Training From Hell

Pain is weakness leaving the body.

— U.S. Marine Corps saying

"Oh, darn."

That was Kakashi's entire reaction to Sasuke trying to kick him in the head. But only because he'd been forced to put his book away for about a quarter of a second. Then suddenly Sasuke had been tossed halfway across the training grounds and into Naruto, who had been hiding in the bushes up until then. There was a lot of swearing on the parts of both boys, to absolutely no one's surprise.

Kakashi stood up straight for once as he heard Naruto approach. There was no one else in Konoha who could combine the loudest voice on the planet with silent footfalls. He supposed it was a result of way too much time spent playing pranks on the village. It was practically the signature of Konoha's number one most surprising shinobi.

But the flying entrance from the trees had still been a bit of a stupid idea. Kakashi swayed out of the way of Naruto's foot, pushed upward as the boy went past, and sent Naruto careening into the river.

Then Sasuke was there again, lashing out with taijutsu he'd learned from Itachi but wasn't yet fast enough to use effectively. Naruto followed, soaking wet and weaving around Sasuke's stances and strikes with a style that might have been similar to Minato's if the boy was taller. Or if he could teleport.

And yet, trying to land a blow on the jounin only meant that they'd be used as clubs against each other, hit a kawarimi log, or miss entirely as the man either ducked out of the way or otherwise made utter fools out of them both. Kakashi even had one eye closed, just to make it harder.

"How the hell is he this freaking fast?" Naruto shouted in frustration as the jounin disappeared again.

"He's been a jounin since before we were born." Sasuke growled. "He's been playing with us."

"I know that!" Naruto snapped. The boy was fuming, angry at his own weakness and the jounin's insane speed and taijutsu skill. "But you got punted into a bush and I ended up in the river and he barely blinked when we both rushed him! I swear he even used his hitai-ate as an eyepatch!"

Sasuke shook his head suddenly, as though dispelling his irritation at the entire situation. "We're not getting the bells like this. We need to come up with some kind of plan."

"Like what?" Naruto stopped and slapped his own forehead. "Wait a minute. Where the hell did he go?"

"I figured he was watching us…" Sasuke frowned and tried to find some trace of the jounin's chakra. Nothing. "But I think he's gone now."

"…Where's Sakura?" Naruto asked.

Both boys heard a distant scream. Sasuke's head whipped around in the direction of it and Naruto's eyes went wide.

Their thoughts were identical on this issue, and they let out simultaneous mumbles of, "…Oh, shit."

Sure, neither of them liked her. But there were things you just didn't do, and letting a girl get ambushed and not going to at least see if she was okay? That was one of them. And if Sasuke or Naruto had ever, ever thought differently, Kushina probably wouldn't have let them live long enough to make genin.

The boys took off.

For a while, the clearing was empty and silent. Then Kakashi emerged from the ground next to where they had been and cackled to himself. Genjutsu was too much fun. Genin? Marginally more so.

Kakashi observed from afar as the boys arrived to find their pink-haired teammate unconscious on the ground, and then waited patiently as they tried to figure out what was wrong with her. Naruto and Sasuke debated it out.

"Do you think maybe she just fainted?" Naruto asked, scratching his head. "She's been here a lot longer than we have."

"If she didn't faint before, I don't see why she had to do it now." Sasuke said. "I'm betting Kakashi-nii did something to her." The boy paused, and Kakashi made a mental note of the banned word. "Genjutsu?"

Naruto could only shrug helplessly. "You know I'm no good at that. You do it."

Sasuke nodded and brought his hands together in a seal. "Kai!"

Sakura stirred and blinked rapidly, her eyes wide with fear. And then she stopped, looked up, and almost leapt to her feet. "What happened?" she demanded. Both boys had to pause at her suddenly assertive moment, but they rolled with it.

"Kakashi-nii happened." Naruto said, and Kakashi made a note of that, too. "It was a genjutsu."

"Ah…" Sakura seemed to grow quiet at this. She mumbled something incoherent.

