Hey Everyone, As I promised here is my next chapter. I wanted to thank all of you who left me reviews and who answered my questions, I made my decision around mid-week because I didn't want to wait any longer before I started up this chapter. Anyhow, I really enjoyed writing this chapter and as such I hope you guys enjoy it as well.

Anyways, as always, I hope you guys all enjoy it, it was fun to write, and I hope you all enjoy reading it. Now I'm going to shut up before I spoil anything in this chapter for you guys, but I just wanted to give a quick shout out to Luke Dragneel, who gave me a suggestion for one of the things that happens later in the chapter, but ya, just wanted to mention that.

So, now without any further ado, I present to you Chapter 8


"Naruto" - Person/Summon Speaking

"Naruto"- Person Thinking

"Naruto" - Jutsu

"Naruto" - Boss Summon/Demon Speaking

"Naruto"- Boss Summon/Demon Thinking


Chapter 8 – Team Selection

Sarutobi Hiruzen stood in his office facing his window. He had spent almost the entirety of the past week in his office in person, instead of using shadow clones. He was still able to use them for quite a bit of his paperwork but there had been so very many council meetings in the past week that one might think a nation had declared war against Konoha. Sarutobi sighed, the way he felt at the moment he wished it was something as simple as a war that was causing all the problems he was dealing with. Unfortunately it was not, the issues that the council had been requesting that he sort out were the demands made to him by one Uzumaki Naruto.

Hiruzen still couldn't believe the nerve some of the councillors still had when it came to Naruto. He had called a meeting with the entire village council the day after Kakashi had returned to the village with Naruto, he had waited that long in the hopes that Naruto might change his mind regarding the removal of the Uzumaki clan crest from their uniforms, he mentally berated himself for even wasting that much time waiting for one of the most stubborn individuals alive to change his mind in something that he rather justly demanded.

When he had gathered the council he began by questioning whom it had been who had gone through the trouble of removing the Uzumaki clan from the academy lessons. It turned out some of his councillors thought it best to get rid of anything related to the 'demon brat' that could 'make him feel entitled'. Sarutobi would have been impressed at how the councillors made their argument as if it had been to help Naruto with his development; needless to say however, he was not amused, and had suggested that they pray that was all that they had done dishonouring an ancient and noble clan.

However it quickly became clear to him that the majority of the purging and destruction of the Uzumaki archives had mainly been committed by a group of the civilian councillors apparently with some help from the Uchiha clan years ago. He was utterly appalled at how they all tried to justify what they had done. It didn't take long before the Hokage had heard enough, with a signal his ANBU appeared and quickly subdued the guilty councillors and they were sent off to Ibiki for further questioning…

This shocked the remainder of the council into silence; the Hokage was disgusted when his advisors tried to interfere with his judgement on the councillors. They had been his friends and teammates in his younger days, but sadly times had changed, and as much as the council had begun to realize that he wasn't just going to comply with everything they suggested it wasn't until he had Homura and Koharu thrown out of the meeting with Danzō quickly following after them did the civilian side of the council truly remember that their Hokage was not someone to be trifled with.

He had gone on to tell the council of the removal of the Uzumaki clan symbol from their uniforms, this caused a major uproar from both sides of the council. There were those arguing how the symbol was a part of Konoha now, and it would be demoralizing to their forces to have the symbol taken away, and there were those who said that it would cause the village to lose face in the eyes of the other shinobi villages. As much as the Hokage agreed with some of their claims he told them it didn't matter, seeing as the only reason that the symbol was worn in Konoha was because the Uzumaki clan allowed them to, as a show of their friendship, and now the Uzumaki heir had deemed the village unworthy of wearing their crest so arrogantly.

This caused further uproar, which was once again something the Hokage could understand, but he held firm, he passed on the reasons for why the Uzumaki heir had revoked their right to wear his clan's crest and after that the majority of the shinobi council was mollified, some even being ashamed for anything their clan had done to dishonour the memory of one of their old allies. Somehow quite a few of the civilians on the council had managed to remain completely oblivious to who this Uzumaki heir was, and when the Hokage told them that it was the boy they had treated as a monster they visibly paled.

