Many considered the village of Konoha to be the strongest of the ninja villages throughout the land. It was praised for both the individual and average strength of the shinobi that made up their forces. And while their rivals might dispute that claim, calling the village weak and peace-loving, no one can deny the greatness of many shinobi that had called Konoha home. There were many legendary names, shrouded in both awe and fear that took their first steps behind the walls of the village.

It was with such thoughts that the current Team 7 was created. After the decimation of the Uchiha clan and the escape of Uchiha Itachi, the youngest of the Konoha prodigies, the village elders were anxious to show the world that the village has yet to show its best. The team had been put on an accelerated training program and quickly pushed into the field, while being expected to excel.

The Hokage had protested, of course. He had argued that the three children were still too young. They were not currently engaged in war, so there was no need for them to turn children into something beyond their years. He argued that at least two of the children were not only talented, but also broken, that they needed time to heal before they grew, or the wounds in their psyches would become irreparable.

He had been heard, and despite his wisdom, despite the years of service, he was promptly ignored.

For all their political knowledge and savviness, the village elders were short sighted. They saw the children as tools, powerful and strong. They saw tools that had to be used, for the good of the village.

But they forgot that even the best tool could break if not properly cared for. And when the tool was a human the break could be irreparable, even if that human was a shinobi. Because one could reforge a broken tool, but one could rarely reforge a broken mind.

There was one person in the council who knew that shinobi were the most complex tools in existence, tools that required constant repair and maintenance. Danzo, a crippled old man covered in bandages, seemingly tired and weak.

But of course this being the shinobi world, appearances are often misleading.

What gave away the man's true worth, was his one visible eye. Steel was soft compared to the look Danzo radiated. That one eye betrayed a cunning mind, an unwavering belief in his own ideals and before all, a dedication to Konoha matched only by the Hokage's love for the village.

In truth the two of them were much alike, the two sides of the same coin. One worked in light, the other in darkness. One received love and respect, the other loathing and fear. And Danzo had learned to live with that, a long time ago.

He would do what he must, for the continued safety of Konoha.

He was glad that it seemed the children who showed the most promise would receive the training they needed in order to leave their name etched in the world. And once they had come into their own mindset, once they had seen the world for what it was, draped in darkness and deceit, he would come to them and offer a way to serve without limit.

To work within the shadow.

Contrary to popular belief, the ROOT division of the ANBU was not without emotion, or blindly fateful to him due to conditioning. No, a completely emotionless shinobi was little more than a machine and were thus not as useful as they could potentially be. Even if it sounded ideal, Danzo had no use for machines with the only loyalty they held, belonging to Konoha.

But they had seen the world for what it was and refused to let the darkness swallow their homes.

And so, Team 7 was created. Of course there had been grumbling on the civilian council's side about allowing the "demon child", as they called the Kyuubi jailor, to be a shinobi, on the team of the last Uchiha no less. But the voices that rose were quickly silenced.

The clan elders were not such fools as to pass up such an obvious avenue to power.

The Hokage, had accepted defeat, but had assigned his own son, a man well known for following his father's ideas despite not quite seeing eye-to-eye with him. He had hoped that they could be spared the worst of the life of a shinobi.

Especially Naruto. The heavens seemed to amuse themselves by thinking of new and exciting ways to cause the child torment.

This of course, had not been the best development for Danzo. He wanted them to see the real world, not the illusion that his old rival had created and actually seemed to believe in.

That is why he was overjoyed when he heard of Mizuki's plot. Alone, the lowly chūnin could not have stolen the forbidden scroll, but Danzo had helped. The still loyal members of ROOT had made sure that the chūnin had the opening he needed and made sure that he was confronted by Iruka conveniently close to the searching Team 7.

And so, the team had witnessed treachery and death.

That of course, was not enough to open their eyes…but it was a start.

The month after was filled with daily reports of training and progress. They served only to reassure the council of their decision. Each of the new genin was a prodigy, progressing much faster than anyone could have hoped for. Even the constant complains concerning the Uzumaki by the civilians had stopped. No one knew, or cared, if this was due to them seeing reason, or whether they had decided to instead grumble in private.

Either way, it was a nice change of pace.

The month of mandatory training passed quickly and the team was sent on a relatively simple mission, which would still offer something of a challenge for them. Success was not only expected, it was a given.

And successful the mission was, as they learned some time later when Sarutobi Asuma had come back to the village with his genin in terrible condition.

