Beating The Odds

Chapter 04: Lucky Seven

By: MikeJV37

Author's Note: The reason 'harem' was dropped from the summary is because a couple friends told me that harem tells them that Naruto will have muliple permanent partners/wives. While he will have many regular women, his main partner is Hinata.

-Naruto Age 12, 7:42 PM, Academy-

"Naruto Uzumaki." Iruka said from the doorway and smirked. He was one of the few people at the academy that knew how strong Naruto really was. He knew how much his favorite student held back to just edge out Sasuke Uchiha as top student, not just among the boys, but everyone. As Naruto headed for him to take his final exam, he knew it was only a formality but he had to do it. Though she wasn't always around where everyone could see her, he was was the only other person in the room the knew Anko was outside in a tree watching through the window. He subtly glanced out the window and nodded to her.

"I'm ready Iruka-sensei, let's get in there and get my hitai-ite." Naruto exclaimed with his usual excitment, then waved to the class and followed Iruka into the room.

Ino watched Naruto enter the exam room and the door close behind him, adjusted her sleeveless purple shirt over her full breasts, like her mother she'd developed early and loved to show off her body, had one of her usual ideas and stood. "Who wants to bet me Naruto-kun won't pass? If he fails... I'll show you my breasts." Ino said brazenly and smiled. She waited as she looked around the room. She looked at the always horney Kiba and smiled a little bigger when he shook his head no, even he wouldn't take the bet. Ino pouted sadly and sat down. She didn't show it, but inside she was laughing her head off, she LOVED to tease the boys like that..

Sakura hunched forward slightly in her seat to hide her small chest, she was one of the smartest students at the Academy, but she'd happily be the dumbest if she could have big breasts instead of a big forehead. 'I may not be one of bustiest girls like you Ino-pig, but thanks to Naruto-kun I'm the strongest.' Sakura thought and straightened up.

A miniute later the door opened and Naruto walked out with a huge smile on his face and a shiny new Leaf hitai-ite on his forehead.

"Congratulations Naruto-kun!" Hinata, Tenten, Sakura and Ino said in unison, looked at each other a moment, then broke out in giggles.

"Thanks girls, it was easy!" Naruto exclaimed and gave everyone his patented foxy smile.

Iruka chuckled at their antics. "Ino Yamanaka!"

Ino stood with a big smile. She was the last person to go, but she knew she'd pass, everyone else had their hitai-ite already, no way was she going to fail.

Naruto went back to his seat, but before he sat he pushed himself up on the table behind him with his hands and leaned over it to get a kiss from his girlfriend and fiancee Hinata. 'Thanks Hinata-chan." Naruto said and dropped to the floor.

"I knew you'd do it Naruto-kun." Hinata said happily as she listened to every girl in class whimper quietly, which made her smile happily because she was his girlfriend, and as far as most knew, the only girl he ever kissed because he wanted to. Most of the girls had only kissed Naruto that first day because of the bet.

Everyone chatted quietly for about two minutes when the door opened and Ino came out with her new hitai-ite tied around her forehead. "Never doubt the diva!" Ino exclaimed proudly and raised her arms with a flourish.

"Sit down miss diva, or you and your girls will be taking my class again next year while your friends are on missions." Iruka said seriously, then looked at Naruto and smirked subtly. He knew as well as everyone that Ino often referred to her breasts as 'her girls.'

Ino crossed her arms protectively over her chest, blushed bright red, ran to her seat and slumped under the table enough to hide her chest..

Everyone was red-faced from holding in their laughter at seeing Ino shut down so completely.

"Now that everyone has passed and become Genin... congratulations. As you all know we're assigning new teams this year so be quiet while I tell you who your teammates and Sensei will be." Iruka said with a small smile.

Naruto listened as Iruka read off names for Team One, Two, Three... he wondered who he'd be paired with, and his friends. Though he knew everyone in class, none of his close friends had been called... until Iruka got to Team Six.

"Team Six will be Soukou Nagato, Chichi Kazumu... and Sasuke Uchiha. Your Sensei is Kakashi Hatake." Iruka said.

Naruto watched the first two stand and move near Sasuke. Soukou, or Bull as his friends called him, was the biggest kid at the academy, his Ninjutsu and Genjutsu were just good enough for him to pass, as were his grades, but with Taijutsu he was about as easy to stop as an avalanche. Chichi was his opposite, she was strong where he was weak, and she was shy like Hinata used to be, he'd met her through Hinata two years ago and was glad he had. She wanted to be a top med nin like her mother. 'They'll be a good team... he's the muscle, she's smart and can heal, Sasuke is good at Ninjutsu, weapons, is the best fighter next to me and he'll probably activate his Sharingan soon.' Naruto thought then glanced subtly at another friend. 'At least Sasuke is at school, I wonder why bushy brow won't show anyone how good he really is, or that he wears those weights. Well he has his reasons for keeping it secret... and I did promise him I wouldn't tell anyone.' Naruto thought then turnd and listened intently to Iruka when he started to read off the names of Team Seven, especially since the first name really got his attention... Hinata.