After many hours of discussion the council, now slightly humbled civilian council begged the Hokage to ask Naruto for the permission to try and make amends with him. The Hokage and the other shinobi laughed at that, Shikaku Nara went as far as commenting on how 'troublesome' the whole situation was.

It had taken a grand total of one day after that meeting for the councillors whom he had had taken to Ibiki to confess to numerous crimes, implicating themselves and several others. The Hokage had no choice but to have them executed as traitors to the village. The same day he had needed to send several messages to the Fire Daimyo, informing him that the Uzumaki heir had decided to bring himself into the light. He knew that the Daimyo might not be happy about that, seeing as since the fall of Uzu the Daimyo had been in control of the wealth of Uzu, and would as of now have to relinquish it.

However, probably one of the biggest problems he had needed to deal with that week was when he addressed the massed shinobi forces of Konoha. They had all but demanded to know why they had to give up the symbol that they had all grown up associating with their home. Needless to say moral of the shinobi forces of Konoha hadn't been that low since the death of the Yondaime…

But that hellish week had passed, and life in the village was returning to a relative norm, the majority of the civilians had continued to treat Naruto as they had before, but there had really been no helping that, in fact there had been a significant increase in the attempts on the young Uzumaki's life this past week, however this was mostly just by said civilians or some high strung chūnin or genin. They had all been dealt with by the ANBU.

The Hokage looked back wondering where everything had gone so wrong and he found his thoughts drifting towards his wife. She had perished on the night of the Kyūbi's attack, and he had never really been the same since. In a second, he lost his companion, his successor, and he had been thrust back into a position that he had deemed he was getting too old to properly handle. He hadn't had any time to really cope with his losses, and as such it seemed as if things had just steadily declined.

Hiruzen let out another long and tired sigh as he looked over his village, he had wanted to try and make things right between him and Naruto, but he had only seen the boy once since he had been brought back by Kakashi. It had been when Naruto came by the office to drop off his shinobi identification photo, so he could officially be listed in the records. If it had been a few months earlier the Hokage wouldn't have been surprised if Naruto had put on some ridiculous face paint for the photo, but the boy had matured somewhat, however it had greatly saddened him when the boy appeared with a mask of seriousness covering any traces of his emotions.

He was worried when Konohamaru had interrupted the meeting attempting one of his usual 'assassination attempts'. After a brief confrontation with Naruto his grandson had managed to lose his teacher again in favour of following after Naruto. He wasn't sure exactly what had happened between the two of them, but his grandson hadn't made any of his usual attempts over the past few days so he was relieved at that.

Sarutobi turned away from the window with a frown on his face, "Naruto, I will get you to forgive me someday, I'm sorry I lost your trust, but I will do everything I can to gain it back…"

-At Yaoke Shokudō-

Naruto sat at his table, ever since the Hokage had first brought Naruto by this restaurant three months ago, Naruto had made it a habit of visiting once a week. It was a very rare occurrence for him to be welcomed into any place, so whenever he found a business that welcomed him as just another customer, he made a point of remembering about them.

"Good morning Uzumaki-san, I almost didn't recognize you, how're you today?" Naruto looked up and saw that it was the restaurant owner's son Kenji who was talking with him, Naruto was always allowed in the restaurant, but when he dealt with anyone other than Kenji or Rōjin, he would still get a little hostility from them.

"Oh, hey Kenji-san, this is my new outfit, and I told you to just call me Naruto, I'm really not one for all the formality and stuff if I don't need it…" Naruto had tried to get Kenji to just call him Naruto, but it still hadn't worked, if he ever ran into him outside the restaurant he'd be fine calling him Naruto, but whenever he was in the restaurant he was all business.

"I'm sorry Uzumaki-san, but that would just not be proper, I hope you're having a good day, if I remember correctly isn't today the day of your team announcements?"

"Yeah… today's the day."

"You don't sound excited about it, is something wrong?"

Naruto let out a sigh, he had been doing some research into how the teams were decided and he didn't like what he saw. "It's nothing really; I just have some ideas of who might be on my team and if I'm right… well let's just say, it's gonna be really annoying to deal with."

"I see, well I hope your day goes well either way Uzumaki-san, I assume you'll have your usual today?"