"What was it?" Sasuke asked, rather sharply.

Sakura shook her head and wiped her eyes on her arm. "Never mind. It's not important what I saw. So, you saved me, Sasuke-kun?"

Kakashi, who knew that he'd given her an illusion of both of her teammates getting shredded by an Iwa-nin, frowned. Something was off about the psych profile he'd been given by Iruka. It wasn't possible that an hour of training had changed that much, was it? Or had the genjutsu traumatized her that much?

Sasuke looked away pointedly. Naruto grumbled something inaudible and slapped his adoptive brother on the back of the head.

"We're not gonna get the bells this way." Naruto was as loud as ever, despite the fact that his teammates clearly didn't want to work together (and neither did he, apparently, but the entire affair was looking more and more like a game of rock-paper-scissors the more Kakashi watched). Kakashi found himself wondering how Iruka had put up with him for so long, given the chuunin's sensitive hearing.

"What's your plan then?" Sasuke asked sarcastically. "Charge him again?"

"No, we need to come up with something sneakier!" Naruto had that grin on his face. It was one of those expressions you never saw on an innocent little kid, and the kind that usually meant that Kakashi would need to step lightly around Kushina to avoid setting off every joke trap in the area and being covered in itching powder..

After a moment of silence, Sakura finally spoke up. "In that case, why don't we try—"

Kakashi vanished, but only to give his prospective team an actual chance.

It absolutely did not have anything to do with the fact that he was bored with their antics and wanted to read his precious Icha-Icha Paradise in peace.

Not at all.

In retrospect, letting the genin actually have time to plan was probably a bad idea on his part. Kakashi ducked under what amounted a barrage of kunai, shuriken, and very sharp rocks, and wondered if it would be safer to just use kawarimi and get it over with, He had only had to put his book away twice so far—once for Sasuke and once for this deadly hail of projectiles—but this was really starting to cut into his reading time.

Spotting a fuuma shuriken on a collision course with his head, Kakashi elected to take the practical course of action. He vanished in a massive burst of smoke—kage bunshin combined with kawarimi—just as Naruto and Sasuke leapt from the bushes to confront him.

Naruto stopped, confused. "What the hell—? He wasn't ever really here!"

Sasuke cursed again, scowling. "Missed him."

"Sensei swapped with a log!" Sakura reported from the next part of the training grounds, obviously frustrated. "I saw the hand seals for it from here!"

"Have we even got enough shuriken or kunai left for another go?" Sasuke barked, trusting that at least the pink-haired girl had kept track of their supplies. He sure hadn't.

"We're out." Sakura said. She walked through the bushes to meet up with both boys, who were alternately cursing their sensei's tendency to vanish in broad daylight (Sasuke) and complaining in general (Naruto). She handed both of their kunai and shuriken holsters back. They were all empty. "It'd take too long to go all of them back now."

Sasuke nodded, glancing at a watch. Why he had a watch, neither of his teammates knew. "Right, we've only got ten minutes left. Naruto, how much chaos can you cause in ten minutes?"

"…A lot?" Naruto grinned suddenly. "You know, I never tried that jutsu out all the way."

"Kage bunshin?" A smirk found its way onto Sasuke's face. "In that case…"

After Sasuke pulled Sakura out of the way, Naruto brought his hands together in the simple hand seal for the most powerful technique. Sure, it wasn't like he didn't have limits, but there was no way he was going to let Kakashi get away without at least some trouble. "Taijuu kage bunshin no jutsu!"

Suddenly there were a hundred Narutos in one place. While Sakura stared in open-mouthed shock and horror, Naruto directed his clones to search the training grounds for their sensei and, if possible, keep him in one place long enough for Team Seven to start with stealing bells.

Kakashi, lounging at the top of a tree and looking down in his crazy genin, chuckled to himself. In fact, by now his (normal) bunshin were probably being destroyed by Naruto's kage bunshin. He'd have to make his appearance in a while.

Kakashi turned a page in his book to continue with reading Junko's illicit adventures with Goro.