The Jounin had given his report. The mission itself was perfectly ordinary and the genin performed admirably. Everything had seen fine, it had all gone well and there had been no sign of anything wrong.

In retrospect, that should have been the warning siren that everything would go up in flames.

The two missing nin that had attacked the team were formerly of Iwa. They had gone rogue after some minor argument with their team leader and had chosen to make quite a name for themselves in certain circles since. No one had questioned where they got the numerous people and corpses to sell, but it seemed that particular secret was now uncovered. The shinobi that had stalled and ultimately been killed by Asuma had conveniently felt the need to tell him exactly how he and his partner made a living. The jounin himself never understood the habit of so many nin to talk with their enemy, but sometimes it was very useful.

In the end, the jounin had managed to reach his team in time and finish off the enemy. Asuma had reported his condition, which was confirmed by the autopsy performed after the two bodies had been brought in by hunter nin, with barely concealed pride. And he did have the right to be proud - the opponent had been an upper B, nearly A leveled threat, something way beyond the skills of the children. And yet they had survived and actually taken the man's arm from him.

Luck could be responsible for only so much.

The council was yet to know exactly how the battle between the genin and the missing nin had gone. The three were yet to wake up, despite being not being in health threatening danger. The only thing they had was speculation based on the landscape. It wasn't much, but it was the only thing they would get before the children woke up.

Of course someone had asked if the Uzumaki had used Kyuubi's chakra. Hate and fear ran deep in the hearts of men. Asuma had answered that he felt no such thing, though he was no sensor and he was a fair distance away.

Only Danzo noticed the frown that briefly crossed the Hokage's face.

For the state of the three, there had been a slight reprimand of Asuma, who had left his team alone, but no real fault was found with his orders or conduct. In fact, the successful extermination of two high ranked missing nin made the genin team look even more impressive. It was decided that the mission would be re-classified as A-rank, with the appropriate increase in pay coming from the bounty on the heads of the two, now dead, missing nin.

All in all it seemed that the team was not only meeting the expectations placed on them, but was actually exceeding them.

There, Danzo decided, could be worse things.

Now it was only a matter of time before he could add them to the true guardians of the village.

XXXXX

It was some time before Haruno Sakura managed to wake up. Of the three, her wounds had been the most lasting, mostly because of the monstrous healing capabilities Naruto seemed to possess.

But she did wake up. That in itself surprised her a bit. She had honestly thought that she was dead.

During the mission she was afraid and felt vaguely bad when dispatching the bandits. But seeing how... effortless her two teammates made it seem had motivated her to do her best.

She had not protested once and she had put on a brave face, constantly reminding herself that the bandits were definitely evil and that the world was a better place without them.

And it had worked, too. She had started feeling in control, bit by bit. And she was happy, because maybe now Sasuke or Naruto would praise her.

Sakura, despite her intelligence, had yet to realize how important that praise was becoming to her.

But then the two missing nin had come and everything had gone to hell.

She had followed Sasuke when Asuma ordered them to run, completely trusting in the power of her sensei. The killing intent that seemed to saturate the air around the missing nin, Asuma and Naruto only served to reinforce her decision. She had become better at resisting it, much better, but she was still afraid.

But she had been a brave girl and had not let the fear rule her actions. She couldn't let her team down after all.

But then one of the enemy shinobi had caught up to them and the fear had grown. But still she had not let it overwhelm her. She had trusted in the abilities of Naruto and Sasuke, in their training, in their plans.

She had been brave and had done what she must, watching as Naruto, a boy she instinctually feared, fought against a man who treated him like a fun little distraction.

She had played her part perfectly, letting Naruto know where she and Sasuke were, allowing Sasuke to use his jutsu. She had healed Naruto as best as she could.

She had been brave, and for a moment Sakura thought that they had won and everything was fine.

But she had thought wrong, the enemy was still alive. She tried to steel herself, while Naruto stepped forward protectively. He had wanted to buy time for his team. Sakura was grateful for that, because it was becoming increasingly harder to stay brave.

And then, in the next moment, there had been a flicker of movement, and a pain in her chest.

She had looked down, and had seen a kunai sticking out of her chest. If she could, she would have screamed. Instead she bonelessly fell to the ground, tears of fear and pain falling from her eyes.

She was afraid...

She didn't want to die….

Then there was darkness, with the occasional flash of awareness…

And now she was awake in a hospital room back in Konoha, with bandages covering her chest.

The medic quickly told her what her injuries were and that she was expected to stay in the hospital for another week. She had asked, meekly and quietly, if the wound would scar.