"...Tenten, and Naruto Uzumaki." Iruka said with a very restrained smile.

The whole class went silent as they heard the third name, even all the jealous girls were quiet... they wanted to know who was the Sensei of what everyone knew would be the most powerful of all the teams.

When she heard his name Hinata's eyes immediately glazed over and her mind jumped back to when she was told she was betrothed to Naruto.

- - - -FLASHBACK- - - -

Hinata entered her father's Study nervously, her mother was also there and she couldn't read either of their faces. They only looked like that when they had something important, and sometimes bad, to say to her. She was use to it from her father, even inside the Compound, but to see her mother like that was even scarier to her.

(her parents point of view)

"Before we tell you why you're here, I think privacy is called for." Hannah said emotionlessly, then flashed through several hand signs. "Seal! Now that no one will here the screams we may begin." Hannah said cooly and subtly glanced at Hinata who was almost terrified. 'I'm sorry to put you through this Hinata-chan, but Naruto-kun has rubbed off on me and I couldn't resist.' Hannah thought.

Hiashi almost lost his composure at what his wife just said, but knew this would more than make up for it. "As Head of the Main Famly of the Hyuuga Clan it is my duty to inform you, Hinata Hyuuga... that you are betrothed to Naruto Uzumaki and will marry him when you turn fifteen."

Hinata, who'd had her head down answered out of reflex before what she'd heard fully registered in her mind. "I'm sorry father I'll do better next..." Hinata's head suddenly whipped up as her body locked up tight, her mouth hung wide open and her white eyes were at least as big as saucers. "I,I,I,I,I,I,I,I,I,I,I,I'm what?" Hinata said with a severe stutter.

Hannah's smile was even bigger than Hiashi's ear-to-ear smile. "You're betrothed to Naruto-kun, Hinata-chan. When you turn fifteen you're going to marry him." Hannah watched her daughter's face for a full minute before it started. She saw a smile of happiness slowly appear on Hinata's face the likes of which even Kami had never seen. She nudged Hiashi and gave him a subte nod before she focused chakra into her ears to protect them from what she knew was coming. A moment later it happened, she watched Hinata unleash a scream of joy that would of made even Kyuubi cringe years ago when it attacked the village. She watched Hinata leap around the room throwing up her arms and almost literally screaming her head off she was so happy. At that moment she doubted even the entire Clan could restrain Hinata. She knew putting a sound seal on the room first was a good idea.

- - - -END FLASHBACK- - - -

"Your Sensei is Anko Mitarashi." Iruka said, just barely holding back his emotions from showing on his face.

The whole room gasped, especially Naruto.

"ALL RIGHT!" Naruto yelled excitedly as he jumped up on his seat, fists raised, a HUGE smile on his face.

Iruka broke out laughing hard for a moment before he composed himself. "Please sit down Naruto."

Naruto froze a moment, looked around and gave everyone an 'oops' grin then sat down.

"Team Eight is Sakura Haruno, Ino Yamanaka and Shikamaru Nara, your Sensei is Kurenai Yuuhi." Iruka said.

Naruto glanced at his friends. 'A spy team... that'll be useful. Sakura is happy she gets to learn Genjutsu from the best, Ino is surprised but doesn't look upset, I guess she figured she'd get put into a new Ino-Shika-Cho. And Shikamaru... he's gonna be surrounded by women like his mom all day. he'll never get any rest now, Kurenai-chan will push him to be his best... eh, it'll be good for him.' Naruto thought and almost laughed at his lazy friend's plight.

"Team Nine is Neji Hyuuga, Rock Lee and Chouji Akimichi, your Sensei... I'm sorry to tell you..." Iruka said with amused pity. "Is Might Guy."

"YOSH!" Rock Lee yelled excitedly and pumped his fist in the air.

Everyone else let out an exasperated sigh, looked down and shook their head. They all liked and respected Guy, he was great person, but five minutes around him and his 'fires of youth' speeches made you want to jam a kunai in your neck and end the torture. Everyone knew if he was around your only hope was Kakashi, Guy's 'Hip Eternal Rival', or Naruto, with one exception... Rock Lee, who actually liked Guy and thought he was cool. No one held that against Lee though.

