Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. What, did you expect something more entertaining? It's a disclaimer, read the fan fic if you need to be entertained.
A Little Sasuke and Naruto
"These are the names of the graduates Hokage-sama."
"You know you can call me by my first name Iruka-sensei, right?"
"Of course, sorry, Naruto-sama."
Naruto was sitting in his office, in what was now his usual Hokage uniform, a white robe, though he didn't often wear the red hat. It was the night after the academy graduation exam, and now that he had the list of graduates from his old sensei, it was time to sort them into teams. Another all nighter, but he'd lost sleep over less important things. The Genin are the future of the village. I won't be around forever after all.
At the age of thirty-five, Naruto was hardly feeling the effects of age. He still wore his hair in yellow spikes, he still wore a bright orange outfit (under the robes of course), and he still wore that goofy grin on his face. Still, age had taught him something, something more important for his job than powerful jutsu (and vaguer for that matter). He had learned to be wise, how to make important decisions, like what teams to put the new Genin in. Still, it helped to have a second opinion.
"Hey, Iruka-sensei, could you do me a favor?"
Iruka stopped just before opening the door. "Yes, what is it Naruto-sama?"
Naruto gave him a smile. "Sasuke just sat down outside, could you send him in? I could use some help with this."
"Of course Hokage-sama."
Iruka left, and Sasuke entered less than a minute latter. "Hey Naruto, Iruka said you wanted some help sorting out the Genin?"
"Hey, Sasuke, I sure could use some help! These lists get longer and longer every year! I swear we're up to forty-five graduates this year; we didn't even have that many kids in our classes back when we were students. Maybe we need to make the test even harder; they all graduate, every signal year!"
"You can't do that to the poor little kids, if you change the system again, the Daimyos won't be very happy. To them more ninja is equivalent to more military strength."
"Those morons don't seem to get how much trouble we have to go through to get rid of all the lesser ninja, and when we're done, it's all down to the same number it would have been if none of them had graduated in the first place. Oh well, can't be helped, might as well just sort them all out, at Ichiraku's of course!"
"Of course."
XXX
"Ok how about we put him here!"
"No Naruto, that wouldn't work, those two would work well together, but their preexisting relationship would alienate the third teammate."
"Then that's it, I give up!"
Naruto had already finished three bowls of ramen, three large bowls, and they still hadn't made any progress. The problem was that half Uchiha! They had very few cases like this in the village's history; the boy was in a very tight political situation, an anomaly in an otherwise completely simple conflict. The Hyuga hated the Uchiha, and the Uchiha hated the Hyuga for hating them. This was how it was, and how it had been for twenty years, each side only barely content to simmer in their contempt, barely containing the conflicting chaos of war, but the boy! The boy was something no one had thought possible, a boy born of two clans, each containing a Kekkai Genkai, and each clan hated him for it. Except of course for a very few individuals, two in fact, one from the Uchiha, one exiled from the Hyuga clan, and both acting only upon direct Hokage orders. One of which was the very source of the new Uchiha clan's existence in Konoha, the one he was converseing with right now.
"Listen Naruto, none of these candidates would really understand this kid anyway, not even the kid's one friend. Because they aren't like him, they don't have Kekkai Genkai. They don't have blood that makes them seem inhuman in the eyes of others. None of them are like him; no one is, because he has two."
"Listen about that, are you sure he has the Sharingan, because he hasn't displayed anything like that in his eyes, and he has the Byakugan, we know that. Isn't impossible for anyone to have two Kekkai Genkai?"
"That was only a theory, based on the need for stability in genetic structures. No one had ever been born from two different clans like this before. But I know more about the Sharingan than anyone, living or dead could ever have claimed to know. I've traced it down to the genetic level, often at the cost of dissecting the bodies of my own ancestors." Sasuke paused here, as if to reflect upon the atrocities he had committed on his pursuit of knowledge. "I had to, to reconstruct my clan. That boy has Sharingan, the nature of his parents demand it."
"No one understands him…"
"Listen Naruto, I know I told you this already, but I'm worried about that boy becoming a ninja. I can't prove a thing when it comes to Byakugan, but putting that boy in danger, that is what triggers the emerging of the Sharingan. If that happens, the boy will-"
"We already talked about this. If Jiro wants to become a ninja, if he chooses it of his own free will, than he is to big an asset to deny him that right. My duty is to the village, the only way that boy is failing, is if he fails like everyone else."
"You really don't get it, do you Naruto…"
"So then, the only teammates that could understand him at all are ones with Kekkai Genkai, right? So who on this list has Kekkai Genkai?" Without even looking at the list, Naruto paused to think. "What about those kid, the ones from the Fuki, Mori, or even the Wakahisa clan, surely they passed? Where are they on this list?"
Sasuke had to resist punching Naruto in the face. You don't punch the Hokage. "Baka! Those three are a year away from even taking the exam!"
Naruto had to resist hitting himself. "Wait a minute, the half Hyuga; he fought a member of the main house. This Hayato Hyuga, he would have Kekkai Genkai! Hmmm, the only other person on this year's list would be that Hitomi Uchiha."
Sasuke was stunned beyond words. Surely the old Naruto, the one who was the idiot from the Ninja Academy was gone by now? "No way, are you that dense! You want to pair the only Uchiha, and the only Hyuga, with the only one who is half of each in the entire world! You seriously think that putting them on the same team together, the three people most likely to hate each other in the entirety of the graduates, purely because they have Kekkai Genkai!"
"Think about it Sasuke, what is the point of the three level ninja system? Genin learn to be Chunin, who then learn to be Jonin. The most fundamental thing these kids have to learn is teamwork right, to put aside all differences for the team! If these three can learn to work amongst themselves, they could work with anybody."
Intentionally creating conflict for the sake of education, who the hell would have thought of that. Still, it is a very Naruto idea, and they definitely made him Hokage for a reason. "That is a very … interesting idea. But to be able to control such a group, we'd need a very powerful Jonin."
"I know just the guy! He's strong as fire, fast as lightning, flexible as water, dependable as earth, and strong of will like the wind. And he even has a Kekkai Genkai!"
"Who do we have like that?"
Naruto finished his fourth bowl of ramen. "Masato Kamitaka."
A/N: Time for another preview. Why? Because it is corporate policy (Disclaimer: I don't work for any sort of business in my making of this fan fic. I work alone.) In the next chapter, the team is assembled, imagine their surprise. And who is this Masato Kamitaka anyway?