He'd be nice to his genin eventually. Once they learned to be more observant.

One minute before the alarm was set to go off, and Kakashi was still, as far as they could tell, missing. Sure, they'd run into about five of his bunshin and dispelled them, and enough traps to make Sakura wish she hadn't decided to wear a dress today, but Kakashi was still gone.

And then suddenly he was behind all three of them, drawling, "You know, it's amazing how many people don't look up."

Sasuke whirled and tried for a kick to the head, but Kakashi simply ducked out of the way. The follow-up fireball was also dodged. Naruto charged next, flanked by three of his clones, and the jounin just used one clone as a bludgeon against all of the others. Sakura retreated and began to look for some of the kunai and shuriken she knew had to be around here somewhere, but there were none to be found.

Right after the last of Naruto's clones were dispersed by a sudden impact with Sasuke, Kakashi vanished again.

Naruto nearly exploded. "HOW THE HELL DOES HE KEEP DOING THAT?"

At that point, three hands emerged from the ground and grabbed the genin's ankles. "Looking down might have helped, too!"

"AAAGH!"

And just like that, all three of them were buried up to their necks in the ground. Kakashi popped up next to them, sitting back on his heels with his precious orange book in hand just as the alarm went off. He gave them another one of those strange eye-smiles. "My, my, it looks like none of you got the bells… Didn't I tell you to come at me with the intent to kill?"

Sasuke's eye twitched.

"You're a freaking jounin!" Naruto shouted. "How are we supposed fight someone like you?"

"Oh, you weren't." Kakashi said brightly. "But that's not really what's up for debate at the moment. The only question left is basically, 'who gets tied to the logs?'"

"Should it be Sakura, since she didn't really make an attempt to get the bells?" Kakashi asked rhetorically. "Or Naruto and Sasuke for once again disobeying a direct order?"

There was a sort of unified, horrified silence among the genin.

"Well…since you're all your own brand of stupid, I think the answer should be 'all three of you.' This is the first time this has ever happened, actually…" Kakashi tilted his head to the side a bit. "Oh, well."

As it turned out, one of the aforementioned logs had been destroyed in the middle of one of Naruto's more enthusiastic pursuits of a Kakashi-bunshin. While Kakashi had been rather annoyed at that (as far as they could tell), he just shrugged and decided to tie Naruto and Sasuke to the logs rather than Sakura. Sakura got to be tied to a tree about fifty feet away instead.

The genjutsu that made a sunny day look like a thunderstorm? It didn't help their resolve much.

"Naruto, Sasuke, what do you have to say for yourselves?" For someone who generally cultivated a laid-back persona, Kakashi could loom like no one else. He actually gave them a death glare, making both Naruto and Sasuke shrink under his gaze. He was using the smallest amount of killing intent possible, and yet it felt like a lead sheet pressing down on them.

"Uh…we suck at teamwork?" Naruto squeaked.

And just like that, Kakashi stopped looking like he was going to murder them and the impending thundercloud of doom overhead vanished. "And you're absolutely right!"

The ropes undid themselves. Sasuke dropped into a crouch and Naruto waved his arms wildly to keep his balance. He was poked back into an upright position by Kakashi's forefinger on his headband.

Some distance away, Sakura was wondering what the hell was going on and why she was still tied up.

"You two are positively shitty teammates." Kakashi informed them. "You don't play the shunning game on a team. You don't think of asking favors from your new sensei. And you absolutely do not act like entitled little brats toward your sensei and your new teammate, no matter who your parents are."

Naruto's eyes were as wide as saucers. Sasuke was pointedly no looking at anyone, though his cheeks were bright red with shame.

"Once you became genin, you became soldiers." Kakashi said sternly. "Naruto, Sasuke, your parents may be the most powerful people in the entire village, and I may have known you both since you were still in diapers, but don't think I'll treat you any differently than Sakura. You are all my students now. My squad. So start growing up."

Both boys looked properly chastised. Naruto almost looked like he was going to cry, while Sasuke was looking at the ground guiltily.

