Btzz, btzz, brzz, bt-crash!
My fist decided that the alarm I had gotten was more than enough to wake me up, and thus destroyed my latest alarm clock. There went my fourth this month. Violent tendencies don't help anywhere except the battlefield, and unfourtunatly for my wallet, I was a very violent person when angered, like when I am woken up. Honestly I don't use it to much as I wake up before my alarm most mornings, if even by so little that I open my eyes the instant before it goes off. The only reason I have one is mornings like this one, where I have to get up much earlier than usual.
I grumbled about crazy snake ladies and how no one in their right minds gets up this early by choice, as I went about getting dressed and ready for the day.
After I finished getting ready I sealed up all my stuff in a scroll that I had bought the day before.
'I should look into fuuinjutsu more. This is really handy stuff.'
I took a last look around the room where I had lived for the last thirteen years of my life. If I pass the test I won't have a place to stay for awhile, but I could care less right now. I was about to become a ninja! The rest of my life stretched before me like a blank book and I had a pen in my hand.
On the way to the specified training ground, I stopped to grab some breakfast at a place that was open all night and day to serve the shinobi that got sent out or returned at odd hours of the day and were hungry, but were too tired or lazy to make something for themselves.
Getting to the training ground I noticed both of my teammates were already there… in body at least. They both looked half asleep. I shook my head at them with a small smile on my face. Once woken I am fully awake for at least four hours if I get up and move around. Lucky me, poor them; ah well, guess I just need to wake my friends.
I went to the stream and grabbed a couple of cups full of the cold water and went and splashed them in the face with it. I found their reactions hilarious, all the screaming at being woken up with a face full of water and the gasping that comes with the water. They clearly had no sense of humor as for the next five minutes I was chased around the clearing with clones and thrown objects.
"What the hell do you brats think you're doing?" Anko demanded when she arrived.
I ran behind her and said with mock fear, "Anko- sensei, save me from these crazy people who have no sense of humor and can't take a joke."
Anko grinned at this, "Someone finally had the balls to prank you Naruto, huh?"
"Nah, I just decided they needed a wakeup call."
"Whatever, sense this is my first time with a genin squad, I'm going to barrow a test from a fellow jonin. Your objective is these bells." Here she held up two bells much to Naruto and Tenten's confusion. Having accidentally stumbled on Kakashi's test last year, I understood it perfectly. "You may use anything and everything you have to get these bells. You have to noon, if you don't succed you will be sent back to the academy or if I decide you suck that badly you will be kicked out of the ninja program. You may begin."
Naruto and Tenten's eyes widened at the initiation of the test and leapt back into the surrounding forest. I merely looked at the horizon, noting that the sun had just started to show.
'Six fourty ish, she obviously never watched Kakashi give the test.'
As I walked off to find my team I said to her, "Kakashi always starts at nine, you gave us more than two extra hours. Thanks."
She grinned in such a way I started to wonder if the two extra hours were a good thing.
"You're so veerrrry welcome."
At that I decided it wasn't very healthy to be in her presence more than stricktly necisary. Other wise saying, I ran for my life from the crazy lady.
Upon reaching the shelter of the tree line I ducked out of Anko's line of sight before jumping into the trees to find my team.
Ten minutes later we were sitting on a branch as I told them what I knew of the exam.
"This test is about teamwork. The teams that work together would in theory pass."
Tenten interrupted, "In theory?"
"I've never seen a team actually work together." I shrugged. "The whole thing is rigged to divide us, that's why there are only two bells."
"So if we work together we will pass?" Naruto asked incredulous.
"That's not all that easy, we may very well have to fight her until noon. That's a little more than five hours. Naruto, you're the only one who could possibly last that long, as I highly doubt that Tenten has enough dangerous objects to throw that she can keep a jonin busy until noon."
I was met by a very disturbing smile from her.
"I was allowed to clean out the intier store for this so I have enough for all three of us to throw till noon."
I blinked, startled that she could carry around that many blades. Then a thought occurred to me.
