SUMMARY: It begins… Kakashi has passed the four unusually-lucky members of Team 7, but what will these next few months of training entail? And why the hell has he decided that chaining the members who get along the worst together is the only way to make them forget their differences?

Konoha Kitty

Chapter 9: Training from Hell

"Eh… what?" said Tori.

Kakashi smiled.

"You guys are the first team to ever pass this exercise."

Sakura blinked.

"But… you said…"

"That's just what I mean. All of the other teams did nothing but listen to me, like mindless little drones. It's true that a ninja is supposed to listen to orders, but there will be times when you have to think for yourselves and put the safety of your team members above the priority of the mission. Those in the ninja world who break the rules are trash… but those who don't care about their companions are worse than trash."

Kakashi gave them a thumbs up,

"Congratulations, Team 7. Your training begins tomorrow!"

Naruto cheered happily, "I did it! I'm a ninja, baby!"

"Let's go," said Kakashi, turning to leave. Sasuke stood up and followed him wordlessly.

Tori stood, too, but turned and cut Sakura loose with a kunai.

"All right! My mom's got a special dinner planned tonight," said Sakura, "And boy, am I hungry!"

"HEY! YOU FORGOT TO UNTIE ME!" yelled Naruto

Tori turned, laughing as she cut him loose, "Calm down, will ya?"

Naruto looked at her cautiously, but it soon reverted to a grin,

"Thanks, and Iruka-sensei better buy me a HUGE bowl of ramen tonight, 'cause I'm starving!"

A few weeks later…

"I don't really CARE what you say! I was heading the right way the whole time! END OF STORY!" yelled Tori.

Sasuke glared, "As I've tried to say before, it was YOUR way that almost led us into that swamp!"

"Keep dreaming, Mr.-I'm-Perfect-So-I'm-Always-Right!"

"Hey, come on, Tori, Sasuke was trying to lead us in the right direction…" started Sakura.

"Oh, SURE! Just 'cause you follow the bastard everywhere he goes…"

"And maybe if Sasuke hadn't insisted we stop, we might've caught up to the stupid dog!" piped in Naruto.

"HOW DARE YOU!" yelled Sakura, pounding the unfortunate boy on the head.

"Besides, wasn't it YOU who said you could do this on your own, Naruto?" snapped Sasuke.

"NOW HOLD ON-"

"Everybody, SHUT UP!" came a booming voice from overhead, freezing Team 7 and its recent captive, a German shepherd, in their tracks.

Kakashi appeared in a whirl of smoke, a highly miffed look on his face.

"What's the meaning of this?" he said coldly, fixing the four kids and dog with an unusually angry glare.

The members of Team 7 looked at each other, wondering who'd be brave enough to take on their apparently-pissed-off sensei, though it wasn't in his nature to get mad so easily. The dog was cowering.

Sakura swallowed hard.

"W-well… you see, Kakashi-sensei… we went after the lost dog, as described in our mission, and successfully captured it, as you can see… but there were a few… erm… difficulties when it came time to navigate our way home…"

"Like the fact that Sasuke couldn't find his way out of a paper bag!" snapped Tori.

"Hey, it was mostly Naruto's fault!" retorted Sakura, turning on her.

"WHAAT?"

"BE QUIET!" roared Kakashi. The four kids froze.

He stood there, pressing his nose bridge in between two fingers. Tori glanced down at his hip pouch, the flap of which was partially open, and noticed something…

"Kakashi-sensei… where's your Make-Out Paradise book?" she asked. They all knew that Kakashi was never five feet out of range of a copy.

He sighed heavily, "It's been missing for a while… I'm about to go interrogate Gai about its location… I'm sure I heard him in my room last night…"

Team 7 nearly keeled over. The guy really loved those novels…

He shook his head and took a deep breath, the emotionless expression resuming its place on his features, "Now, I've been noticing an extreme lack of teamwork recently… any clues as to why?" he asked calmly.

Tori almost opened her mouth to retort.

"Anyone BESIDES Tori and her theories about Sasuke…"

The other three were silent.

Kakashi shook his head.

"This apparently requires some serious attention. I'll take Fang back to his owner now, and you kids go home. Tomorrow, I'm going to start you on a new training program that'll mainly focus on your getting along better. You can't function well as a team until you learn to at least tolerate each other's presence."

