Finally, chapter 6. And now we arrive on the precipice of the real story taking place. This is the last chapter before the first real arc begins.

Once again, hopefully this won't bore anyone to death.


Chapter 6: The Difference Between


Koan sighed for the thirty-seventh time.

He didn't really know why he bothered to keep track of how many frustrated, discontented grunts of air that left his lungs. Maybe it was some asinine attempt to stave off boredom. Maybe it was a coping mechanism for the sheer disappointment he found in his recent daily rigours. Or maybe it was a simple case of dissatisfaction with the system he worked in, the only way up being through the overly simple tasks presented to him by the lazy and the rich too busy to concern themselves with the ordinary matters of everyday life. But no matter how he looked at it, all it proved to be was one stinking pile of shit after another, sometimes those piles being the actual shit he needed to scoop out of someone's backyard.

Ah, the wonders of D-rank missions. The somewhat obviously sardonic thoughts were a common occurrence in his mind. It wouldn't do to continue to complain about just how useless he found D-ranks in regards to the long run, like Kiba had resolved to do every time Kurenai would assign him with another mundane task after the last forty or so in the previous week. But while he wasn't complaining audibly, on the inside he was screaming for some productive use of his skills.

The one line that had been repeated over and over from their time in the Academy was that the work of a ninja was dangerous, life-threatening. It was meant to be lethal to the unprepared and the unaware. Though many students had ignored the more-than-fair warning in favour of the idealistic concepts of patriotism for the village and loyalty to Hi no Kuni and its ruler, Koan had taken those cautioning words to heart. He was expecting violence, expecting underhanded dealings outside the realms of honour and fidelity. And yet the absolute antithesis of his expectations and physical and mental preparations was staring him in the face, right within spitting distance.

No matter who tried to rationalise it, whether it be his sensei, the jounin commander, even the Hokage, D-ranks were not important. He didn't care if it stabilised the village's economy, provided work for the less skilled and trained of Konoha's shinobi forces and kept a steady flow of income coming into the village's military coffers, they were a waste of time. What was the point of having a village full of assassins and thieves for hire if they were going to be used to clean yards and run errands.

And, just as he suspected, there was number thirty-eight.

"Koan, you've been standing there for almost a minute; less thinking, more sweeping."

"Hai, Kurenai-sensei," he barely restrained a growl.

He held no grudge against the genjutsu specialist. She was level-headed and fair in the treatment of her students, capable of equal kindness and strictness when needed. But the slightly militant attitude on D-ranks was getting to him ever so slightly, though that was probably a stretch of the truth.

He resumed his sweeping. A few moments, later Kiba arrived with the fertiliser.

"Damn, this stuff smells like shit!" the Inuzuka exclaimed.

"I thought you would be used to it. You live in a compound full of shedding, shitting animals," Koan observed.

"Well, fuck you, asshole!" Kiba retorted, after a moment of searching for an insult.

"Watch your language, both of you!" Kurenai intervened, shouting over Kiba's cursing and the response forming in Koan's throat.

Kiba looked startled while Koan kept his sight firmly on the ground.

"Now," she continued sternly, "I've had enough of this. You two need to shape up and shut up or I'll do it for you. Is that understood?"

"Hai, sensei," came the mandatory response.

"Good, now, Kiba, get that fertiliser over to the garden bed and help Hinata lay it down. Koan, keep sweeping the pavement, the client wants it clean like the day it was laid," Kurenai instructed.

Kiba ran off to fulfil their teacher's command and Koan remained where he was, sliding the broom backwards and forwards over the pavers.

"If you're going to do it, Koan, do it with some semblance of enthusiasm," Kurenai spoke up after a moment of observing her student's lack of progress.

"It would actually be easier for me to just replace the pavement, sensei," Koan said, eyes fixed to the concrete.

"The client has payed for it to be cleaned, not replaced. When you receive a mission, no matter how basic, you follow the instructions to the letter, nothing less and nothing more," Kurenai stated, hands firmly on her hips.

"Very well, Kurenai-sensei. No replacing, then," Koan agreed tiredly.

Almost the instant after the genjutsu user nodded and began to turn away, a booming crunch exploded into existence almost directly beneath her. She looked down to see Koan, arm half-buried in shattered concrete and a sly smirk plastered on his features. "Oops, I guess it has to be replaced now."

The scowl on Kurenai's face was almost awe-inspiring.


"Wow, Koan's going to get it."

Hinata looked up from the garden bed with a trowel in her hand. She was at least lucky to find herself enjoying the gardening, removing weeds and other unwanted plant life from the soil, while Koan and Kiba seemed to dislike every second of the job. Shino, on other hand, was having a fine time collecting – and sometimes annihilating – the various pests that seemed to inhabit the backyard they were employed to clean with his own colony of insects. At least one of them was getting some practical, although mundane, use out of their skill set.

She didn't particularly resent the sort of missions they had to undertake as D-ranks, but she definitely didn't find them exciting. The Byakugan had only so many uses when it came to running errands, chasing cats and cleaning backyards. But back to the situation at hand, all she could ask was, "W-what do you mean, Kiba-kun?"

Kiba looked over his shoulder to the Hyuuga behind him. "Didn't you see the look on Kurenai-sensei's face? Whatever he did, Koan really pissed her off. Eh, it serves him right anyway."

"That's n-not fair, Kiba-kun," Hinata frowned slightly, "just b-because you two don't get a-along means you shouldn't try to be civil at least."

"Yeah, I guess you're right, but it's kind of hard when he's such a prick all the time," Kiba sighed.

"Your label for our teammate as a... prick, as you say, is not accurate in this case, Kiba."

Kiba nearly fell on to his dog, Akamaru, when he noticed Shino standing right behind him all of a sudden. "Holy shit, dude! Don't sneak up on people like that!"

The Aburame lowered his head slightly and pushed his sunglasses farther back onto his nose before he spoke, "I have been here the entire time."

"Um..." Kiba's face gradually fell.

Hinata giggled slightly. She took notice of the Aburame at nearly all times, but Kiba seemed to miss his appearance several times at least every day. Though it was humorous to watch the pair's reminiscently comical act at times, she felt the slightest bit sorry for Shino's naturally stealthy behaviour in a team scenario. She could see it being helpful in the field, but not so much in the safety of the village's walls.

"But that is beside the point, the point being your insecurity within the boundaries of our team," Shino continued.

"Hey, I'm not insecure," Kiba protested.

Hinata stood up and met Kiba with a vaguely melancholy smile. "Sorry, Kiba-kun, b-but you kind of are."

"As I was saying," resumed the Aburame, "the addition of another male member to the team changes the dynamic. Without him, you would not feel so insecure, the only other presence that could possibly challenge for your so-called 'alpha male' role being myself."

"So you're saying I'm insecure because Koan doesn't accept my place as alpha?" Kiba asked.

Shino nodded.

The Inuzuka lit up with a wide grin. "Then all I have to do is show him that I'm the alpha and he'll accept his place as a beta."

"That is not what I said, Kiba," the insect user deadpanned.