"Do you both understand?" Kakashi asked them both, frowning under his mask.

They nodded.

"Good. Now, go untie Sakura." The jounin's book appeared again as if out of nowhere. Louder, he said so Sakura could hear, "You only get one more shot, and one of you isn't moving on no matter what. Don't waste it."

Fortunately or unfortunately, Kakashi knew he had to pass all three of the students. Naruto was Sensei's kid, and much too mischievous to remain in the Academy. If he got any stronger or less motivated to work, Iruka wouldn't be able to handle him. Sasuke was just too strong—if he didn't make genin now, he'd be passed on a technicality anyway due to being one of the few remaining Uchiha clan members and the rookie of the year. There was nothing more the Academy could teach either of them. And Sakura? Kakashi didn't like the idea of someone with her level of chakra control being forced to waste another year where the instructors wouldn't know what to do with it. And besides, she'd just re-memorize the textbooks and learn absolutely nothing new.

The only real question left was the one that Kakashi felt was most important. Regardless of their skills, they needed to be able to work as a team. And if they couldn't now, he had to know how much more instruction they'd need before they could. He was perfectly willing to stick them with D-ranked missions for the rest of their lives if they never figured it out.

Unaware of their sensei's thoughts, Naruto was trying not to dwell on Kakashi's verbal flaying. "Sasuke, do you really think we…?"

Sasuke glanced at the blond and sighed. "He's got a point, Naruto. Except for the part where we were trying to kill him with shuriken, we kind of…we didn't really work together."

"You and I did." Naruto felt that he had to point out.

"Yeah, but I think Kakashi wanted a bit more than that." Sasuke said as they reached Sakura. "Hey."

Sakura couldn't really help them while they cut the ropes, but she dusted herself as though nothing really important had happened once they were off. Then she looked at both of them and said, "Sasuke-kun, Naruto, we're not doing that great, are we?"

Sasuke shook his head. Naruto grumbled something, glaring in Kakashi's direction.

"We already tried kunai and shuriken, taijutsu, and a bit of ninjutsu." Sasuke said. "What now?"

Sakura frowned in thought. "Has anyone got smoke bombs? We might be able to blind him long enough for you two to get the bells."

Both of them looked at Naruto, who said, "What? I used up all my stuff a few fights ago."

"I guess they wouldn't have worked on a jounin anyway." Sakura admitted. "Not unless they had itching powder or something." She muttered something and tugged irritably at her hair. "How are we going to do this? You have to pass!"

"…Wait. What?" Sasuke actually paused in his strategizing, staring at Sakura. "Were you talking to both of us?"

"Um, yeah." She blushed. "I-I mean…look, I know I'm not as good of a shinobi as you two. I saw you both fight Sensei. I can't…" She looked away, embarrassed, and stumbled for an excuse. "I can't inflict Naruto on those poor chuunin-sensei now! It'd be inhumane!"

"What?" Naruto squawked. "But you've always wanted to be on a team with Sasuke! You even said so earlier!"

"It's not going to happen now, Naruto." Sakura told him firmly. Her eyes were watering. "If I'm on your team now, I'll just hold you back."

"It's not going to happen." Sasuke cut in before Naruto could dig himself deeper. No matter how much Sakura irritated him, he could at least acknowledge how much she was giving up just by saying that. "Two bells for three genin? That's bullshit. It's like he wanted us to…"

Everything slid into place. Sasuke mentally kicked himself for being a moron. He and Naruto had even gotten the teamwork lecture earlier that morning!

"…I really hate Kakashi-nii right now." Sasuke said after he'd made a sort of hissing noise from between his teeth for a moment or two. He had to resist the urge to smack himself in the face.

Sakura's expression became thunderous. "Did he seriously…?"

Sasuke nodded slowly. "Just to screw with us."

Naruto scratched his head and said, "What?"

"The bells were just a distraction." Sakura explained, frowning. "Sensei was just trying to get us to fight among ourselves for the bells. I think…I think the test is really about our teamwork."

