AN: I`m back. Sorry for the belateness, I had some thechnical problems to upload this chapter despite is was done for since last thursday. I want to thnak all of you that had take your time to review this work, I aslo thank those that had add this to their favorite/alert lists.

Also I want to thank my BETA: ProngKiller (Thanks Man, you are AWESOME!).

Chapter 10: Innatural Selections

But here a rain falls never-ending, and I am far from home. – Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel series.

As a ninja, one had to be accustomed to adapt really fast, to take opportunities as they show up and to use any advantage that one could get to accomplish the mission. Above all, a ninja had to thrust implicitly his Kage, even above his own instincts. Umino Iruka was not an exception. The academy teacher always trusted his instincts to create balanced teams during the final assignment. Over the years, he had acquired a cunning ability creating the perfect combination of genins. It can be counted with one hand the times that he may had committed a mistake and this was the reason, at least in part, that the Hokage and the ninja council accepted his decisions. But this time it had been different. Hokage-sama himself had overruled the placements that he had proposed.

Originally, he had placed Uzumaki Naruto, Hyuuga Hinata and Akaimichi Choji under Yuhii Kurenai; Uchiha Sasuke, Yamanaka Ino and Aburame Shino under Hatake Kakashi; and, Haruno Sakura, Nara Shikamaru and Inuzuka Kiba under Sarutobi Asuma.

But now, things were different, and Iruka could have bet his forehead protector that the students would rebel against it. He would not be disappointed.

"… Team 7 will be formed by Uchiha Sasuke, Haruno Sakura and Uzumaki Naruto. Your jounin sensei will be…" be he couldn't finish. A shocked "WHAT?" was heard above all the students voices. The source? It was the nervous looking, along side an incredulous stare, Haruno Sakura. Iruka assumed, wrongly of course, that Sakura was apprehensive about being in the same team of Uchiha, especially after the last week incident. But Sakura was not even thinking in Sasuke at the moment.

"Shit! Why team with Naruto? Why any body but him? I can deal with Sasuke, but I'm not sure about Naruto. I can ask for a transfer but I doubt that anybody will hear me. What to do?" were the thoughts of the pinkette.

"SILENCE!" Iruka yelled, ending all future insurrections. "All teams had been carefully selected by Hokage-sama, if you had any problems with it, you can complain to him directly." That quieted any other protests. "Now, as I was saying, team seven is under jounin instructor Hatake Kakashi. Team 8 is formed by Inuzuka Kiba, Hyuuga Hinata and…" and the team assignment went on.

Any ninja in the Leaf thrust their instincts; they trusted their Hokage even more, and Umino Iruka was not an exception. Yet, a thought didn't want to let him be.

"These teams are, or at least team 7 is, doomed to failure."

It had been 2 hours since the last team had left with their jounin sensei. Naruto was sleeping on his desk, Sasuke was brooding while watching the windows at the side and Sakura was keeping close watch over Naruto without being so obvious. Naruto, of course, knew this so he started to fake being sleep so he could observe Sakura without any problems. The Naruto that was sleeping was a normal Bushin; it was thanks to Naruto´s chakra control and some minor passive genjutsus that neither Sasuke nor Sakura had noticed it as an illusion. The real Naruto was in the back on the classroom watching everything, hearing everything. Something about Sakura was bothering him and he wanted to find out why. Hinata had worried him enough.

(Flashback)

"Remember Naruto-kun, keep a close eye in Sasuke, but never, and I mean NEVER, take your eyes from Sakura…"

"Why?"

"Because she is dangerous."

(End of flashback)

That had left Naruto confused but he never had doubted his Hime before and he would not start any time soon. Yet, her reaction, when he told her about his encounter with Ino, was baffling…to say the least.

(Flashback)

"She WHAT?"

"Yeah, weird, I know. But she is not as bad as I though. The fact that she had gave up her fandom over Sasuke is a plus." Said Naruto happily to the possibility to make a new friend. Maybe things would start to look up for him after all this years.

Sadly, Hinata didn't share his fortune.

"Naruto-kun," started Hinata in a too innocent sweet voice, "please, stay away from Ino. I don't want to see her with you after all the insults and tongue lashing that she and the other fangirls inflected upon you in the past."

"But Hina-hime, I think Ino was being sincere." Said Naruto confused by her request.

"Maybe she was Naruto, but tell me, if Hokage-sama, or the rest of the village for that matter, came to you now and ask you forgiveness for all the thing, the beatings, the mistreat that they had caused you," Hinata´s words had the desired effect on Naruto, whom was changing to a darker mood for each word that Hinata pronounced, "would you forgive them?"