"Yeah, but can I get one of those big bowls of fruit to go with it as well?"

"Of course, I'll tell the chef's to be quick about it, after all we don't want you to be late to your team selections now do we?"

"I guess not, say hi to your dad for me will you Kenji?"

"I'll tell him you stopped by."

Naruto waited for his extra-large breakfast special to be prepared, he had checked his fridge earlier that morning and found he didn't have anything more than spoilt milk. He cursed himself for not having sent a clone out to buy food, but that's what he got for training so much with Gai and Lee. He still couldn't believe how much Gai saw fit to increase his weights by, but he had dealt with it for the two days it took him to be able to walk again, and he was back to training. Gai hadn't even given him the morning off, so Naruto got back from his morning workout starving, and finding the state of his fridge was just an added annoyance. So Naruto had gotten showered and dressed in his new outfit and headed out to one of his favourite restaurants in Konoha, he figured he would stop by Ichiraku's after team announcements for dinner but after his workout he had felt like his extra-large breakfast.

Naruto took his time eating his meal, as always when he was dealing with Kenji or his father, his service was excellent, and he took more time than usual to appreciate his food. That was another change that Naruto had made after he started cooking more than just instant ramen, he started taking his time eating, so that he could properly enjoy the different tastes of his food. He still ate ramen like a starving man, but even that was at a slower pace, if only mildly…

After Naruto finished up, he paid his bill and left a nice tip for Kenji, he was a bit sad that Rōjin hadn't been in that morning, he had wanted to ask the older man some stuff about the Hokage. It had been a week since Naruto had blown up at him and he still didn't known how to deal with it. He had only seen the old man once since then, and he had tried to remain stoic for that visit. Naruto was having a hard time meeting the old man's eyes without feeling betrayed. He really wanted things to go back to how they used to be between the two of them, but he couldn't just forgive the man for lying to him his whole life about his parents.

The young shinobi made his way towards the academy, he travelled via rooftops, seeing as he found it better than having to endure the hate filled stares of the villagers, and he had gotten tired of dealing with their hatred, so he figured it would be best for him to just remove himself from that situation. He was getting closer to the academy when he started thinking about the other students in his class, now that he thought about it, he realized he hadn't really made any friends in his entire time at the academy, sure he had gotten along with some of the guys, but aside getting in trouble with some of them he hadn't become their friends. He actually had a friend now in Lee, and maybe Tenten, so he took a more skeptical look on friendships, Lee helped him push himself, and Tenten, helped keep him grounded and slightly level headed, he had no relationships with anyone in the academy like that, Kiba and most of the other guys used to make fun of him, Shino didn't really say much, Chōji and Shikamaru really just hung out with each other, Ino was a fangirl, Hinata was kind of odd because she wouldn't really talk around him, and Sasuke was an ass.

But the one who confused him most was Sakura… he still couldn't exactly work out why he had always had such a huge crush on her. Now that he'd spent a few months away from her, and had made a few real friends, he didn't understand exactly why he had liked her, she was loud, and abusive, and she seemed to hate him. He figured he might be misremembering her a bit, but he was pretty sure she had made it blatantly obvious that she wasn't interested in him. "Hmmm, maybe that's why I started liking her, because she is one of the biggest fangirls, and I figured that if I could convince her to date me instead of the teme, then I was better than him… well that was stupid…"

Naruto decided he would reserve any absolute judgement on most of the people in his class till he saw them again, but he made a note of being wary of Sakura and Sasuke, the former because he still had some feelings for her though he wasn't quite sure what they were, or why, and the latter, because he was a stuck up prick. "Actually now that I think about it, Sasuke and Neji would probably get along if their clans hadn't always hated each other."

Naruto finally arrived at the academy and found he was a little early, which to anyone who knew him would have been absolutely shocked to see. Being the only one in the classroom Naruto decided his seat at random and allowed himself to drift off, till anything important happened.

Around half an hour later students began filing into the room, and took their seats, they all ignored Naruto, so he kept his head down and tried to slip back into his nap, sadly that dream was crushed when he heard the rush of the two biggest Sasuke fangirls racing into the room.