"But that can't be all of it." Naruto pointed out. "You remember how we kinda teamed up toward the end there. And we were walking around together for a bit before that, planning. If it was only teamwork, we probably would have passed right then."

"…Maybe it's just more teamwork than we're showing?" Sakura suggested. "I mean, what's the ultimate form of teamwork…?" She trailed off. Her eyes were dark. "Self-sacrifice for the sake of your team. The bells were meant to keep us from thinking about it."

"Wait, Sakura—!" Naruto began, but the pink-haired kunoichi had already waved to Kakashi and beckoned him over.

The jounin suddenly appeared in the tree above them. "Hm? Did you decide?"

"Yes, I'll—" Sakura began, but Sasuke and Naruto cut her off at the same time.

"We'll all fail."

"Oh?" Kakashi tilted his head to the side, as though curious. "You'll all just be shipped back to Iruka, you know."

"Iruka-nii's not that bad." Naruto said, grinning. "And a year isn't that long." Especially when he thought of how many pranks he could pull in his newfound free time.

"Your rules are all bullshit anyway." Sasuke said flatly. "We're not letting Sakura go off and fail alone after this." Facing a jounin, it hadn't been that bad of a showing, really. At least now he knew how far he had to go before he could beat Itachi.

"She was pretty good today! Even being in the Academy again, with her and Sasuke around won't be so bad. Right, Sakura-chan?" The blond added, turning to the girl with that same reassuring smile.

Sakura looked like she was about to cry. "Guys…" Maybe the Academy wouldn't be so bad. With these two…with these two, she could do anything. Making genin again would be a piece of cake.

"Well, in that case…" Kakashi eye-smiled down at them. "In that case, you all pass. Congratulations!"

He got a round of blank stares.

"What?"

"You mean we actually…?" Naruto's grin threatened to split his face.

Sakura and Naruto shouted together, "HELL YEAH!"

Sasuke shook his head helplessly and smiled at their antics.

Kakashi considered getting a prescription for painkillers, because he was absolutely sure that this team would be a headache. "Well, Team Seven, you're dismissed."

And yet he just sat there. His genin all stared at him. "What?"

"You still have something to say, or else you'd be gone already." Naruto pointed out.

Kakashi shrugged. "I just wanted to know if anyone particularly wanted to go out to eat as a team…?"

"Ichiraku's?" Naruto demanded quickly. Apparently his ramen addiction hadn't waned in the slightest.

"Nope!" Kakashi said cheerfully.

"Dammit!"

Kakashi sighed. "We're going to Sensei's house later, Naruto. Your house, remember? There was this whole thing about a celebration dinner with miso ramen and all sorts of stuff…?"

Something clicked in Naruto's head. "Oh, right! This'll be awesome!"

Sasuke rolled his eyes.

"Wait, we're going to eat with the Hokage?" Sakura yelped. "I-I need to get ready!"

"There's not really any rush. I'm only paying for lunch anyway." Kakashi shrugged again. "So, if you don't particularly want to eat barbeque, you can skip until dinner. That's mandatory. Hokage's orders and all that."

"Oh, um. Okay." Sakura sighed with relief. "When's it going to be?"

"Six, I think. It's only a little after noon, now." Kakashi replied.

Sakura nodded.

"Which barbeque place are we going to?" Sasuke asked.

"Oh, you know the one run by the Akimichi clan, right?"

Naruto nearly bounced in his excitement. "Hey, that means we might end up seeing Chouji and Shikamaru! I wonder if they passed? And…wait, where are you going?"

And this was only said because his team had begun to walk off without him. He ran to catch up.

They didn't end up making it that far.

Obito stared up at the insanity. "Is it possible to smack yourself in the face so hard that you actually end up killing brain cells? Because I think I might need to, just to get this out of my head."

Sasuke groaned and buried his face in his hands.

Far above, a voice shrieked, "KAKASHI-SAMAAAAAA!"