"A Taijutsu team, cool! With Neji's Byakuugan and Jyuuken, Lee's speed and special skills, and Chouji's expansion jutsu, they'll be awesome! He'll never be able to use a jutsu but I'm glad they put Lee on a team this year. Neji too, I guess they're lucky Guy wouldn't let them take the Chuunin exams last year, and that the graduating class was an odd number because of Tenten-chan.' Naruto thought.

"As we had an odd number of students, two of you will have to wait for next year, I'm sorry. Team Ten is Shino Aburame, Kiba Inuzuka and..." Iruka said.

There were only three kids left and one open team spot, the new kunoichi weren't the bottom students, but they were near it.

Kiba looked at the three girls as Iruka started to talk, one of which was about to be his teammate, and frowneed. 'Just fucking great...I'm gonna get a bitch with a red afro, a pint-sized bully, or...' Kiba thought, then smiled when her name was called.

"Fuki. I'm sorry Harumi, Ami." Iruka said.

Fuki squeaked in surprise, looked at her two long time friends with shock. She never expected to get picked over them, she could walk across an empty room and manage to bump into or trip over something. She saw Kiba shrug, give her a half smile and wave her over. She almost smiled when she heard him tell Shino he thought she was atleast cute. She pulled up her big scarf to hide her blush, got up, crossed the room to sit by Kiba... and bumped into four desks on the way she was so nervous.

"Who's our Sensei?" Kiba barked out as he watched the in the over-sized scarf and jacket fumble her way across the room.

"'Probably Asuma, he's the only Jounin left... except for...' Naruto thought then had a feeling Iruka wasn't about to say Asuma..

"Itachi Uchiha." Iruka said calmly, but inside he was nevous. He was one of the few that knew what really happened that nite, and although he'd been a puppet of Orochmaru, he'd personally wiped out about three-quarters of his clan, including his father. He knew Itachi had been cleared by Inoichi, Kurenai and Ibiki as loyal and mentally stable, though he'd objected to the idea, he figured that if Sarutobi trusted him, that was good enough for him..

"WHAT?" Sasuke said as he stood suddenly and slapped the table with both hands.

"Please sit Sasuke, its Hokage-sama's idea, you can talk to Itachi tonight at home... your mother has already been told and aproves. Before you ask, no you can't be transferred to his team. You and Itachi are the only two active male Uchiha and we can't risk putting you both on one team." Iruka said seriously.

Sasuke thought about that for a moment, then nodded and sat down, he knew Iruka was right, this was best for the Clan. The only other remaining male Uchicha were old or little kids not even in the academy yet.

"Your Sensei will arrive soon to pick you up, please wait in this room." Iruka said, organized the papers on his desk, picked them up and left.

"Sasuke, Bull, Chichi, you better get comfortable... Kakashi won't be here for about two hours." Naruto said with a big smirk. He'd gotten to know him the last couple years and had even learned a bunch of cool jutsu from him, privately, only a few of his friends knew how strong her really was... or about his special friend he always had with him. Sasuke wasn't one of them though, he wanted to tell him, but knew his friend wasn't quite ready for the truth yet. Almost, but not quite.

-8:12 AM-

Naruto was talking with Hinata and Tenten when he suddenly smirked and turned to the door.

Anko barged in brashly with a big sadistic smile on her face. "I'm Anko Mitarash, which of you maggots are mine?"

"Let her have her moment, play along and act intimidated." Naruto whispered to Hinata and Tenten. They knew Anko almost as well as he did and that underneath what most saw they knew Anko was as much a goofy kid as he was, even more so as she never had a real childhood. Naruto raised his hand. "I am Anko-sensei!"

Hinata and Tenten nodded subtly and did the same, but looked slightly intimidaed..

Anko smiled coldly. "Oh good, I get mister lucky and his fangirls, you're just another brat to me, so you and the bimbos get your shit and follow me." Anko commanded then turned and walked toward the door.

Naruto waited until Anko was near the door. "My Sensei is that crazy bitch?" Naruto said just loud enough that everyone heard him.

At the door Anko drew a kunai as she spun and threw it at Naruto, it stuck in the chair an inch from his crotch. "What was that you little shit?"

Naruto acted surprised and jumped up with his best scared face. "Sorry Anko-sensei!"

Anko smiled cruelly and gave Naruto a very subtle nod the others would miss as she listened to everyone laugh nervously, and the comments about how they were glad she wasn't thier Sensei. 'Thanks Naruto-kun, I owe you one for that, maybe the four of us will play poker tonight and I'll up the stakes from food to something more fun..' Anko thought as she turned and left the classroom.

-8:26 AM, Training Ground 13-

"Naruto-kun, Hinata, Tenten, just between us this final test is a waste of time, you three are already a team, but I have to do it as your Sensei. Naruto, stay at thier level, you know out on missions you can't show your true strength except in a real emergency, so think of this as just another practice." Anko said, pushed up the left sleeve of her trenchcoat, bit her right thumb and smeared the blood over her snake tattoo. "SUMMONING JUTSU!" Anko said.