"HA, I win Ino-pig, which means I get to sit next to Sasuke-kun!"

"What're you talking about billboard brow; everyone saw that I made it through the doorway first!"

Naruto grumbled at this, "Yup, definitely a huge Sasuke fangirl, why did I have to get a crush on her?" Naruto's interior monologue continued for a few minutes and as such he decided it best to drown out the ramblings of the two fangirls, apparently they ended up settling their argument and he was brought out of his inner rant by an obscenely loud pink haired girl.

"HEY, WHAT ARE YOU DOING SITTING NEXT TO MY SASUKE-KUN?!" Naruto looked up at this and saw Sakura staring down at this, he was momentarily confused until he looked to his other side and saw that the brooding emo had placed himself there. He sighed and turned back towards the pink haired kunoichi.

"Jeez, Sakura-chan could you not yell, I've been here for almost an hour, it's not my fault that the teme sat there." His voice caught the attention of everyone in the room, they all recognized the voice of the village's notorious prankster, but were shocked when they saw him. Sakura recovered quickest after realizing who it was.

"Naruto-baka, get away from my Sasuke-ku-" Sakura had drawn her fist back intending to punch the young Uzumaki on the head, but was thwarted by the incredible reaction time of Naruto. In the split second between her trying to bring her fist down, she all of a sudden found her wrist caught in Naruto's grip and twisted painfully behind her back. The entire room was shocked at this, they looked at the figure and had a hard time believing that it was the same Naruto they had all made fun of.

Gone was the bright orange jumpsuit. It had been replaced by a set of dark blue shinobi pants that ended just below the knee, and a tight black sleeveless shirt that flowed up his neck, ending in a mask that covered the lower half of his face. The black shirt had the Uzumaki spiral on the back, and Naruto had taken the white spiral from his old jumpsuit and had it attached to the left leg of his pants, just above the set of three scrolls he had attached to both sides. It didn't take too long for everyone to come to realize one of the other reasons why they hadn't noticed the blonde, it was the blonde part, when they looked at him, they saw that while the majority of his hair was still the blonde, all the tips of his spiky hair were died a blood red, and there was also the fact that he had been letting his hair grow out over the past three months and the spikes now hung over his now black, hitai-ate. The other surprising fact was that this new Naruto was notably taller than Sakura, Naruto had always been the class shrimp, he had apparently hit a growth spurt, because he had grown almost 10 cm putting him only slightly under Shino's height.

Everyone was shocked at both Naruto's appearance and reaction. Most people were trying to deny that this new Naruto was really the idiot they had all spent their academy years making fun of, only a few had different thoughts. "Sakura-chan, what the heck is wrong with you, I tell you something and your response is to hit me, what the hell is your problem?"

Sakura was trying to come up with a clever response when she felt Naruto release her and saw him suddenly crouching on the desk in front of her precious Sasuke. "You know what I don't get teme?"

"Hn, like I care dobe."

"I really don't get why everyone calls you a genius, I mean you've done pretty well at the academy, but then again, wasn't your brother a chūnin by this time in his life, and didn't he activate his Sharingan by the time he was seven? He may have been a traitor, but he was a genius, compared to him, you're just average, so I don't get why everyone thinks you're such hot stuff." After that comment a there was a dead silence that seemed to settle across the room, Sasuke's eyes flashed through half a dozen emotions, and he was about to open his mouth to speak when he saw Naruto falling towards him.

During the silent moment the student sitting in front of where Naruto was crouched over had accidentally nudged Naruto setting him off balance. Naruto felt himself falling forward towards Sasuke, Naruto felt frozen in time as he fell towards Sasuke, and he felt his life flash before his eyes, he knew what was about to happen, and he decided that he had to get out of the situation, so running through handsigns faster than ever before, Naruto found himself sitting across the classroom looking up at Sasuke's desk at the poor unfortunate Inuzuka Kiba, who found his face mashed together with that of the unsuspecting Sasuke.