"Okay, so I understand the whole thing with lunch break and going to Sensei's house later and all that, but seriously. Fangirls. From the alleyways." Obito laughed, but not very loudly so he could avoid attracting their attention. "It was like they were lying in wait for you guys."

Sakura stared, wide-eyed with horror. "They aren't going to catch him, are they?"

"…I don't think so?" Obito guessed. "He is a jounin…"

"Can we just get the hell out of here?" Naruto whimpered.

"Here" was roughly twenty feet from safety—meaning the Akimichi barbeque restaurant. They'd been walking along quite innocently, only thinking of lunch and therefore salvation from starvation. It had been quite normal, overall. Obito had showed up to bother Kakashi about his new team of genin, Sakura had seen Ino walk by and started a fight with her, and Naruto and Sasuke had been minding their own business. They had completely missed the glint of the eye of a dozen nearby women until the ambush was already underway.

And that was why Kakashi was no longer anywhere to be seen. The slightest hint of a fan club pursuit led to the jounin damn near teleporting away in a burst of white smoke.

"Where were you going?" Obito asked, shaking Sakura out of her flashback.

"There." Sasuke said, pointing out the building in question.

"Ah." Obito said neutrally. "That doesn't seem like a good idea anymore."

Various fan club members stalked the streets all around the last place Kakashi had been spotted. Sasuke shuddered.

"In that case, can we go to Ichiraku's? Please?" Naruto asked, hiding behind Sakura as a fangirl passed.

Obito ruffled his hair. "Sure, Chibi-Sensei."

Naruto stuck his tongue out at him and they began the walk to the boy's favorite restaurant in the whole wide world.

"Um, who are you again?" Sakura asked after a moment. When Obito blinked down at her, confused, she added, "I mean, I know you're a jounin, but how do you know everyone on the team? I just…uh. Sorry."

Obito smiled. "I'm Uchiha Obito, sort of the head of the Uchiha clan insofar as it even really exists. Sasuke and his brother are my cute little cousins." He pointed at Naruto, who was running ahead of them. "He's Sensei's kid, and Kakashi and I were on a team as chuunin back in the day."

"Didn't you get assigned to Touchan's team back when you were a genin?" Sasuke cut in.

Obito scratched his head. "Well, yeah, but Kakashi was already a chuunin by the time Rin and I met Sensei. I made chuunin when I was eleven."

"Wow." Sakura said. "We're twelve and we're barely genin…"

"I graduated three years earlier than you did, though." Obito pointed out. "The Third Great Shinobi War was still on back then."

"When did you become a jounin, then?" Sakura asked, curiosity piqued.

"When I was seventeen," Obito said with a shrug. "That's about nine years ago, now. Oh, hey, we're here."

Teuchi waved. Naruto had already taken up a spot at the counter and was drumming his fingers on the table while he waited for his team to catch up.

"What would you like?"

"Hm…Salt ramen." Obito said, pulling out his wallet. "What about you guys?"

"Miso ramen!" Naruto said happily.

"Shrimp ramen, I think." Sasuke said.

"Um…I'll have salt ramen, too." Sakura added. Well, her diet was certainly over. And yet, looking across the countertop to the kind old man and along it to her teammates, she found that as far as pangs of regret went, it was pretty darn minor. She was with Sasuke-kun and Naruto (who wasn't anywhere near as bad as she'd thought), she had a new sensei and was going to meet the Hokage later. Things didn't get much better.

But when Kakashi joined them about five minutes later, muttering about fangirls and revenge and Obito being a moron, it did, indeed, get better.

A few hours later, Sakura was walked to the Hokage's front door by her teammates. Really, Sasuke had escorted her most of the way because he had been the only one to realize that she probably didn't know exactly where the place was. Naruto had joined them halfway through, cackling about something to do with Kakashi and Obito, and proceeded to make sure that they couldn't become bored with anything. Naruto and boring simply didn't belong in the same universe.

"How did you manage to get out of cleaning the Hokage monument, anyway?" Sasuke asked as they approached the house.