There was a huge puff of smoke twenty feet away and when it cleared a moment later it revealed a huge coiled green snake that reared up to almost twenty feet and nodded to Anko.

Naruto, Hinata and Tenten were impressed, that was the biggest snake they'd ever seen her summon.

"This is Lenearen, I rarely get to summon him but he has a special ability I can use here." Anko said and turned to Lenearen. "Remember what I told you to do." Anko said then took three blank tags from her pocket, gave one to each of them and nodded to her summon.

Lenearen started turning and twisting his head and neck a moment then split down to where it started to coil into two complete heads. A moment later the 'main' head did it again.

"That was awesome, he has three heads now!" Naruto exclaimed.

"Your mission is simple, each of you has to put your tag on top of a head, but you can only place your tag, and you each have to tag a different head. One more thing... you only have until eleven o'clock when I'm going to lunch. If you haven't all tagged him, or one of you gets knocked out, you all fail." Anko said, took a pocket watch from her trenchcoat and waited a moment. "Begin!"

The moment Anko said begin Lenearen uncoiled and raced toward the far end of the Training Ground at incredible speed for an almost sixty foot snake. .

"He's fast... this'll be harder than I thought." Tenten said impressed.

"Yeah... it'll be fun. Hinata-chan and I will distract him while you circle around from behind Tenten-chan and place your tag first, you should be fast enough to dodge his attacks long enough to get close... and don't get hit." Naruto said.

"I don't have to get close, I think I can stick one on with one of my new darts. It'll bounce off and the tag will come off when it sticks to its head. Its a tough shot but I can do it." Tenten said.

"Okay, stay close, Hinata-chan and I will get it to follow us to that big tree there." Naruto said and pointed. "You hide there and wait for your opening. ready?"

Hinata nodded. "Hai."

Tenten nodded. "Hai, and be careful you two."

They nodded and raced down the Training Ground, Tenten along the side, Naruto and Hinata down the middle toward their target.

-10:38 AM-

Hinata had just vaulted over Lenearen's head, and while upsidedown used her hand speed to plant her tag, landed and rolled away.

As Hinata rolled to safety a dozen shuriken bounced off Lenearen's left side head Hinata had just tagged. "Over here scale face, even with three heads you can't hit me!" Naruto taunted very childishly and threw six shuriken at the center head he had to tag. Naruto suddenly yawned and stretched. "I thought you were suppossed to be tough... I might as well get something to eat for all the challenge you are." Naruto said obniously bored and turned his back to the giant snake. Naruto stood there a moment, then reached behind him and scratched his butt with his right hand, through his pants of course. Just as he finished he leapt straight up as a huge snake head passed under him. He landed on it, saw there was no tag and slapped his down. "GOTCHA, WE WIN!" Naruto exclaimed excitedly and punched the air..

The two sides head came in and both looked down at the top of the center head, then hung in defeat.

"Congratulations, great teamwork... which was the real reason for this anyway, you could of failed to tag all three heads, what mattered was whether or not you worked as a team. I knew you'd do it. Thanks Lenearen, you can leave if you want to." Anko said.

Lenearen bowed all three heads then vanished in a puff of smoke.

Anko waited a minute for Hinata and Tenten to join Naruto. "Great job, we're now officially Tean Seven. Lunch is on me, so where do you wanna eat... as if I didn't already know." Anko siad and gave Naruto a familiar smirk.

Naruto gave Anko a bix foxy smile. "Ichiraku Ramen!"

Hinata and Tenten giggled, then whispered to each other a moment..

"Naruto-kun, I'm cooking us dinner tonight at your house. You can't just have ramen, so I'm going to make rice with chicken and vegetables and you're going to eat it.".Hinata said.

"If you're cooking Hinata-chan I'll eat it... are Tenten-chan and Anko-chan... uh, Anko-sensei coming to?" Naruto said.

"If you guys don't mind, I'd love to... can I bring dango for dessert?" Anko said nervously.

"Of course you can Anko-sensei, right Hinata-chan, Tenten-chan?" Naruto exclaimed.

Hinata and Tenten nodded.

"Now that I'm your Sensei I didn't want to impose... I also have a little entertainment planned for afterwards, if that's ok?" Anko said then waited a moment, she smiled when they all nodded. "Good, lets go eat." 'Now that they're Genin its time Hinata and Tenten learn to play strip poker.' Anko thought.

End Chapter 4

Author's Note: The characters Soukou Nagato and Chichi Kazumu are OC (origial characters) I created for this fanfic, the other 3 girls are from the show, you can find them at the Naruto site linked in my profile.