"Of course it's what you said, Shino," Kiba smiled, "it's the only thing that makes sense to me."

Hinata just groaned at her teammate's naivety. And Kurenai-sensei thinks Koan is the one who doesn't listen, she mentally sighed.


"Fishcake, do you have sight of the target, over?"

Fishcake nodded before responding. "I have sight of the target fifteen metres to my front, Cyclops-sensei, over."

"The codename was just Cyclops, Fishcake, not Cyclops-sensei, over."

"Oh, sorry, Kakashi-sensei, I forgot again, over."

Cyclops-sensei groaned.

"Eh, never mind that. Raven, do you have sight of the target, over?"

"Hai, Cyclops, over," a terse voice sounded over the communicator.

"Copy that. Fuchsia, do you have sight of the target, over?"

"Hai," a voice of significantly higher pitch said, intersecting with a sleepy yawn, "I have sight of the target, over. And I'm so taking a nap when we're done with this."

"Your exhaustion is duly noted, Fuchsia. All lights are green, begin pursuit of target in three... two... one... now!"

Fishcake leapt from his perch in a tree towards a shaded clump of bushes, aiming to capture their target in a single, decisive move. Unfortunately, Raven wasn't about to be shown up and moved with the same intent towards the same patch of greenery.

"Damn it, Sasuke-teme, watch where you're going with that haircut of yours!"

"Shut it, dobe, you scared that asshole cat off!"

"Both of you, be quiet and get after the target," the mission coordinator's voice crackled over their earpieces.

No response was heard from either team member for a moment.

"Now, that's an order!"

"Hai, Cyclops," a bored voice and a slightly irritated one said in unison.

Raven jumped into the branches while Fishcake dashed along the ground in hot pursuit after the target. Both shinobi bounded towards the target almost the split-second it came into view. Neither would allow themselves to be outdone. But again, misfortune struck when they both knocked heads mid-leap and became entangled in a flailing mess of limbs, right in front of a perfectly calm cat, licking its paw nonchalantly in the early morning sun. Both members of the search-and-capture team stared intently at the cat. The cat simply continued to lick its paw.

A rustle in the nearby bushes drew the attention of the roughly intertwined teammates, giving way to the red-clad form of Fuchsia, who, casually strolling by, picked the cat up and continued on her way to the meeting point without noticing either Raven or Fishcake tangled together in an oddly intimate mass of bodily contact and strangely positioned limbs.

Raven's hand accidentally slid southwards. Raven looked to Fishcake. Fishcake looked to Raven.

"This never happened. Agreed?"

"Agreed," Fishcake accepted hastily and extracted his own body from their little mess.

As both left the vicinity of their mid-mission 'accident', both failed to notice the form of Cyclops crouched in a perfect hiding spot in the branches above, a camera held lazily in one hand and a signed orange book in the other.

"Oh, life is good," the silver-haired jounin smiled beneath his mask.


"Hey, Sakura?"

"Yeah, Naruto?"

"Why do D-ranks suck so much?"

"Hell if I know."

Naruto sighed for what felt like the hundredth time that day. Wow, I sigh a lot these days, he thought atypically. Something told him he wasn't alone in his sentiments.

He shook his head and puffed some more air, looking down to the stream beneath the bridge that had become their usual meeting place over the past two weeks.

"Naruto, why do you keep staring at the water?"

He gave Sakura a quick sidelong glance before returning his attention to the small river. "Don't know, really. It's better than staring at the concrete, I guess."

"Fair enough, I suppose," was her response, accompanied by a small sigh of her own.

Wow, we all sigh a lot, Naruto's thought returned.

Another light groan of discontent sounded from Sakura's direction. "Why the hell is Kakashi-sensei always so late anyway?"

Naruto scratched his head in thought. Why was their teacher always so late? At first he just thought it was some kind of continual test, getting the team tired and frustrated to push them harder during training like he did for the real genin test. But a hole kind of appeared in that line of thought when Kakashi didn't really teach them anything practical. It was always something about teamwork or working well together as a team or some variation of a word involving 'team'. After a while, it all just seemed useless and unnecessary. He frowned slightly. He really didn't think the Hokage would let one of his ninja become chronically late to something as important as team training. So then why the hell did Kakashi always show up late? It just didn't make the slightest bit of sense.

He was about to check his watch to see how long their sensei had made them wait this time when he remembered he didn't own one. Well, that's just perfect.

The classrooms at the Academy all had perfectly timed clocks sitting just above the main blackboard, so he had never had a need to worry about how much time was left for him to be bored, except when Iruka-sensei had been talking about something interesting like the life and times of Yondaime Hokage or the violent mess that the Third Shinobi World War had become.

But he was getting into mental tangents again. The point was Kakashi seemed permanently late to everything. The only reason their sensei hadn't been late to a mission was that he was already there for team training. There was no way he could be late for something when they all went together to the mission desk as a team.

And that was the crux of the whole situation: 'team'. Kakashi constantly preached about the importance of teamwork living in the heart of every Konoha shinobi, yet excluded himself from that attitude almost entirely. Naruto scratched his head again in thought. There was a word for what their sensei was. Where someone made other people do something or think something but didn't do it themselves. He just couldn't think of the word for it.

"Hey, Sakura, what do you call someone who doesn't do what they make other people do?"

Sakura thought about it for a second before answering, "That would be a hypocrite, Naruto."

"Oh, okay. Thanks, Sakura."

So, that was what Kakashi-sensei was: a hypocrite. It was much easier to define the man when there was a label he could give him.

He leaned back against the bridge's wooden railing, trying to get comfortable but failing miserable. He could only find so much placation to be found for his body against a piece of wood above a stream.

All he could do know was-

"You're late!"

Naruto started and nearly toppled over the railing at the sound of Sakura's irritated voice.

"Well, you see, I was on my way when a black cat nearly walked in front of me and I stepped out of the way which caused me to almost go under a ladder which then caused a mirror to nearly break, so then I had to take the long way while cleansing myself of almost-bad luck," Kakashi said, finishing with his trademark eye-smile.

Sakura's face dropped. Naruto held the bridge of his noise, just barely holding back an infuriated yell.

"Anyway, it's about time to go get another mission, so let's head over to the... wait, where's Sasuke?" Kakashi asked.

Naruto cocked his head quizzically. Where was Sasuke? He hadn't even noticed the teme wasn't around. He was sure Sakura had, but she didn't say anything. Odd, he thought.

"Either of you know?" Kakashi inquired. Naruto shook his head while Sakura thought for a moment before shaking hers.

"Alright then, you two go to the Uchiha district, find Sasuke and meet me at the mission desk in half an hour," Kakashi ordered with an eye-smile.

Well, this is going to be fun, was Naruto's sarcastic assessment of the task at hand.


It was only a ten minute walk from their meeting place to the Uchiha district, but it did seem to take quite a while to actually get to the entrance.