Now the room had felt cold before, but it felt as though the temperature dropped twenty degrees when the Sasuke fangirls saw what was happening, their Sasuke-kun had had his first kiss stolen by one Inuzuka Kiba, Naruto whispered a prayer for forgiveness to Kami for what he had just done to his classmate, and watched as Kiba managed to shove himself off of Sasuke, "What the Hell?! Augh, GROSS!" Kiba began spitting all around him, and started clawing at his face, sputtering. Sadly this was also when one of Sasuke's fangirls spoke up, "WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY SASUKE-KUN?!"

The girl's shout was quickly taken up by the majority of the girls in the room as they all converged on the whimpering Kiba. The room was soon filled with the pleas for mercy from Kiba to the horde of fangirls. Naruto actually felt a little guilty thinking about what he had put the other guy through, but he had been on the end of crazed fangirl beatings before, and he wasn't about to volunteer to take Kiba's place. Naruto looked around him, and noticed he was sitting next to a beet red Hinata, and grinned under his mask at her, "Hey Hinata, how're you?"

Hinata wasn't sure what to say about everything she had just seen, she was glad Naruto wasn't in Kiba's situation, but she still felt a little sorry for Kiba, not that she had wanted Naruto to lose his first kiss to Sasuke, no she had an idea for who was going to get that, unfortunately that thought caused her to blush even more, and her stutter to increase. "I-i-i-I'm f-fine N-n-n-Naru-Naruto, h-how are y-you?"

Naruto still feeling like he dodged a thousand kunai paid no mind to Hinata's continuously reddening complexion and just grinned further beneath the mask, "I'm great, feel like I just dodged a hundred angry kunai." Naruto sat back in his chair when he saw Iruka walk in.

Iruka was shocked when he walked into his class, most of the male students were laughing about something, most of the female students were in a huge pile, all trying to attack whatever was underneath them, and the only few students not doing anything were the stoic Shino, the lazy Shikamaru, the constantly eating Chōji, the brooding Sasuke, the shy Hinata who looked like she was about to explode, and most surprisingly of all Naruto. Iruka actually did a double take when he saw Naruto and took in his new appearance. He couldn't help but smile seeing Naruto's new look, "I gotta say, he looks more like a proper shinobi now, though it's going to be hard to not think of him as the class clown." Iruka shook his head and turned his attention back to the pile of kunoichi, "GET IN YOUR SEATS NOW!" Iruka had used his 'big-head jutsu' to help get his point across and watched as the fight broke apart to reveal a sorely beaten Kiba lying on the ground. Kiba slowly got to his feet nursing both his bruised body and ego, as he dropped himself back into a seat, he still didn't know how to react to what had happened, but he made a mental note to kick Naruto's ass someday for it.

After everyone had gotten into their seats Iruka stood before the class and spoke again, "Ok now, I know it's been a little while since we've all been together, and I wanted to just say congratulations again all of you for making genin. All of you have worked really hard to get where you are today and I'm proud of all of you. Today you will all be meeting your Jōnin sensei's and start your lives as shinobi, I will always treasure the time I had to teach you, and I know you will all do your village proud. So let's not waste any more time here, and I'll tell you a bit about how your teams operate."

At this point Naruto zoned out of Iruka's speech, he was observing his classmates now, and was hoping he had been wrong when he was guessing who would be on his team. Naruto had noticed the reactions from a few of his classmates when he had stopped Sakura's attack, and he could have sworn he heard Shikamaru mutter 'troublesome' when he switched places with Kiba, he also noticed that even Shino raised an eyebrow at Naruto when their eyes had met. He decided he would talk to Shino sometime soon, and see if they could become friends, he had noticed Shino was also a bit of an outcast, he guessed that it was because of the Aburame's affinity for insects, but he figured that once he got past the stoic front he could be friends with Shino. He was also curious about Hinata now, she had never seemed like a fangirl, but she had always seemed weird around him, he used to think she was just weird like that, but he also remembered that she had never been mean to him, so he figured he could try to be her friend as well. "Yup, that wouldn't be too bad of a team, the three of us could probably work well together once we got to know each other, and maybe I could help get Hinata and Shino out of their shells."

Sadly this was when he had heard his name called, "Huh, sorry Iruka-sensei, I didn't hear you?" Some of the class chuckled at this seeing that Naruto wasn't completely different from how he used to be, Iruka just sighed at this.