Kakashi took the shepherd's leash from Sasuke, and Team 7 disbanded for the day.

Tori and Sakura headed back to the Haruno residence, quiet at first.

Sakura piped up,

"Whaddya think this new program will be like?"

Tori didn't look up,

"I do know one thing, it can't be any worse than all these stupid missions we've been doing. I mean, BABYSITTING? Those kids were nightmares!"

"Tori, you know we've gotta do grunge work first; everyone has to. I saw Ino's team taking out the garbage for the Aburame clan the other day…"

Tori couldn't help but note a small hint of delight in Sakura's voice,

"The point is… we all start small. We'll get to the good stuff soon."

"Try telling that to Naruto…" said Tori. The kid had done nothing but complain about all the D-rank missions they'd been doing. She was bored, too, but Sakura was right.

"Naruto can kiss it," snapped Sakura, "I still can't believe I wound up on a team with him…"

Tori sighed.

The next day…

Tori awoke on the bridge to the large pop that announced the arrival of their sensei. The other three jerked their heads up to see him standing on the railing, adorned with a black backpack as an addition to his usual attire.

"Hope I didn't keep you kids waiting too long," he said cheerfully.

Grumbling, Team 7 got to its feet.

"Now, I just want you to remember that this exercise is to, hopefully, get the four of you to work better as a team. You sort your personal problems out, and you can get anything accomplished!"

Naruto glared, "…You sound like last night's fortune cookie…"

"So… what's in the bag?" asked Tori, bending to the side to get a better look at the black backpack.

"Your exercise. Now, hold still, you must be in a specific order for this to work…"

He rearranged the standing position until the four of them were lined up as such: Naruto, Sakura, Sasuke, Tori.

"Perfect! Now, close your eyes… I mean it, Naruto, I know if you're peeking."

Tori closed her eyes skeptically. Suddenly, a great rush of wind whirled around her and her teammates, stirring up a huge cloud of dust. She heard clanking, clicking, and snapping, and wondered if this was part of the exercise.

"Ok, open!"

When Tori lifted her dust-covered eyelids, she immediately had to close them again in a grimace against Sakura's earth-shattering shriek.

When it was over, Sakura was yelling angrily at about ninety miles an hour in some kind of protest. Tori looked in horror to see a metal band clasped around her friend's waist, and thick chains connected her to another band, which was bound around…

"WHY NARUTO? WHY? WHAT DID I DO TO DESERVE THIS?"

Tori stared at the ground, contemplating. If Naruto and Sakura were like that… then…

She winced as she heard chains rattle next to her, and she looked down to see familiar devices binding her and Sasuke.

She closed her eyes, "If I'm still stuck to Sasuke when I open my eyes again, I think I'm gonna blow…"

She opened one eye to see it wasn't her imagination and took an enormous breath.

"KAKASHI-SENSEI! WHY THE HELL DID YOU DO THIS? WHY SASUKE? WHY COULDN'T YOU STICK SAKURA TO HIM, SHE'D BE MUCH HAPPIER-"

Kakashi clamped a hand over her mouth.

"Now, you've gotten your chance at retaliation, now it's my turn to give you the reasons. First of all Tori, Sakura and Sasuke already get along quite well, so there was no point in sticking them together. Secondly, Sakura also gets along with you, so that would be pointless as well. The only person she didn't like was Naruto, so that seemed the most logical way to go. As for you and Sasuke, you two are always at each other's throats, so I figured…"

"Hold it; Naruto and Sasuke don't get along, either! Why didn't you put them together!"

"Because this is killing two relationship problems at once, and it gets the whole team involved. Naruto and Sasuke can be dealt with later."

Sakura looked about ready to cry.

"I've already talked this over with Mrs. Haruno, and after much debate, she's agreed to let you girls do this," said Kakashi.

"THAT TRAITOR!" yelled Sakura, "That's it! I disown my family! I'm putting myself up for adoption, right now!"

"Wait…" said Tori, ignoring her, "the way you worded that…"

"Yes, this will last much longer than just today. It will last until you've all sorted out your differences and can work together properly. That means you will be eating together, training together, etc."

"WHAAAT?" yelled Tori, her face flushing red. This meant eating, sleeping, and even BATHING! With SASUKE!

Sakura was dumbstruck. The same thoughts were running through her mind.

"Wait… Naruto is NOT sleeping in my room!" she yelled.