Naruto looked up at the walls around the area's open threshold. They were quite high, defensive-looking things. It didn't seem to make a lot of sense either. It was common knowledge, even to him, that the Uchiha and the Senju came together as equals to create the first ninja village, Konohagakure no Sato, a safe village for the majority of the population. So why did one of the two founding clans of the village need a fence around their district at all? "Sakura, what's with the fence?"

The kunoichi in question sighed. "It's a wall, Naruto, not a fence. Most of the other clans have walls around their compounds as well. It's not that uncommon."

"Well, yeah," Naruto acquiesced, "but none of the other clans have a compound the size of a district."

Sakura nodded slightly. "I guess you have a point. It does seem a little odd to have a wall like this, but yet again, the Uchiha did have the Konoha Police building here, which was also a prison, so it would make sense that they could need walls like this in case of escape."

"Maybe," Naruto agreed half-heartedly, "still seems weird though."

"Yeah, it does."

The pair of genin continued to walk inside the Uchiha district in relative silence, right until they themselves noticed the silence.

"Sakura?"

"Yes, Naruto?"

"Have you noticed how quiet it is around here?"

"Yeah, it's creepy."

They stopped in the street for a moment, looking around carefully. They were in a residential area. While other streets had been a combination of traditional homes and businesses of different kinds, this one was strictly housing. The absence of people was shocking.

Everything was empty. There was no chattering of voices on the street or murmuring of families in their homes. There were no mothers in their kitchens, fathers in their offices, daughters and sons reading, learning, playing, or fighting. It was lonely, and he knew lonely. His face fell at the realisation.

"This is starting to scare me, Naruto, let's find Sasuke and get out of here," Sakura said urgently, tugging at the sleeve of his tracksuit.

Naruto didn't hear her for a moment, but quickly zoned back in. "Huh? Yeah, yeah, let's go."

Sakura pulled Naruto absentmindedly along with her as they trudged off in the direction they thought was where Sasuke resided. Neither of them talked. They just walked.

Naruto stared at the ground as Sakura dragged him along, letting his feet guide him just as much as his pink-haired teammate was. The emptiness, the isolation of the place, was getting to him. It reminded him of the orphanage, just quieter and a whole lot less lively, but it was heavier. There was a weight to the air, a pressure on his shoulders. He could barely bring himself to walk around. How the hell did Sasuke live there?

"Is that Sasuke's house?" Sakura's voice sounded distant until he looked up.

The one she was indicating was a single story affair, slightly larger than the ones they had passed, grander in a subtle way. There were wide verandas and unordained columns, just enough to appear refined; the windows were simple, tasteful in their understated appearance. There wasn't much more he could say about it. It was just, in some way, impressive.

"Yeah, I would guess so," Naruto agreed.

Both of them walked up to the front door, a heavy dark grey slab, with trepidation. Neither of them did anything for a long moment.

"Are... are you going to knock?" Sakura asked nervously.

Naruto raised a suddenly irate eyebrow. "Why do I have to do it?"

"You're the guy!" Sakura exclaimed in a shrill whisper. "You're meant to be the chivalrous one!"

"Fine!" Naruto all but shouted and pushed at the door with an upraised fist, intending to knock harshly. But that plan was flung out the window when he realised the door was open and slightly ajar the instant before his fist collided with the door. He barely caught the wooden slab a centimetre away from the doorframe just as it was about to slam into it with thunderous results.

He breathed a sigh of relief when he knew he wasn't going to be charged with property damages by their Uchiha teammate.

Sakura poked her head into the entryway, looking around before calling out. "Sasuke, are you here?"

They heard no response. Sakura called again and Naruto groaned and crossed his arms.

Another two calls later and the Uzumaki was already fed up with waiting for the Uchiha to get off his ass and attend team training like the rest of them.

"You stay here, Sakura. I'll go find him," he said, stepping into the house before Sakura could make her concerns known.

The interior matched the exterior for build quality, just as he suspected. The floors were all dark, rich woods and the occasional traditional mats at entrances to various rooms. He didn't know where he was going, but the plan was just to wander the halls until he found the Uchiha he was looking for.

After a few minutes of drifting aimlessly from room to room, he stopped at what looked like a meeting room of sorts. There was a long, low table that stretched most of the space's length lined with tatami mats for seating. Ordinarily, he wouldn't have found anything odd with the room. It just looked like a place of meeting. But the difference lay in the floor at the far end of the room. Most wouldn't see it, but he could just make out a slight difference in the colour of the relatively dark flooring. There had been a blood stain, a large one, right at the end of the room.

He suddenly became aware of his rather erratic heartbeat and the breath he had been holding in without knowing it. What the hell was wrong with this place?

Naruto took a moment to calm down and collect his thoughts. So this place was where someone was killed in the Uchiha Massacre, he thought carefully. But why am I having a reaction to it? It didn't have anything to do with me. But as he thought, he couldn't help but find some part of himself that inherently disagreed with that. Is it the Kyuubi, perhaps?

He shook his head. That couldn't have anything to do with it. It was the Yondaime Hokage who sealed the fox into him, not the Uchiha.

As quickly as he had walked in left the room, he left without a second thought.

It was soon after he had begun to walk the halls again that he heard something, someone's voice. Closing up against the room of the voice's source, he listened.

"Okaa-san, I'm sorry I haven't spoken to you in a while, but I've been busy. Guess what? I'm a genin now, just like you and Otou-san wanted me to be. I'm on my way up in the world."

It took Naruto a moment to realise who was speaking but his eyes widened once he did. The Uchiha wasn't as cold and emotionless as people thought.

After a long moment, Sasuke spoke again. "I'm one step closer to retribution, one step closer to vengeance on Itachi. It may still take some time, but don't worry, you and everyone else he murdered will be able to finally rest in peace. I'm just sorry it won't happen sooner."

If Naruto didn't know better, he would've sworn he had heard a tearful sniff from the Uchiha.

"I have to go now, Okaa-san. I think I have to stop talking to you for a while as well... I'll... I'll see you again in a few years. I have to focus now. Goodbye."

Naruto sprinted as quietly as he could back to the front entrance, where Sakura was waiting impatiently.

"Well, did you find him?" she questioned him, almost anxious for an answer.

"Yeah, he'll he be out in a few minutes," Naruto answered quickly.

Sakura seemed satisfied with that, giving Naruto the precious time he needed to process what he had just heard. He already knew Sasuke's clan was dead. The whole Uchiha Massacre thing was a fairly publicised thing around the village at the time. But what he didn't know was that it was his brother that did it. He had heard the name Itachi before, mentioned in a conversation he overhead years before as Sasuke's genius older sibling. His brother slaughtered his entire clan?

That was mindboggling enough. Going crazy and murdering his family was one thing, but Itachi having enough skill and talent to kill the clan head and all the Uchiha shinobi was something else altogether. It was just insane to think about.

And then there was Sasuke talking to his dead mother. Even though it was weird on the surface, he could definitely understand why he did it. If he knew who his dead mother was, he would talk to her on occasion if he had a picture of her or if he knew where her grave was – if she even had a grave. He could understand it well enough to sympathise with the last loyal Uchiha.