"I was announcing team 7 Naruto, the genin making up that team will be Haruno Sakura, Uchiha Sasuke and you Uzumaki Naruto. You're Jōnin sensei will be Hatake Kakashi." At this Naruto was torn between smashing his head on his table and cheering that he'd have a sensei that liked him. Sadly he also knew about Kakashi's horrible tendency of being at least an hour and a half late for everything. He decided on just sighing and shaking his head, his team was exactly how he guessed it would be. After all he was the worst ranked student in the academy, and Sasuke and Sakura were the two top ranking ones, Lee had told him that that was how his team had been decided. Across the room Sakura cheered at her great fortune of being on her Sasuke-kun's team, and Sasuke just sat there still brooding over what Naruto had said to him.

Naruto sat back in his chair as the remainder of the teams were announced, he wished Hinata good luck with her team when her sensei arrived, and soon found himself sitting in the room with only Sakura, Sasuke and Iruka-sensei. That was when Iruka spoke up saying he had to prepare for his new class, and that they should just wait where they were for Kakashi to arrive. The minute he left Naruto was out of his seat. "Ok, well I'll see you guys in like an hour, just so you know, Kakashi is late for everything, so yeah, I'll be back in a bit." Before Sakura could even say anything, Naruto jumped out of the classrooms window, and disappeared from sight. Sasuke just mumbled something incoherent at that, while Sakura went on a rant about irresponsible people. In fact it took Sakura nearly half of the hour Naruto was gone to realize that she could take advantage of her alone time with Sasuke. Sadly all of her advances were shot down one by one and before too long the young Uzumaki reappeared through the window.

"Hey guys, I told you he would take a while. Well might as well make it interesting for him, hehehe…" Naruto jumped from the ledge to the door and began setting up his trap. It was about half an hour after that that a masked silver haired shinobi stuck his head through the doorframe. He almost suspected the Naruto would have set up some silly prank to catch him off guard, but was pleased to see that wasn't the case.

Or at least that was until he set a foot through the doorway and found a rope tied around his ankle hauling him upside down dangling him from the ceiling. He looked over his students, and saw Naruto was trying not to burst out laughing under his new mask. Kakashi had actually been flattered when Naruto had approached him asking if he would mind Naruto copying a part of his look. He figured he'd get back at Naruto for the prank later, so he just turned towards his other students who also seemed to be trying to maintain straight faces. "My first impression of you all… is that I hate you. Meet me up on the roof." Kakashi shunshined out of the trap and took a seat on the roof of the academy. He didn't have to wait very long for his students to appear.

He gestured for them to take a seat before him before he spoke. "Well let's begin by introducing ourselves."

"What do you want to know?" Naruto figured he should find out exactly what Kakashi wanted to hear.

"Hmm, well your names, your likes, your dislikes, your hobbies, and I guess your dreams for the future."

Sakura decided that the explanation wasn't clear enough however, "Um sensei, could you give us an example?"

"Ohh me, hmm, well my name is Hatake Kakashi… I have no desire to tell you my likes or dislikes… hmm dreams for the future…oh and I have lots of hobbies." Even Naruto couldn't help but sweat drop at this. He was kind of used to Kakashi's obscenely aloof attitude, but he felt like this was taking it a bit far. "Ok, well then let's get started with you pinky."

Sakura took a moment to compose herself before a quick glance at Sasuke, "Ok, well my name is Haruno Sakura and the person I like (glance at Sasuke) I mean the things I like… umm well the thing I dislike is Naruto. And umm dreams for the future (another look at Sasuke) umm, and that was all right?" Sakura at least had the grace to finish sheepishly as Kakashi sighed, "Girls her age always seem to be more interested in love than their training, and I'll need to talk to her about that if they pass my test."

"Ok, next is you grumpy."

If Sasuke was upset by this name he didn't show it, he just continued with his brooding before looking up and talking, "My name is Uchiha Sasuke, there are lots of things I dislike, and I don't really like anything and… I can't really call it a dream… but I have a goal. The resurrection of my clan… and to kill a certain man…"

Kakashi's had assumed that Sasuke would say pretty much that, Sakura was just staring all starry eyed at Sasuke, and Naruto just shrugged, he figured that Sasuke was talking about Itachi, but decided against saying anything.