"Well... I had to talk with Mrs. Haruno about that. You and Naruto will be staying at your house, at your parents' requests."

"Then… where…" Tori started. She'd better be staying too! There was no reason not to!

"Tori, you will be staying with Sasuke."

Tori stood there, horrified. "WHY?!"

"Kind of defeats the purpose of quality time for you all to be shoved together in the same house. I think each pair needs to have time together, without the other two to rely on. I wouldn't have had any of you at the Harunos' due to the parents being there, but Mr. Haruno got a little... well... Tori, you were the only one I could get them to agree with staying elsewhere."

Tori nearly cried. She thought they cared about her!

An idea suddenly popped in her head. Maybe if…

"Oh, Sasuke! Let's put aside our differences and be friends! Whaddya say, BUDDY?" With that, she gave Sasuke an overly-dramatic and teeth-gritting-forced guy hug, pats on the back and all. He didn't move, and, to Tori's dismay, Kakashi wasn't convinced.

"I'm glad you're so willing to do this. It makes my job so much easier. Now, a local fisherman has requested aid in the repair of his boat, so I expect you all to get over to the lake immediately. Remember, this is still a mission, so I don't want any complaining, and no sassing or back-talking the client… Naruto."

Neither of the boys had said anything about the exercise as of yet, and Sasuke turned to Tori as though it didn't exist.

"Come on, stop standing around, we've got work to do," he said. Tori could usually tolerate his I'm-the-leader tone, but she just wasn't in the mood today…

"HELL NO! I DEMAND THE REMOVAL OF THIS OFFENDING DEVICE, OR I'M NOT DOING ANY MISSIONS AT-"

She froze when Kakashi's eye fixed on her.

"On second thought…"

Sasuke started walking, effortlessly tugging the extremely unhappy girl behind him. Not even Naruto was complaining about having yet another D-rank mission to do when he could be beating the stuffing out of an imaginary evil overlord.

Sakura was just as upset, if not more so, about the arrangement. No one even knew how long this was going to last…

Their first mission chained together turned out quite chaotic. Tori made several attempts to break the chains by suddenly taking off running, in which she was simply snapped backwards like a paper clip on a rubber band. There was a benefit, though. Every attempt caused her to fall to the ground, which forced the two-foot binding to drag Sasuke off his feet and land in a pile, which brought laughs from both Tori and Naruto at the ridiculous appearance.

The client was a naïve little old man who thought the chains were highly amusing, and would comment that Tori should watch her step whenever she made an escape attempt that dragged her and Sasuke to the ground.

Naruto received several beatings for getting bored and diving for fish, dragging Sakura along with him while she was trying to hammer planks over the hole in the boat. She emerged soaking wet and extremely pissed off every time, and Naruto's bruise collection grew dramatically.

The boat somehow was repaired nicely, mostly due to Sasuke's peculiarly-exceptional carpenter skills, and the four of them headed home, or, for one of them, her new temporary home.

Tori still hadn't stopped ranting about how unfair this whole situation was until she and Sasuke were almost at the gates of the Uchiha clan property. She could sense his tension building up; good, she wanted to piss him off. She wouldn't be happy until he replaced that stupid stone mask with one that reflected her own mood.

She finally got her wish, but it wasn't how she planned.

Suddenly, whirling around, Sasuke caught both of her wrists behind her back and forced her down into a dip so low that her legs were rendered useless, and only the arm holding hers together was supporting her. As for the other one, it held a kunai to her neck. Sasuke's normally unreadable black eyes seemed to be filled with waves of annoyance, irritation, and anger.

"If you don't quit complaining, I'll make it so you never see your friends again, or anything else, for that matter," he muttered dangerously.

It took Tori a while to regain her composure, but once she did, she attempted to put on an air of one who isn't easily intimidated,

"Are you threatening me, pal? 'Cause we can go! Oh yeah, I'll show you!"

Sasuke soon realized that there was only one method…

"How about this, if you don't quit complaining, I'm gonna make that CPR move a mode of suffocation, how's that sound?"

That seemed to do the trick. Apparently, the memory of it seemed to jar her into a silent humiliation mode, during which Sasuke straightened up and continued on, dragging her through the gates and down the streets of the deserted neighborhood.

Tori snapped to her senses and looked around. All of the houses bore the same symbol as on the back of Sasuke's clothes: a red and white fan.