Who Sasuke talked to or didn't talk to was his own business, Naruto understood that. He wasn't going to mention what had happened, even to Koan. There were some things he didn't need to discuss unless there were lives at stake, and this was one of them.

"What are you guys doing here?"

"We were waiting for you, Sasuke! You didn't show up on time," Sakura started loudly.

The Uchiha shrugged nonchalantly. "Kakashi doesn't show up on time, so why should I?"

The pink-haired genin shook her head. "I get your point, but that still doesn't mean you can't show up on time."

Sasuke just shook his head and began to walk off. "Whatever."

Naruto watched him move, hands casually shoved in the pockets of his shorts. There was something heavy about his stride, something he didn't notice before but something he could inherently recognise – the past weighing down on him. He barely managed to stop a grimace flashing onto his face as a surge of memories swept over him like a chilling rain. The similarities were almost painfully obvious, though in entirely different ways. He had begun with nothing but a burden to his name. Sasuke was heir to an illustrious clan of powerful warriors, one that had been slaughtered in a single night save him. Their situations were nearly entirely disparate from each other, but not matter how either were looked at – separately or together – both were equally lonesome.

"Naruto, are you alright?" Sakura's partially concerned tone took him by surprise more than anything else.

He quickly nodded and pulled on one of his typical foxy grins. "I'm alright, Sakura. Just thinking about something I decided."


A moment later:

"Finally decide to catch up, dobe?"

"Sure did, teme."


His body laboured tirelessly, though his patience wore thin. It seemed to take forever, the task at hand. There was no rest, no relenting and no respite from his work.

"Shut up, your dramatisation is getting me even more annoyed at you than usual," a voice in his head said with all the subtlety of an explosive tag where a shuriken would suffice.

Then go to sleep and you won't have to deal with my torture at the hands of D-ranks any longer than you have to, he advised his tenant.

"I think I'll stay up. Your torture is soothing to me," his bodily occupant replied in a painfully happy tone. Koan just groaned.

"Are you almost done with cleaning the pavement, Koan?"

"Hai, Kurenai-sensei," the genin muttered.

His minor, almost prank-like, act of not-so-civil disobedience against doing the job in an inefficient way had landed him in some deal of trouble with Team 8's sensei. While he could understand Kurenai's reasoning for her irritation towards him, he didn't understand her marginally perfectionist desires to have the task completed 'correctly'. He wasn't going to pose that query out loud though, not after having to not only repave what he cracked earlier, a tiring process to perform with Doton ninjutsu at the best of times, but to also to watch Kurenai dump a pot's worth of soil onto the concrete and have him clean it up a moment after.

That was really chipping away at his already strained patience. The fact he couldn't understand just why the woman insisted on perfection for D-ranks, of all things, rubbed him even further the wrong way, but he continued to sweep nonetheless.

"Done, Kurenai-sensei," he said after a few minutes more.

"Alright," she nodded, "go meet up with the others back at the training ground. You'll be sparring with Kiba this time around. I'll go settle up our payment with the clients and report back to the mission desk."

"Hai, sensei," was his succinct acknowledgement.

As Kurenai moved into the client's home, the client being some slightly obese woman with a little too much in the way of money and food and not enough in the way of effort, Koan grinned a little sadistically as he clutched the broom in his hands tightly, the wooden surface creaking under the pressure.

At least he could do something to relieve a bit of tension without harming anyone in the process.

As Kurenai left the house a few minutes later with an envelope of ryo in hand and a tired yet satisfied smile, a faint trail of smoke wafted around her from somewhere out in the street. The client's wooden broom, along with a few of the other tools they used, was nowhere to be found in the backyard they had been hired to clean. Kurenai sighed.


She channelled chakra to her eyes slowly, feeling her way through the optic nerves with care. It was an odd experience, one that she couldn't group with anything else that she had felt. It was like looking at something, seeing it in detail, taking in everything it had to offer, all while her eyes were squeezed shut.

That was the funny thing about the Byakugan. It gave sight beyond the range of ordinary eyes, both without and within. It made her wonder why she had never heard any of her clansmen talk of the internal sight their kekkei genkai gave.

Her eyes snapped open at that, an inquisitive look sweeping across her features as she focussed on the ground. Maybe there was a reason for it. Perhaps the concept of internal clarity differed from Byakugan to Byakugan. She was aware that no two pairs of Byakugan functioned identically. Though they all shared the same core abilities, all of them were different in the way they dealt with them. No one saw the same distance, or to the same degree through obstacles or to the tenketsu of living things. It made sense to her that it also applied to the internal sight.

There was another factor she supposed as to why it wasn't discussed: privacy. It was an intimate idea, to be able to see within oneself to such a degree, varying from one Hyuuga to another. The Hyuuga valued privacy, she knew that well enough. In a clan possessing eyes that capable of seeing through solid objects, reading emotions through body heat, as exhibited by some of the more celebrated clan members, and magnifying normal lines of sight, the right to privacy was highly valued.

She nodded to herself. It seemed like an accurate assumption. It wasn't discussed because it was far too personal a thing, the ability of clear internal sight. She closed her eyes and resumed the process of strengthening her Byakugan.

It had been said to her in her younger years that practice with the Hyuuga doujutsu came differently to each person, as each Byakugan differed in clarity and precision, much like the regular eyes of humans. Through the ways she had been instructed in – intense magnification, almost to the point of making her eyes bleed; focussing on chakra alone, reducing the overall distance to which her doujutsu-enhanced field of view could see and through study of the positions of tenketsu on the human body and forcing herself to see them clearly rather than as indistinct blurs – she concluded that they did not work for her, though her teachers, including her father, said otherwise. Despite what she had been told, instructed, taught, even beaten into her by other children of the clan, those ways did not work for her like they did everyone else. They never seemed to assist her sight, only impeding it more than anything. The only thing she found that truly trained her eyes was internal focus.

And after a month-and-a-half worth of careful practice, she was finally 'seeing' the benefit of her ocular exercise. She stifled a giggle at her mental joke, wary of interruptions to her meditative exertions.

There had not been any immediate improvement to her visual abilities, nothing noticeable at least, when she had begun. It was a week ago that she had noticed any proper sign of development: she only needed one hand seal to activate her Byakugan. Before, she had needed a complicated string of hand movements to activate her doujutsu. It was a problem based more on chakra quantity than control. As both a Hyuuga and a female, her chakra control could be considered well above the average of a genin, but it was her reserves that let her down. But through her efforts with training, she had reduced the problem substantially. It wasn't that she had boosted her reserves – that was not a speedy process by any means, especially at such an early point in her career – but rather that she had made her usage significantly more efficient. She wasn't sure whether she could class it as an increase in chakra control, as she had yet to make use of it in ways other than for her eyes, but, either way, it was a definite advancement; one she could be proud of.

She smiled slightly at that. For once, she found a little bit of pride in herself, away from the harsh glares of her father and family.

I wonder what Naruto-kun would think about my improvement? She asked herself. She hoped that he would congratulate her, maybe hug her if he knew how important any improvement was to her. She felt her face go a little red at the thought of physical contact with the Uzumaki.