Naruto grinned. "Kage bunshin and a lot of paint stripper."

"Thought so." Sasuke commented with a smirk.

"Why'd you even paint the monument to begin with?" Sakura had to know.

"Well, I just wanted to get off one really good prank before I had to start acting like a genin." Naruto explained. "I mean, we had our tests that day, but I knew I'd pass. So it was kind of like my last hurrah."

"So you're not pulling pranks anymore?" Sakura asked.

"Well, I might go back to it a few times, but I think Konoha's got the picture now."

Sasuke sighed. "You would."

As they approached the house, Kakashi appeared behind them in a burst of smoke and noise. Oddly enough, he didn't have that little orange book with him when the smoke cleared. "Yo."

"You were almost late, Sensei." Sakura said reproachfully.

Kakashi shrugged, smiling under his mask. "But I'm not. So it doesn't count one way or another."

Naruto scoffed. "No one would ever miss out on Kaachan's cooking on purpose anyway. Not even you."

"True, true." Kakashi allowed. He raised his hands to knock on the door. "So, do you know what—?"

He was cut off before his knuckles even hit the wood. The door was flung open revealing, to Sakura's surprise, a beautiful woman with long red hair and bright violet eyes. She looked so much like Naruto that there was no way they weren't related. Their smiles were completely identical, too.

She somehow managed to get Naruto, Sasuke, and Kakashi in one huge hug. "My babies!"

Sakura heard someone's spine crack.

After a moment or two, the woman released all of Sakura's teammates. Naruto and Sasuke coughed and Kakashi just collapsed across the threshold, but she didn't seem to care about that. "Hey, are you Haruno Sakura?"

"Um…yes?" Sakura tried not to cringe, but after seeing what her teammates had been reduced to, it was hard.

The woman's grin was almost blinding. "Cool! I'm Namikaze Kushina. Are you coming in?"

"…What about them?" Sakura asked, pointing at her fallen teammates.

"They'll be fine." Kushina said dismissively, and dragged Sakura into the house.

Nariko was asleep in a tree when Momo found her. She was curled into the crook of the tree, in her smallest black fox form, and snoring with her mouth wide open and drooling from the corner of her mouth. She would have been fairly unobtrusive to the vast majority of people in Konoha, even the shinobi, because she wasn't doing anything interesting or evil.

Momo considered this fact. Then climbed part of the way up the tree and bit her sister's tail as hard as she could.

Naruto yelped and fell out of the tree with Momo on her tail, still clinging with her tiny kit teeth. She whirled on her attacker and, for a moment, ended up running around in a tight circle as her tail lashed. Then her eyes went wide and she stopped, staring and hissing all at once.

"Momo," Nariko growled, "what the hell are you doing?"

Momo let go. She shrank a little under her sister's glare. "I, uh…"

Nariko let her sister flounder for a moment as she inspected her tail for blood. The kit apparently hadn't managed to break skin through the thick fur, but there was still the slight issue of how she'd bitten her older sister. Who had essentially raised her. "Not one of your brightest moments, Momo." Nariko said flatly. "What did you want?"

"I…I have a message, Nariko-neechan." Momo tried to make herself look as small as possible, and it was at that point that Nariko saw the scroll strapped across her back.

"All right. Let's see it." Nariko said.

The little fox turned so that Nariko could transform and untie the knot without needing to reach over her. She slipped the scroll out of its case and unrolled it on the ground. The scroll wasn't paper at all—it seemed to be thin vellum backed with lizard youkai skin. It was nearly perfectly impervious to water, but it was probably four times as thick as it needed to be.

Nariko started from the top left and started reading the elaborate characters. Momo peeked nervously at the contents, trying to read the message upside-down.

"It's from Jiichan." Nariko frowned and unrolled the entire scroll with a flick of her wrist. The characters of her name had always been written phonetically whenever the hanyou was rushed for time—hiragana and katakana over kanji. It was faster that way. And there, at the left, was a series of sharp strokes that indicated her name in the simplest figures possible.