The doctor had looked at her. If she had looked back, Sakura would have seen the look of pity in his eyes.

It was a good thing then that she did not look.

For the look of pity being sent at her could have broken her.

The medic nin had answered in the affirmative and had left with the promise of telling her parents that she was awake.

And for a time Sakura was left alone in the bare room, with nothing to do but think.

The truth is that she should be feeling bad and scared. She had survived due to luck and it was only her first mission, her first time out of the village.

She had fought, killed, nearly died and she would now have a scar that would forever mar her flesh. It would never let her forget, for the rest of her life.

She should be scared and frustrated.

But she wasn't.

She'd faced death, and it wasn't that scary anymore.

Sakura then laughed, quietly. Maybe now she'd have a better resistance to killing intent.

The door to her room opened and faster than she thought possible, Sakura was entrapped in a hug, her mother crying in a high pitch voice. Her father entered, smiling kindly at her.

After a while her mother stopped sobbing, and began telling the pink haired girl how worried she was thus starting another round of tears.

Then….she moved on to something completely different and entirely unpleasant.

"Sakura, you must quit!" she said, her voice rising above what was publicly acceptable. The girl's father placed his hand over her's, calming his wife slightly.

"It's entirely too dangerous. Look at what happened the first time you went on a mission. You almost died!" she said, controlling her voice this time.

"But I didn't die. See, everything's fine, I'm not even going to be in the hospital that long." Sakura answered after a moment's hesitation. She had thought about quitting for a moment, right after waking up, but she found out that she couldn't. It would be entirely too sad to quit after just one month, especially now when she was finally feeling useful.

Of course her mother wouldn't understand.

And maybe she was right.

Sakura had almost died and that was a scary situation for a parent.

But the word 'almost' was what was important here.

The girl and her mother proceeded to argue, the volume of their voices increasing gradually until a nurse came and gently as well as a touch awkwardly, reminded them that they were in fact in a hospital. The only man in the room chuckled and the two stopped arguing in embarrassment.

Finally Sakura's mother left the room, promising that they would continue the conversation when she came back home.

"I'll convince her to leave you alone sweetheart." her father said, as he paused at the door "But please, at least think about it."

He soon left after that.

Sakura simply sighed, because she didn't need to think about it. She already knew perfectly well what she wanted to do.

And she was already where she wanted to be.

Well… aside from the whole being in a hospital thing….

XXXXX

Uchiha Sasuke was getting a bit annoyed by the constant questions that he had to answer over the past three days by various adults. You would think that after giving an official report and answering one set of questions everything would be fine. But no, he seemed to draw an absurd amount of questioning.

Sometimes he wished he had Naruto's luck.

The boy was still in the hospital with an extreme case of chakra exhaustion. He could barely move and was feeling bad generally all around.

The absurd amount of get-well gifts and cards were especially annoying. He could probably live it down if they came only from the various girls that followed him around, but he had received some... interesting presents from other people. Just imagining what Naruto would say about that made him groan in despair.

Sasuke had mixed feelings when it came to the mission.

He was understandably extremely happy, because he had finally unlocked his Sharingan, despite not being able to really play arou- …train, with it due to his distinct lack of chakra. His bloodline was sure to accelerate his progress even further. In short things were looking up, at least somewhat.

On the other hand, he had almost died. His friends (and he was surprised that Sakura was considered a friend, at least when she was acting seriously) had almost died.

And he couldn't do anything significant. He couldn't protect them. Hell, he couldn't even protect himself.

At that moment he felt that his brother, his goal, was as far away as the day of his departure.

It was almost funny, if he had been his old self, he would have probably blamed his friends, his sensei, the village, everyone and everything aside from himself. Finding excuses for his weakness.

But he wasn't the same. He knew that he needed time before he could become strong instead of lucky. He had a purpose and everything was in order.

Or at least it would be, when he got out of the hospital and resumed training with his team.

And if he could somehow burn all the cards before Naruto got his hands on them, well then, that would just be perfect.

Author's Notes:

Hello again dear readers.

First of all – sorry for the long wait, but life got in the way. You can expect new chapters around once a week from now on.

This chapter pretty much closed this particular part of the story. Having said that, there will be three or four (depending on my ability to think of something for Asuma) concentrating on a specific character in something of a slice-of-life genre. After that updates will stop for a week, before going into the next arc.

On another note, the currently posted chapters are getting an overhaul.

As always, many thanks to IncludeYourBanana for his help.

-IncludeYourBanana- Always glad to be of service :D !

Cheers,
Simon