"I assume you're thinking about Naruto again."

She almost jumped when Koan's voice startled her out of her internal training.

"U-uh... yeah," she bowed her head, embarrassed.

Koan shook his head with his usual half-smile, one corner of his mouth curled slightly upwards. "It's nothing to be ashamed of, Hinata. Nothing I could find shame in, at least."

He sat down nearby, on the grass beneath the nearest tree in their team's clearing. "How's the training going?"

She turned slightly to face him. "P-progress is a little s-slow, but I'm getting t-there; it just t-takes a little time."

"I could imagine," he nodded. "Where are the other two? Kurenai-sensei said I was going to be sparring Kiba today."

Hinata raised an eyebrow. It was a little tradition Kurenai-sensei had developed that the four of them sparred at least twice a week, for both the exercise and the familiarity with each team member's fighting style and capabilities. Up until the previous sparring match, where she had been pitted against Shino in a rather oddly drawn-out match, she had only fought against Koan and Kiba and Shino had only fought against each other. Kiba hadn't been in attendance the last training session, some Inuzuka clan-related business she had heard, so that had left Koan out a sparring partner. And this was not one of their usual sparring days.

"I d-don't know. They are probably s-somewhere n-nearby," she answered quietly.

Koan scratched his chin in thought for a moment. "I guess I'll wait for Kurenai-sensei to get here and referee before I fight Kiba."

She nodded. She had a feeling, just from watching the two interact, that the tension between them could potentially get out of hand without their sensei to watch over them as they sparred.


"Time to finally show you who the top dog on this team is, Koan," Kiba proclaimed.

"Like it matters, let's just fight already," Koan spat.

"Alright, enough banter," Kurenai interrupted before Kiba could fire off a retort, "you two know the rules but this fight will be taijutsu only. No partners either, Kiba."

Kiba groaned as Akamaru ran off to the sidelines with a disappointed yap and settled next to Shino and Hinata.

"Both of you ready?" Kurenai asked.

Both nodded in unison. "Then... hajime!"

Koan let Kiba charge towards him, arms crossed as he anticipated the first strike of the match. The Inuzuka opened with a punch from on high, leaping into the air to deliver a flying punch to his opponent. Koan moved to meet it, catching his opponent's fist as he landed. There wasn't a huge degree of strength behind it, but it was enough for his muscles to tense in accordance to receiving and negating the incoming kinetic energy.

Koan quickly pushed Kiba backwards and threw a fast jab after him. The genin dodged to the side and struck again, leg snapping around to his torso. Koan saw the strike coming and again blocked by catching the strike and throwing Kiba off balance. The Inuzuka was surprisingly well-balanced to avoid tumbling to the ground from his rough shove, even more so to find the dexterity for another blow.

Kiba reached up with a fast right hook for his head only to peel off into a sharp elbow as he leant out of the fist's path. The follow-up would've glanced across his temples with irritating success, but his familiarity with the move prevented that. He recalled using that same technique in an Academy taijutsu bout with Sasuke, right before he-

SHIT!

The mental scream tore through his head as memories clouded his vision, right before Kiba managed to get a fist through his guard. The blow hit the right side of his chest, rolling off his ribcage as his instincts took over through the duration of the partially successful strike. The Inuzuka smirked and went in for a right cross for Koan's momentarily exposed head.

Kiba's cocky grin quickly turned into a contortion of pain as his punch missed and his opponent's knee pounded home into his flank. As the canine-partnered genin leapt to the side in an attempt to flow along with the energy of his opponent's attack, Koan moved with precision, slamming a fist straight into the Inuzuka's chest.

The punch sent him tumbling across the ground, ending in a winded lump across the training field. Koan went for a rapid follow-up, dashing across the clearing to end the fight then and there. Kiba had other ideas in mind.

Rising fast, Kiba moved onto all fours, channelling chakra to his limbs and charging head-on into Koan's approach. The Inuzuka dove forward with a direct strike, powerful and lancing. Koan dodged, only to be occupied almost immediately after with another of the same kind. The pattern quickly accelerated, multiple strikes coming in from multitude of angles. He was hard-pressed to defend against all of them, a few glancing blows passing his guard as he blocked and weaved his way through Kiba's assault.

Kiba did not abandon his plan, redoubling his efforts as Koan continued to slam each blow aside and sidestep unexpected strikes. But no matter how he attacked, what angle he came at, Koan seemed capable of deflecting or dodging it, almost like he knew where the next hit was coming from a moment before it came. The Inuzuka growled at the stalemate, finally discarding his strategy as he felt his chakra reserves beginning to dwindle.

The moment his intense barrage of strikes ended was the moment Koan struck. Rushing in with a brutally fast punch followed by a spinning elbow and a jumping roundhouse, Kiba dodged with great care, right before he attempted to block the last kick. Koan saw the shocked look on his face. Obviously Hinata's mutterings had finally been proven as truth.

Koan appeared as Kiba lowered his arms from their block, raising a fist to punch him square in the face. Kiba dodged to the side, lashing out with a kick to Koan's back he expected to be blocked. Eyes widened, it hit.

Koan lurched momentarily under the force, but almost instantly latched onto Kiba's leg before hurling him to the ground and sending a fist flying after him. Kiba rolled to the side, avoiding the punch that broke the surface of the ground with a clattering of earth and kicking up once again. Kiba quickly detected a recurring theme when Koan grabbed onto his raised limb and whipped him over his shoulder, face first into the ground.

The Inuzuka rolled with the face-breaker, springing into the air with a snarl and speeding back in, carrying an angry axe kick along with him. Koan knocked the leg away with a flash of his arm, punching in twice to ward off another blow.

Koan blocked and deflected strikes with a concentrated frown. Kiba's anger, despite his constant shows of bravado and attempted dominance, was uncharacteristic of the Inuzuka. He hadn't thought the tension between them had been anything more than slightly hostile competition, but apparently Kiba felt more. The snarl on the genin's face remained in place, along with a renewed grunt with every fist and foot that came his way. The aggression was getting tiring.

The Yonbi jinchuuriki understood anger. He had dealt with it enough himself to know its causes and potential consequences. He could see that Kiba thought his anger was justified, so he was aware that the Inuzuka needed to be rid of it. That didn't mean he was going to stand still so Kiba could expend his rage on him like he was a punching bag.

He shunted himself away from Kiba's next angry fist, putting some distance between himself and the other genin with a burst of chakra into the ground. Kiba didn't seem to notice, or perhaps care about, the fact he slid more than he ran backwards, and continued to charge towards him.

Kiba came at him with renewed force, continuing in the same rhythm as his earlier rushes, just with continually less finesse. The primal nature of the Inuzuka's taijutsu was becoming more and more apparent as Kiba lunged, quickly retreated from a counterattack and dashed back in from another angle in a rapidly changing cycle. It was chaotic, vicious and disjointed all at the same time, but still effective even through Kiba's clouding haze of rage.