"Ok, you're next Naruto…"

"Ok, well I'm Uzumaki Naruto, I like training and eating, my favourite food is ramen, but anyone who knows anything about me knows that… I dislike people who go back on their words, or break their promises, as well as people who judge others for things they have no control over. My hobbies are training to achieve my goals and learning more about my family. I also have dreams of restoring my clan, and one day surpassing all the past Hokage's and bringing the village to a new age of prosperity, where people can live freely without being judged for being themselves." Naruto had had the longest introduction and it had raised some questions, Sasuke had raised an eyebrow when Naruto mentioned his clan, Kakashi was pleased that Naruto had matured beyond just obsessing about ramen, and was looking forward to helping him become the shinobi his parents would have wanted him to be.

But it was Sakura who spoke out, "What clan are you talking about Naruto, I thought you were an orphan, I haven't ever heard of the Uzumaki clan?" Naruto stiffened at her so casually talking about how he had no family, but Kakashi quickly spoke up to keep him from reacting too badly.

"Well Sakura, that's one of the big issues in the village right now, the Uzumaki clan actually helped the Senju and Uchiha clan build the village because they were distantly related to the Senju's and they were the royal clan of a village that was once allied with ours. We actually used to wear their clan's crest on our uniforms until recently. It is the spiral that Naruto has on his back." Sakura had no response for what she just heard, but decided that she would look into it later, Sasuke had a similar reaction and decided to look into the Uzumaki clan and see if they had anything remotely useful he could use for his revenge. He doubted it if they were related to the class dobe, but he figured he might as well check.

"Ok, well now that we've got introductions out of the way, I have to tell you the first thing we're going to do tomorrow starting your duties as shinobi."

Naruto decided to ask the obvious question, "What're we going to be doing Kakashi-sensei?"

"Well we're going to be doing survival training, and before you interrupt I have to tell you, this training will be more difficult than anything you did at the academy."

"Hn, and what's so difficult about this training?"

"Well Sasuke, in this training, I'll be your opponent, and I've got to tell you, hehehe, it's very difficult, hehehehe, in fact out of the 27 graduates, only 9 of you will be selected to become official genin. That's right, this training has a 66% chance of failure, and those who don't pass get sent back to the academy."

"But sensei, then what was the point of all our training at the academy, what was the point of the exams?"

"The point of the exams Sakura was to determine which of you might possess the skills to become shinobi, but the test tomorrow will be the final deciding factor… Meet me at training ground 7 tomorrow morning at 5 a.m. Oh, and don't eat breakfast, you might throw up hehe."

With that Kakashi disappeared in a puff of smoke. The three young shinobi looked between each other briefly before Naruto turned and jumped from the roof of the academy heading in the direction of Ichiraku. He had a lot of work to do tonight if he was going to be ready for whatever Kakashi had in store for them in the morning; he just hoped that his clones would be able to properly scout out the area before the test began.


BAM, done another chapter. I hope you guys enjoyed it, as I mentioned I enjoyed writing it a lot, so I look forward to hearing what you all think about it. I know some of you might have been getting a bit tired of the slow buildup, but we're finally here, we have the teams, and missions will start soon. I'm not planning on dedicating a whole lot to their missions before wave, but we still have to deal with Kakashi's test and a few other small things that I have been hinting at.

Also sorry to those of you who wanted to see Naruto on his own. In the end the votes were pretty much even, so I went with what I felt I could do a better job writing. I hope you guys aren't too upset about it, and I want you to know that even with Naruto having Kakashi as a sensei, he will still be getting outside instruction. Anyhow, that's another spoiler that I don't want to get into, so I'll just say I hope you all enjoyed it, even if it wasn't exactly what you were hoping for. Also if anyone is curious, Kenji and his father were two characters from back in chapter 2, just thought I should mention it in case some people forgot.

So as I always say, please leave a review if you enjoyed it, or if you didn't enjoy it, and have some suggestions for what I can do better. I really do appreciate all the reviews, and I like to hear everyone's suggestions. If it means I can write a better story, I will take all the advice I can get.

Anyhow, Ja Ne,
~FeJazz