"Jiichan?" Momo said curiously. "They just give me the scroll and then don't tell me who it's from…"

"Maybe they don't want kits to see it." Nariko muttered, shooing Momo away from the message. "I'll take care of it. Just wait for a response."

"That'll take you forever!" Momo complained. "You write too slowly!"

"Just because I don't write everything in chicken scratch doesn't mean I can't write quickly." Nariko countered. "Give me a chance to read the whole thing, Momo."

Momo groaned, but she obediently turned her back and went back to the tree she'd spooked Nariko out of, apparently planning to lie down in the shade. "Hurry up, Neechan!"

"Don't rush me." Nariko replied. She lowered her eyes to the scroll again and concentrate on the message, and possibly deciphering a hidden code. If there was one.

Nariko-chan,

Hey, it's Jiichan. How've you been?

I don't know if you got our last letter or not, since we were using one of those damn pigeons and you know there are enough bird-eaters out there to make sure the message never got through, but, well. Things happen.

Nothing much is going on over here. Since we killed the last of Akihito's hidden detachments, most of the weaklings have been lying low. Sesshoumaru's been getting antsy about it. Not that anyone but Rin can really tell. Next thing you know, he's going to start chopping heads off. I'm calling it now.

I know you asked last time about the whole mess with the ninjas and the borders and that curse thing. So, here's the news: there's no change whatsoever. Nobody really wants to have those backstabbers in our backyards. You want to bring a ninja back here? Too bad. Even if you are the diplomat (and how the hell you weaseled that out of Shippou I'll never know and I don't want to), no exceptions.

For now, anyway. Maybe Sesshoumaru will grow a heart or something. I just know that the border only goes one way right now.

Thanks for the map, by the way. Now when stupid youkai make it across the borders, we can figure out which countries are gonna be pissed off at us. And we can remember which countries are too stupid to visit. So far we haven't gotten any of those tree-huggers you work with, but I'm not feeling too charitable toward ninjas right now. Just saying.

But even if all this is going on, your Baachan still wants to go back. She's been talking about these ofuda she left in Nami, wherever the hell that is. Something about tsukumogami and how it's all gonna blow up soon-ish. And she wants to check out this tree-hugger village. I'm against it, but you know how she gets sometimes. Getting "Osuwari" used on you a couple dozen times isn't fun, even if you're already arguing.

(At this, Nariko pinched the bridge of her nose and shook her head. Some things just didn't change. Ever.)

So find some big event. Something with lots of food and people and not a whole lot of security. Then we'll pack up our stuff and hoof it over there. It might be…interesting.

Love,

Jiichan

Nariko blinked. She reread the letter, twice. She glanced at Momo, who was already snoozing under a tree. Then she carefully re-rolled the scroll, walked over to the tree, and started hitting her forehead against the bark.

"Nariko-neechan, what's wrong?" Momo squeaked.

"I think I'm gonna have to invite Jiichan and Baachan to the some big political thing here." Nariko wailed. "And I have to tell Minato-sama!" Not to mention the ofuda going bad and the stupid trip to Nami I'm going to have to make and all the utter insanity this is going to involve…

"And that's…bad?"

Nariko stomped off and started shouting in a language Momo was completely unfamiliar with. But she was fairly sure that most of them were fairly horrible curses.

A/N: Now Team Seven is actually a team (but not quite the same way as before...), and there is heavy-handed foreshadowing. Hooray!

Also, I know that more than a few people have read this. Would any of you mind dropping me a review? I mean, it's nice that you're stopping by, but could you please also give me your opinion on what I can improve? Further suggestions for running gags are also welcome.

Next chapter preview:

"What kind of moron tries to fight with bubbles?"

"Are you trying to annoy me on purpose, Souten-san?"

"No! I just want you to branch out into some actual attacks before some jackass 'inventively' makes you run out of soap!"

"…Perhaps."

"You're so stubborn, Utakata-kun. It'll get you killed someday."

"Hopefully not anytime soon, then."