The Inuzuka did well to keep him on the defensive, a surprisingly enduring pace to his assaults. But Koan almost smirked when he remembered how the stamina of the average genin compared to that of any jinchuuriki. In other words, not well.

It took time to wear Kiba down, but Koan began the process by forcing Kiba to expend as much energy as possible, dodging the greatest possible distances between the lunges and keeping Kiba constantly leaping after him.

"Are you running away or something?" Kiba began to yell. "Stay still so I can beat you into the ground!"

"Like you could," Koan smirked.

Kiba's anger seemed to grow tenfold, the Inuzuka lunging after his evasive form with angry grunts and shouts time and time again.

"Don't you insult me, you asshole!" Kiba yelled as he tore after his opponent once more, landing within striking distance with a fist held high.

"Then stop giving me so much material to work with and take this shit seriously for once!" Koan yelled back, right as Kiba threw his punch. Koan crouched and spun, grabbing hold of Kiba's arm as it flew overhead and, rolling across the ground, slammed Kiba into the ground with a speedy shoulder throw. Kiba sprang away as Koan shoved a fist to where his head once was, digging his entire hand into the ground before withdrawing it with a shower of dirt and grass.

"What do you mean, I should 'take this seriously'?" Kiba questioned loudly. "I'm a shinobi now – of course I take this seriously!"

Koan didn't take advantage of the lull in combat. "If you take this lifestyle seriously, then why the hell are you still stuck with your alpha-male mentality bullshit? That does not work on a team!"

"What would you know about it?" Kiba retorted. "If you're not an Inuzuka then you don't get shit about us. We can look after our own because we're the strongest! To protect the team, I've got to be the strongest!"

Koan's mouth drew into a firm line. He hated shit like this. Kiba was convinced that the only way he could contribute to the team was by being the dominant male, something he attributed to being the strongest. It was asinine as all hell, immature to the greatest lengths possible, just plain fucking stupid if he was brutally honest.

But there were at least words he could use to destroy, or at least disrupt, Kiba's Inuzuka-derived way of thinking. "You don't need to be strong to protect, Kiba. You need to protect to be strong."

The anger still present in the slitted eyes of the Inuzuka cooled, simmering to a low heat. He looked down for a moment and then looked back up to him. "Maybe, but that doesn't mean I won't keep striving to be the strongest. I'm still going to beat you!"

"Try it, then," Koan said, gesturing in the time-honoured 'come on' motion.


Hinata watched the back and forth between her teammates carefully, activating her Byakugan slowly at times to observe the flow of chakra more intently. Though Kiba made the first move, Koan wasn't fazed and pushed through quite easily, keeping Kiba well on the defensive, until something briefly made him pause and gave the Inuzuka an opportunity to open up offensively, right before Koan snapped back to reality and blew Kiba across the clearing before the two engaged in even fiercer combat.

It surprised her time and again at just how much more physical strength Koan possessed than the rest of them. She knew she wasn't exceedingly weak, but Koan's raw power made her entire team seem inadequate by his standard. It bypassed Kiba's entirely, she knew Shino wasn't anywhere strong enough to do some of the same things he did, and she knew from more than a month of experience that he outclassed her by a considerable way. But, that didn't necessarily mean that he outclassed Kurenai-sensei.

Hinata covered her mouth to prevent the slightest of giggles at the memory of Kurenai-sensei's team test.


"Wait, so all we have to do is find you?"

"There's more to it than just that, Kiba," Kurenai chided, "I'm not going to be staying in one spot, so you're going to have to track me down within the confines of this training ground."

Kiba grinned. "Alright, this'll be easy! There's nothing me and Akamaru can't find with our noses, isn't that right, boy?"

Akamaru yapped his agreement with a wag of his tail.

"My kikaichuu will be useful in a scenario akin to the one you have described, sensei," Shino stated blandly.

Hinata looked to her teammates and then back to her sensei. "T-This test does seem a little e-easy, K-Kurenai-sensei."

"No need for you to worry about that, Hinata. I'm not going to take it easy on you guys because you're genin," Kurenai assured, "in fact, I think I'll do my very best to make sure this is going to be as hard as possible for all of you."

Kiba looked at Kurenai with a flat stare, and then moved the same stare to Hinata and back to Kurenai.

"Get that stupid look off your face, Kiba," Kurenai said sharply.

The Inuzuka complied immediately, a slight whimper coming from his canine partner.

"Well, the rules for the test are this: you have exactly one hour to find me using any means at your disposal. If all of you, as a team, have successfully located me, you will be become genin. But if you don't, you're getting hauled straight back into the Academy. Got that?"

The entire team nodded gravely.

Kurenai smiled innocently. "Have fun trying to find me."

With that, she vanished in a gentle swirl of leaves.

Hinata suddenly felt nervous, even more so than she already did. This was an important moment in her life, one she couldn't afford to fail like she had so many other things. It was an opportunity to prove her father, and her clan, wrong; to prove that she wasn't a failure and that she was not weak. But she couldn't help the anxiety and tension bubbling away in her stomach and making her heartbeat unusually noticeable. She took a breath and willed herself to calm. After a moment, her heart slowed and the roiling motions in her gut dwindled to a quiet churn. That's a little better.

The others seemed to be in thought for a moment. Kiba sat with his dog, considering something; Shino stood with his hands in his coat, appearing to be considering something; and Koan was resting in a tree nearby.

Just as Kiba leapt up to announce something, Koan, just landing on the ground next to him, interrupted, "Alright, I've got a plan. I'll flush her out with-"

"Hey! Don't speak over the top of me like that, I've got a plan as well," Kiba returned the disrupting favour.

Koan raised a bored eyebrow. "Does your plan involve running off in a direction you think her scent trail leads barely a minute after she's gone?"

"Yeah," Kiba answered swiftly, "Better than anything you've got, I bet."

"And what happens if you don't find her on the first go?"

Kiba snorted. "Easy, I find another trail and follow that until I find her."

"What makes you think there'll be another trail?" Koan inquired.

"It's smell, there's always another trail," Kiba stated like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

It was Koan's turn to snort next. "Kurenai is a genjutsu specialist, and she can fake smells with genjutsu. What makes you think a jounin wouldn't cover for that eventuality?"

Before Kiba could fire off a retort, Koan continued. "The same goes for Shino's insects. She'll find a way to fool them even if you have one marking her."

Shino, ever exemplifying the emotionless enigma of logic that was the Aburame, made no response, verbal or otherwise.

"But the one thing she'll have a tough time countering," Koan looked to Hinata, "is the Byakugan. Genjutsu is hard to use effectively against doujutsu."

Hinata opened her mouth to say something, but Kiba beat her to it. "Fine then, hotshot, what's your plan?"

"Pretty simple one, actually," Koan almost smirked. "I flush her out, Hinata keeps watch for any distortions in chakra or any signs of movement in the area, you try to find a strong scent that matches up with what Hinata sees and Shino uses his kikaichuu to help Hinata track the chakra."

"And what makes you think that'll work better than just using me and Akamaru's noses?" Kiba demanded.

"Weren't you listening just then?" Koan asked, irritation flooding his voice. "I explained the entire plan, and yet you still want to stick to your bullshit excuse for one?"