She still wasn't content to just let these events unfold, but for the time being, she was curious. She'd never come in here before, mainly because the gates were always locked, but until now, she'd never taken it into account that Sasuke lived without any family at all; no parents, no siblings, no relatives or anything.

She remained quiet, watching Sasuke with a kind of sadness in her eyes. His family had been slaughtered…

Soon, Sasuke stopped at the biggest house in the place.

"Here we are," he said calmly, opening the door and heading in. They took off their shoes and headed down the hallway. Tori couldn't help but notice that everything was extremely tidy, and the rooms that were open looked like they were rarely used.

They reached the kitchen, and Sasuke headed for the refrigerator, pulling it open.

"You hungry?" he asked.

Tori looked at him oddly. Even though she'd been so awful to him, he was still… civil? It had to be a trap.

"Not really," she answered, in the same manner.

He shrugged and took an apple, closing the door and heading for the spacious living room. He gestured around.

"What do you want to do?"

Tori gave him a curious look. Now she understood. The guy didn't know how to entertain guests; he was making a good first attempt, though. But why was he being so nice?

She glanced around and saw a pad of paper and pencil on a desk, "I guess I can draw, but what about you?"

Sasuke picked up a book from the table, "Read."

Tori picked up the pad and pencil, and Sasuke walked the two of them over to the couch and sat down, opening his book and growing deathly silent.

Tori looked down at the blank pad and cautiously began drawing a horse. The hours ticked by, and night fell outside.

She noticed Sasuke stealing glances at her picture every once in a while, and he finally broke the eerie silence.

"That's a very bad drawing."

Tori gave him a look, "Excuse you?"

"You heard me."

"I don't recall ever insulting anything of yours, buster!"

"Try my intelligence, my navigation skills, my communication skills, my appearance…"

"So what? Everyone already knows all of those suck."

"You're lying."

"Oh, really? How so?"

"Your pupils close up when you lie. You obviously don't really think they suck."

"Sure, for all you know I could just see something I don't like. That's another cause, you know."

"True, but they would've closed up before."

"Wait… what… I hate you."

A smirk appeared on the boy's face.

"So, which is it that you're lying about? My intelligence… navigation…" he paused for dramatic effect, bringing his face very close to hers, "…appearance?"

Tori could feel her cheeks heating up considerably. His eyes connected with her own, and she almost couldn't look away… … almost.

A great, instinctive shove from Tori sent both of them flying onto the opposite end of the couch, where the girl found herself on top of him. She scrambled off, panicked, and caught her breath. What the hell was that?

The look hadn't left Sasuke's face, and he sat up, fixing her with it.

"Ehh… I think I wanna go to bed now…" Tori said, her face still very red.

She stood up, feeling the weight of the boy attempting to drag her down. He didn't move.

"Can we?" she asked impatiently.

His eyes attempted to snatch hers again, but she looked away.

"I'd like to go to bed," she repeated.

"Why not stay out here?"

"You know damn well why! I'm not sleeping on a couch, much less with you!"

"Oh, you say you prefer the bed?"

Tori's face darkened immensely.

"How… why… you perverted ass!"

"There was nothing perverted about that statement, your mind simply made it that way."

Tori turned away, bristling fiercely. She'd always thought him to be the civilized, quiet type, but a closet pervert? She felt him stand up, as the chains went slack.

"As you wish…"

Tori marched down the hallway, determined to find some way to fix this. Suddenly, she was jerked backwards as Sasuke stopped.

"This is my room."

He slid open the door. Tori peered in. It was clean and tidy, too… except for a couple bags on the floor.

"Hey, my stuff!" said Tori, dropping onto the bags and rummaging through one duffel in particular.

"AH HA! Pajamas!" she cried joyously. She dragged Sasuke over to the closet and went in, closing the door on the chain to keep him outside while she changed into her favorite PJ pants adorned with penguins and a t-shirt.

She came out to see he'd somehow changed into his own red plaid PJ pants and a t-shirt.

Looking around, she noticed the dresser right next to the closet.

"That explains it…" she said.

Sasuke gestured to the bed, "Shall we?"

Tori glared, "Don't make me knee you in the balls, asshole."

She grabbed her duffel as the two of them climbed onto the king-sized bed and slammed it down between them.

"You cross this line, I castrate you, got it?" snapped Tori, "Now good night!"