"Tenten, can you divide the weapons into three scrolls?" At her nod I smiled, "Do so. Naruto two shadow clones please. When Tenten finishes dividing the weapons you three are two get across from on opposite sides of the clearing and start throwing. Try to make her get close to the stream. Tenten when you're done with that do you mind drawing this design on my back?"
She nodded and handed the scrolls to the Narutos, before turning to me and pulling out a brush and a pot of ink.
"Uh, where are the weapons?"
This stopped all action. Stunned, we both turned to him.
"You don't know about storage seals?" We asked, incredulous.
"You know how many times I was kicked out of the classroom." He said, rubbing the back of his head in embarrassment.
So I proceeded to give him a minute long crash course on storage seals, while Tenten painted the seal I gave her on my back, after we finished I sent Naruto off to barrage our sensei with the weapons, and crept off to the creak, hoping to flank her and take the bells while she was distracted by the flying metal.
I poked my head out of the water to watch our sensei dodging the weapons. It was pretty obvious where Tenten was as only the weapons she threw got close to hitting our sensei. Seeing my signal, Naruto and his clone shifted their fire to the front of Anko slightly, to keep her from charging the trees as I crept up behind her. After reaching her, my hand crept out, reaching for the bells, only to be grabbed.
"You didn't think you could sneak up on my, now di…" She said as she turned around only to see nothing despite the fact she was holding on to a wrist. "Where the fuck are you, and how the fuck did you turn invisible?" She demanded.
I didn't answer her, instead I warned her, "Uh sensei you might want turn around."
She did, still holding on to my wrist, until she saw what was charging her. Hundreds of Narutos were washed across the clearing in a flood of orange.
"Holy shit!"
She dropped my wrist instead opting to fight the orange flood that was my team mate. I used the distraction to slip away noticing that her fighting style moved way too much to attempt to get near to her and take the bells again.
After she took out the clones the barrage started up again as if it never stopped. I was starting to worry about whether this was such a good idea, as Anko was getting mad and it was very apparent. However I let the plan continue as I wanted to get those bells.
The cycle of sneaking in under the barrage then getting out in the clone wave occurred another five times, until I noticed there was only ten minutes left. I decided then it was time for a change of tactics. I found a Naruto and told him what I wanted, and upon seeing his agreement to the plan, I went to find Tenten as another flood of Narutos swarmed the clearing. After the last clone disapated we charged much to Anko's delight as she now was able to fight the people who had been tormenting her all morning. She laughed and charged us. Looking to my right I saw Naruto was ready and reached out and shoved him aside right before Anko reached us, using the momentum gained from the push to roll to the left avoiding Anko's punch and before she could recover she forced to block seceral shuriken that Tenten threw. Using the distraction I spun, swinging my heel around attempting to hit her in the lower back. She managed to twist in a way that allowed her not only to catch my ankle, but then throw me at Naruto, who had launched himself forward with his fist extended to punch Anko. I caught his wrist then slamming my hand on his shoulder I threw myself over him and pushed him down under Anko's guard so Naruto's fist slammed into her thigh, thus scoring our first hit against our sensei.
"You know, if you hadn't pissed me off with all those kunai and shuriken, I would end our fight here. Sucks to be you."
With that she brought down her fist, punching Naruto into the ground. Seeing this I charged and as she looked up I jumped and slammed my knee into her chin, knocking her away from my comrade.
"You ok man?" I inquired as I helped him up.
"Give me a second, and I'll be fine." He responded before shoving me aside and dodging another punch from Anko. Before she could react he grabbed her wrist and threw her. Anko twisted in midair, landing on her feet, and returned the favor, except Naruto wasn't so flexible and was thrown into a tree so hard it left an indentation in the tree. Stunned he slumped down as Anko charged him. I ran after her throwing my hand out to Tenten hoping she would get my plea for a kunai. Feeling the slap of the knife handle against my palm I wrapped my hand around it bringing it up to the back of Anko's head, at the weak point in the skull behind the earlobe an instant after she put a kunai to Naruto's throat.
