. "Ah! Here's my dad! He works as an administrator in the Hokage's Tower. This scroll at least has some correct information." Sasuke nodded, though she didn't notice. It seemed he had let her take charge for this.

Finally finding one of the two sections she was looking for, she began scanning more closely. She pointed it out to Sasuke. "Here's Intelligence." She quickly began scanning the list, but soon stopped. "We have a problem." She pointed at something on the scroll.

Sakura almost blushed when Sasuke look over shoulder to see what she had pointed at, but managed to control herself. "What is it, Sakura…Oh, some of the names are missing."

Sakura had noticed that there were several places on the list that had positions listed, but no names. She had thought at first that the maybe the positions were unfilled, thus having no names listed, but on closer inspection, many of the titles were far too specific to be unfulfilled positions. One was labeled 'Water Country Military Bureau Operative – Ninja Operations' and another 'Gatoh Company Operative – Finances Division' and there were a numbers of others; positions that had no reason to be on the list unless someone was actively filling them. Either the scroll was edited, or some form of genjutsu prevented the viewer from seeing all the names unless they had the proper clearance. Sakura chewed on her lip. Either way, the information they needed might be inaccessible to them.

Shaking off her doubts, Sakura finished scanning the Intelligence list with no success, and then moved on to ANBU special ops units. There were several, but none had many members, and they were about as spotty on real information as Intelligence had been. She went through Assassination, the Hokage's personal guard, the shinobi hunters, the deep cover intelligence unit, and the few more general-purpose units. None had any visible information on Morino Ibiki.

The last on the list of the ANBU special ops units was Torture and Interrogation, and the entire list was blank. It was clearly longer than several of the others, but from the top to the bottom, there were no names. All were hidden. She slumped in her chair and looked at Sasuke, and spoke despairingly "I think we just ran out of options."

Sasuke didn't speak, but he didn't have to. Her great idea, the library, had been nothing but a waste of time. Sasuke had gotten hurt and was probably angry with her, and all they had was a scroll that couldn't give them the information they were looking for. It was just so frustrating that she wanted to scream, and if Sasuke hadn't been there, she might have. Instead, she settled for putting her head on the table and slamming her hand on the scroll, coincidentally, right on top of the section she had just viewed, Torture and Interrogation.

She rested her head for a while, but suddenly sat up when she felt the scroll becoming unreasonably warm under her hand, while the air around her had begun to noticeable cool. Looking down at the paper, she felt her eyes go wide. "Sasuke! Look!"

The area under Torture and Interrogation was slowly filling in and the entire scroll was glowing. However, that wasn't what had caught her attention. It was the letters that were floating down onto the scroll, apparently filling in the blank areas. Looking up, she could literally see letters come from all over the room, off book covers, posters, and anything else, float through the air, and settle down onto the scroll.

It was frightening and disturbing to watch, for as soon as it had begun, it felt as if the temperature had dropped ten degrees and the room, which had previously been quiet, was filled with a strange hissing noise. The letters moved unnaturally, with a strange undulating almost slithering motion, and Sakura got the distinct feeling that what was happening was something forbidden, and perhaps borderline dangerous. When one of the letters passed in front of her, she saw it briefly stop, and had the uncomfortable feeling that it was looking at her. However, despite the feeling, all of the names in the section were being filled in, though Sakura noticed distractedly that no other blank sections were being filled in.

It took several minutes for all the names to fill in, while Sakura and Sasuke stood slack-jawed in amazement. When it finally was done, the scroll stopped glowing, and the cold feeling that had descended upon the room disappeared. They exchanged wary looks and cautiously moved to look at the now revealed section.

What Sakura saw first, filled her first with excitement, and then a cold chill descended upon her. The name Morino Ibiki topped the list. Beside it was his position. Chief of Torture and Interrogation. Her mind went blank. Their sensei was the head of the most dangerous and avoided group of ninja in the entire village. What did tha-!

"Sakura!" Sasuke said urgently, grabbing her shoulder.

"I know. He's the leader. Our sensei is the leader." She said, her voice inflectionless, as she struggled to understand what that meant for the team.

"No, not that! Look!" He pointed to the bottom of the list.

She followed his finger down to the indicated spot. Her eyes went wide. There had to be a mistake! There just had to be! What did it mean? How had this happened?

At the bottom of the list were three names, and beside each name was marked Trainee. She shivered as she read the names. Uzumaki Naruto. Uchiha Sasuke. And Haruno Sakura.

Well, here's chapter three, and my first attempt writing from Sakura's POV. I hope I didn't mess it up too badly. Writing a pubescent girl with a huge crush isn't easy. Especially when you're a guy. But I did my best. Next chapter will have some Naruto POV, which I'm not looking forward to writing, 'cause I am the antithesis of an excitable loud pre-teenager. o.O

Some more general notes. The chapter before this one, this one, and the next were all originally suppose to be one chapter, but things just sort of get out of control, and I end up writing a lot more than I expected. Each of my chapters gets longer. Also, my first non-canon character makes an appearance; though it was by accident she appeared at all. She'll have a few more appearances, but nothing major. Two chapters from now will have all the really major non-canon characters appear. Have to flesh out the unit, or else it'll be sort of boring.