"Shut the fuck up, asshole!" Kiba got right up into Koan's face.

"Same goes for you, mutt!" Koan shoved him back roughly, Kiba almost falling to the ground. "Now, do I need to punch you in the face to make you cooperate, or are you going to listen?" Koan shouted.

Kiba, climbing back to his feet, crossed his arms in an angry huff, "Fine."

Koan nodded. "Okay, Hinata, you watch for Kurenai with your Byakugan after I start; Shino, you start tracking when Hinata has eyes on her, and Kiba, you begin pursuit when Hinata tells you to. Everyone got it?"

Hinata nodded. She was going to do her part and do it well.

Shino made a slight movement with his head, one they all took to be an affirmative.

Kiba stared at him defiantly for a moment before stepping in line and nodding as well.

"On my jutsu, everyone," Koan informed them.

He leapt back up into his tree and made hand seals. "Youton: Shakugaryuugan no-"

Koan's voice was cut off by a sudden blur and a rush of wind nearby. Hinata's mouth opened slightly, shocked at the sight.

Kurenai stood on the ground next to them, Koan hung unceremoniously over her shoulder and a somewhat annoyed look on her face. She threw Koan's somehow limp form up into the nearby tree and shook her head. "He was actually willing to burn down this entire forest just to find me. What a shame."

Hinata's slack jaw was joined by Kiba's in quick succession.

Kurenai quickly saw this and answered, "Training grounds are insured for certain damages by the village, things like craters, discarded weapons, blood stains and burn and skid marks, even felled trees and ruined training posts. What they are not covered for are things like forest fires, floods and avalanches. Anything like that happens on a training ground I'm responsible for and it comes out of my mission pay until the cost is covered. And I am not paying several hundred thousand ryo because one of my potential genin got a little trigger-happy with a dangerous and fiery jutsu."

She was just about to vanish in another eddy of leaves when she made one last comment. "Oh, and you guys have fifty-five minutes left."

And once again, she disappeared with a gust of wind and some suddenly appearing leaves.

"Did she just knock out Koan, complain about insurance costs and then tell us we have fifty-five minutes left?" Kiba asked to no-one in particular.

"Yes," the question was answered by Shino. "And now we are one man short."

All Hinata could do was shut her mouth and hope she hadn't got any flies in her throat.


That had been a very unusual day. While Koan had been knocked out, Shino had quietly suggested another avenue of strategy, one involving a far less intrusive and costly method of locating their soon-to-be sensei. While Koan had been correct in the way that Kiba's nose could be fooled into thinking there were multiple scent trails, Shino's insects were significantly harder to fool than Koan had suspected, almost to the point that Shino had managed to find Kurenai-sensei in less than twenty minutes thanks to the assistance of her Byakugan finding chakra distortions through the length of their search. At the end of all things, they had succeeded without burning down their training ground, a place Hinata was quickly becoming quite fond of.

She watched Kiba and Koan clash again, Koan blocking high then kicking low while Kiba did the exact opposite a split-second before. While both were skilled fighters in their differing taijutsu styles, Koan had the physical advantage over Kiba in terms of height and strength. Kiba was more likely to have a greater degree of speed over larger distances thanks to his clan's tendency to pounce and lunge during their combat movements, but Koan seemed to work faster in close-quarters than Kiba did. It was an interesting mix that made for some chaotic fighting.

The two broke apart finally, Kiba breathing very heavily while Koan was somewhat less exerted, both nodding firmly to each other once. The breathing piqued her interest.

Making a single hand seal, Hinata activated her Byakugan. Shifting to a moving mix of monochrome and colour, she compared the chakra signatures of both Kiba and Koan. To a young Byakugan, she knew most chakra appeared silver or blue, rather than of more widely differing colours like an older Hyuuga could identify, but that did not mean she wasn't able to see how much chakra each possessed accurately. As she had learnt through the lessons of her clansmen, chakra was a mix of physical and spiritual energy, and therefore often a good indicator of stamina and endurance in shinobi. She was somewhat startled at the differences she saw, doing her best not to let it show on her face.

Kiba's chakra was a slightly shimmering blue, and of slightly larger than normal quantities. That made sense given Kiba's clan background and accelerated training compared to that of regular genin from civilian families. But what didn't make sense was the stark contrast between his and Koan's chakra.

Koan's was a darker hue of the same colour, but at the same time much... larger than Kiba's. She couldn't quite find the right words to describe it, but she knew Koan's reserves were of a far greater capacity than Kiba's. She quickly looked over to Kurenai-sensei, trying to find something she could properly gauge Koan's chakra against.

Kurenai's was a silvery tone, gentle on her slightly strained eyes but still not as large as Koan's reserves. She switched her gaze back over to her larger teammate.

The moment her sight flickered over his right shoulder was the same moment she saw something of an entirely different colour spark and crackle. For an instant, she saw red flash in his chakra.

She had seen that before, once before in him, once in Naruto's chakra. There was a link.

She wondered why she hadn't put it together before that moment. There was a link of some kind, of some strange way, that connected the two of them. That red chakra, something so foreign to anything she had seen before couldn't have just been a coincidence. The likeliness, she thought, of finding red chakra in a person was so minute that it couldn't be. They had to be linked in a way deeper than she knew.

There was something lonely and defiant about both. Naruto could be outspoken and somewhat crassly loud, but he always tried his hardest when it came right down to it. But he was also alone, an orphan. Koan was quiet but occasionally explosive, and he seemed to carry the same kind of unrelenting outlook on life but also ultimately lonely, and in his own words, 'an orphan my entire life'.

That was a link between both, but not the one she was looking for. She shared a kind of kinship of loneliness with Koan due to her treatment within her clan, but she was no orphan. The lack of family didn't seem to define exactly what it was that made them both carry that red chakra. The answer eluded her to no end.

She just hoped she would find an answer at some point.


Naruto flicked a kunai into the training stump with a dull thud, mindlessly tossing the metal blade and retrieving it before repeating the process again. He was getting sick of waiting for Koan.

It wasn't that he didn't enjoy getting the chance to hone his aim a little; just that he had been waiting quite some time in the past while, with Kakashi's bullshit and whatnot. There were only so many hours a person could be late to the same meeting every day before it became totally idiotic. And he knew idiotic. He bothered to paint the Hokage Monument. Not that he would ever admit his grandest prank to date as idiotic to anyone, but he did find the strength within himself to mentally say that it wasn't exactly a genius idea in the first place. He sighed, like he had many times that past day.

Just as he was about to toss his kunai again, another found its mark in the training post next to it right before he heard some familiar footsteps shift the grass behind him. "Practicing with kunai is a good idea. I haven't done that in awhile, so my aim might be a little off."

"Where've you been?" Naruto asked, not bothering to look behind him as he threw his own kunai again, metal thudding solidly into wood once more.

"Assisting Hinata with a chakra control exercise, she needed the help with one that Kurenai showed her today," Koan said, walking up to pluck his blade from his chosen training post.