"So you think you're special don't you, pulling a knife to me." She said feeling the knife point. "Which one do you pick?" With that she twisted one hand into a sign and an earth clone erupted from the ground behind Tenten, putting a kunai to her throat, grinning at me. The grin was replaced by a confused expression when I grinned back, and raised the bells, making them dance on the end of their strings.
Their jingling was instantly accompanied by the ringing of the alarm, signaling noon. I pulled my knife away from Anko at the noise only to be tackled by her.
"Never turn your back on an enemy until their dead." She hissed into my ear, digging her knee into my spine in a very painful way, while holding her kunai to my throat.
"You weren't our opponent. Our egos were. The test was to see if we could work together, not to see if we could beat you, and the only reason we did was because you weren't fighting hard, and at the end you put the psychological test of picking which teammate would live, that's why you let me put the knife to you." I said spitting the dirt out of my mouth. Unbeknownst to me at the time Tenten and Naruto paled as white as a ghost hearing that our sensei wasn't going all out (even if she restricted herself to defence) and it still took us five hours to land a single blow on her.
Anko kneeled on me another minute in silence before bursting out laughing.
"You are the smart one, aren't you? You're correct. The test was designed to pit you against each other, and therefore your teammates became the enemy in your eyes. But you saw through it from the beginning didn't you?"
"It helped that I watched Kakashi give the test last year."
She pouted at this, "That's cheating."
Here Naruto and Tenten answered for me while I merely grinned. I had striven to convince them of this from the start of our acadamey days.
"But sensei, ninja are supposed to cheat."
"After all cheating in a fight means you live another day, unless the enemy can out cheat you." I added.
She looked at us hard for a moment before getting up and helping me to my feet.
"Alright you guys pass."
As soon as I was standing she turned around and decked me.
"That's for your stupid plan."
"That's not fair sensei!" Tenten cried, rushing over to check if I was alright.
"War isn't fair Tenten." I said before Anko could even open her mouth.
She smiled for the first time that day (a smile that wasn't sadistic anyway) and said, "I starting to like you brats. Come on, for actually beating me I'll pay for lunch."
"Yeah! Ichiraku's Ramen, here we come!" Naruto shouted dragging the rest of us as he ran to his favorite eatery.
"Well here we are, this will be your new home. Hokage-sama, decided that we would have the teams live together from here on out. So from now on you live, eat, drink, fight, work, and sleep together."
"I'm not sleeping with them." I said more interested in checking out my new home than listening to the conversation, but fallowing along so I wouldn't be roped into something, because I wasn't paying attention.
Anko looked somewhat confused by this statement, "Of course not, you all have separate rooms upstairs."
Naruto and Tenten ran upstairs to grab their room, ahem, rooms. I merely looked at Anko and said, "100 ryou says they share a room."
"You're on brat; they're too young to understand the pleasures of the flesh." She scoffed as we followed them up the stairs.
Upon coming to the landing we saw that Tenten had grabbed the room that overlooked the forest and was in an argument with Naruto.I was in a good mood and wasn't planning on letting my friends argue about anything, for them being upset is like walking through a forest full of angry hornets; you don't get out in the same condition you go in as. So walking up to them I shoved Naruto into the room Tenten picked and walked into the room that had the view of the Hokage monument on the mountain, thus selecting the room that Naruto wanted, ending the confrontation. In my new room I unsealed my stuff and started turning it into a place to call home.
After I finished I walked back outside to see a bemused Anko staring at the now closed door that opened to Tenten and Naruto's room; wordlessly she held out some money as I walked by, heading to the unclaimed room. I took it and entered the final room on the floor.
"What are you going to do with this room?" She asked following me inside as I sealed away the bed and dresser.
"This will be our study. All our work that doesn't involve sweating our asses off will happen here. With the money I'll get from selling these I'll by a table and some book shelves." I replied. With that said I pulled out a piece of paper and began drawing on it, laying out my plan for the room. I smiled, things were looking good.