"Must be nice to have a jounin that teaches your team things like that, or teaches you anything at all in the first place," Naruto alluded not-so-subtly.

Koan nodded. "Kakashi still being an ass about actually training your team, I take it?"

Naruto chuckled dryly. "That's an understatement and a half."

"I can imagine," Koan replied.

The Uzumaki shook his head. "I doubt you can. You haven't been lectured on the importance of teamwork by a jounin then forced to watch that jounin ignore his own advice by letting his students down."

"He sounds like quite a hypocrite. I don't like that," Koan said.

Naruto sighed wistfully. "I tried to like the guy, but it's tough when he keeps avoiding actually teaching us anything and keeps shoving us off to D-rank missions every day."

Koan snorted at that. "D-ranks are a fucking joke."

"I agree."

The two fell into a comfortable, rhythmic silence, punctuated only by the sound of the occasional stride over grass and the biting of metal into wood. Naruto enjoyed that kind of silence. There wasn't anything to be said between them, they didn't need to pretend to have anything more to say, they didn't even need to say anything at all in the first place. All they had to do was train.

It was relaxing, therapeutic even, to hear the kunai jab into the training posts over and over again. It was kind of like how he imagined waves to sound at the ocean – repetitive, but never dull or boring. It was funny how he could equate weapons to waves. He allowed himself a small chuckle.

"Something funny to share?"

"Nah, not really. Just comparing weapons to waves at the ocean."

"Somehow, I can see how that's funny... kind of like your genin test, now that I think about it."

Naruto groaned. He did not want to relive that memory ever again.


"Are you just trying to piss me off or what?"

He was actually reading a book. Right in the middle of his standoff with Kakashi, the jounin had become so unconcerned about him actually doing any harm that he pulled out an adults-only book and started reading. What the hell?

"You tell me," Kakashi said, flipping a page of his novel casually.

"Okay, now you're really pissing me off," Naruto grit his teeth, fists clenching in irritation.

"Bingo, you're absolutely correct," Kakashi announced, "your prize: watching me read while you stand there with that stupid look on your face."

He had really had enough of this guy. He quickly made the cross-seal for the Kage Bunshin and made four clones, rushing in to attack him head on. The first punch was blocked with what basically equated to a slight tap on the wrist from the jounin, and the following kick was ducked without him even looking away from his book. The Kage Bunshin didn't fare much better, three of them dispelled in blindingly fast bursts of smoke. He tried once more, kicking fast and punching just as quickly in a fast combination. Kakashi simply disappeared in reaction.

Naruto's eyes widened as he heard a slight shifting in the grass behind him, his ears almost twitching in response. He quickly made hand seals for what he felt coming.

"Naruto, look out!" He heard Sakura call across the clearing. Where was she hiding, anyway?

"Sennen Goroshi!"

Kakashi thrust his hands, joined in the Tiger hand seal, into the gap between Naruto's lower cheeks with dramatic effects. Naruto was thrown into the air and was about to land in the water with a splash when he exploded into smoke. Kakashi simply raised an eyebrow.

"Ha, got you now!"

Naruto swooped in from behind, lashing out with as much force he could muster in a single kick. And to his absolutely delighted shock, it hit. The monumental rush of euphoria he felt from the hit was exceptionally short lived when Kakashi burst into smoke just like he did, though.

"That was a nice plan. Too bad you had to announce your attack."

He was about to turn and strike when he actually felt what his clone had. "Sennen Goroshi!"

This time he actually did go flying into the river.

"And that's today's taijutsu lesson," Kakashi clapped his hands together, "what's next?"


"Relax," Koan assured him, "I was only joking."

"Sure you were," Naruto agreed. Not sarcastic in the slightest, Naruto thought.

"Fine, I was having fun at your expense. Happy?"

Naruto nodded excessively. "Yep! Totally happy that I have a bullshit sensei that poked me in the ass and still won't teach my team shit. All is happy in the world of Naruto."

Koan just shook his head and resumed the kunai throwing, which Naruto gladly rejoined in.

"I'm hoping for a C-rank in the next week, how about you, Naruto?" Koan asked.

He would've laughed if he could have been bothered to. "I'd be lucky to get in one in the next year at the rate we're going at. I don't think my team's anywhere near ready."

Koan nodded gently. "My team, on the other hand, is close, I think. I'll ask Kurenai tomorrow. Maybe you should just spring it on Kakashi the next time you go for a mission."

"Eh, might as well. What the hell can it hurt?" Naruto shrugged, tossing his kunai. At least his aim was getting a little better.


"Kakashi-sensei?"

The jounin didn't look away from his book as he answered, "Yes, Naruto?"

"Can we go on a C-rank, instead of the usual D-rank stuff this time?"

The question seemed to take Kakashi by surprise, if the slight widening of his eye was any indication. He looked away from his book and scratched his chin in consideration. The jounin looked over to his other genin quickly. Sakura seemed undecided while Sasuke seemed suddenly determined.

"Well, we have been doing D-ranks for some time and you all do seem to understand teamwork a little better now, so I guess it's better to do it sooner rather than later," Kakashi said before approaching the mission desk.

"Hokage-sama, I would like to request a C-ranked mission for Team 7."

The Hokage, with Iruka at his right, folded his hands beneath his chin. After a moment of silence and puff of his pipe, Konoha's Kage spoke. "Very well, I have a mission for you."

"Are you sure of this, Hokage-sama?" Iruka asked, the anxiety becoming apparent on his face.

The Hokage nodded. "I am sure, Iruka-kun. It is Kakashi-kun's responsibility to judge the capacity of his genin, and if he believes they are prepared for a C-ranked mission, then so be it. Now, if you would be so kind as to bring in the client."

Iruka stepped out from behind the desk and moved quickly to the other side of the room as the Hokage explained the mission. "This mission is bodyguard work, protecting a bridge builder on his way back to his home country. The greatest danger expected is bandits, nothing for Konoha shinobi, even genin, to worry themselves over. Ah, I see Iruka has brought out our client."

Iruka opened the door at the rear of the room to reveal an older bearded man wearing glasses and a white cloth around his neck, carrying a bottle of sake. He took a very long swig of the bottle before he burped contently and sauntered into the room.

"So," he drawled, "why are the ninja meant to protect me a bunch of snot-nosed kids? And why does that short blond one look so stupid?"

Deep breaths, Naruto, deep breaths.


So there you have it, the final spiel in the introduction fillers and things.

Fair warning, in the next few chapters it's going to get real dark, real quick. I'm probably going to have to bump up the rating to M in the process.

Oh, and I realise I've been shifting my focus to Koan a huge degree for the initial stuff, but I figured that was kind of needed given that he's an OC. It's a fair bit harder to gauge how an OC reacts compared to one of the main characters like Naruto. But rest assured, next chapter will be heavily Team 7-centred.

Also, a quick update on my vision for this fanfiction: it's going to be big, it's going to expand and it's going to go on into the Shippuden years. Yay, artistic vision.

Well, that's done. Hopefully no one died in the last while it took to actually read all that,

A238