"Heck, no!" was the fast sincere answer from Naruto.

"Them, why Ino is different? She was part of your torment, albeit at a smaller scale, so why to welcome her just like that?"

"I… don't…know." Naruto was depressed by this. All the joy of making a new friend was gone into the deeps of sadness, hurt and anger.

"Then, you know what to do." And with that, Hinata sealed the deal with a deep, if brief, kiss that left Naruto totally dazed.

(End of flashback)

Yeah, Naruto didn't know what to think about it, but he would not risk to make Hinata mad at him, or worst, sad. Naruto would let himself to be ass raped by monkeys first than make Hinata cry.

His thoughts were interrupted when Sakura stood up and walked over Iruka, who was correcting some papers on his desk. Enhancing his hearing, he decided to be privy of their conversation. A sided glance confirmed that Sasuke had change lightly his position indicating that he was mildly interest on whatever Sakura wanted to talk about.

"Iruka-sensei," started Sakura. For some reason, her voice sounded too nervous to him, "can I ask some questions?"

Iruka, a bit too happy to interrupt his dealing with paper work, nodded while giving a curious stare to the pinkette.

"Well, I want to know if it is possible to ask for a transfer to another team." THAT surprised Iruka and Naruto, albeit for different reasons. Iruka though that it had something to do with Sakura´s and Sasuke´s incident.

"It is possible," said Iruka, bringing hope to Sakura´s eyes, just to kill it with his next words, "but those happened under overstrained circumstances. No matter how much you may plead for a change, it will not be hear if is not necessary. As ninja, each one of us bound to put aside any feelings or desires that we may have to someone or something." It was cruel, but to say anything less would be even crueller.

"I… understand… Thank you Iruka-sensei." She clearly wasn't happy, but accepted the truth of the matter so went back to her sit. Naruto was baffled by this.

"What was that about?" and "Were the heck is our jounin-sensei?"

Thirty minutes later Naruto had enough. He quickly switched places with his bushin, dispelling it in the process, standing up and stretching before walking to the door.

"Where are you going dobe?" asked Uchiha Sasuke in the never-seen-before-act of starting a conversation on his own volition.

"Me? I am going to get some ramen before going to train. I don't intend to waste my whole day waiting for a teacher that obviously doesn't care enough to come and meet his team." And with that he left. He didn't show it, but his was royally pissed.

Meanwhile, Sasuke and Sakura were let alone in the classroom. Sakura started to spin a kunai on her palm with the only help of her chakra, after a while, she had a kunai in both palms that were spinning rather smugly. It was a simple, yet surprising difficult to do, exercise to improve the kunai and chakra, handling and dexterity. Sakura personal best was lasting 90 minutes with both kunais spinning without stop, and now the wanted to surpass her personal record. In the other hand, Sasuke came back to his trademark brooding position while, discreetly watching whatever Sakura was doing.

To her delight, Sakura lasted 2 hours and 10 minutes before losing her concentration, stopping the spinning kunais on her palms. To the dismay of both of them, their sensei arrived 2 hours and 45 minutes after Naruto was gone.

"Yo!" half saluted, half waved the silver haired jounin with only one visible eye. "Sorry for being late. A black cat… wait, wasn't it supposed to be three of you? Where is your other teammate?"

"He got REALLY annoyed with your tardiness and went off to do Kami knows what with the free time like a little more than three hours ago." Answered Sakura in a VERY pissed tone. Kakashi just sweat dropped at her statement. I never occurred to him that a genin would just bugger off at his antics. I never had happened before.

"Well, we need him so Team 7 could be active. So we need to find it…ASAP."

"What do you mean sensei?" asked Sasuke. That last statement didn't sound good to him, and Sakura was feeling the same dread.

"I will tell you when we find him, but it is safe to say that all your ninja careers depend on it." And with that Kakashi started to get out of their. Sasuke and Sakura followed him immediately.

"Sasuke, Naruto mentioned that he would buy some ramen, so our lead could be found there." Proposed Sakura; Sasuke just nodded. They picked off and in the process Kakashi was behind them reading an orange book while giggling time to time.

"Maybe he is testing us to see how our information gathering and tracking skills are." Were the individual, synchronized thoughts of both genins.

"Oh Kyoko, you are such a naughty, naughty girl." Was Kakashi's thought at the moment.

It took them ten minutes, ninja speed, to arrive to Ichiraku´s Ramen Stand. Unsurprisingly, Naruto was not there.

"Sir, can I ask you something?" asked Sasuke politely. He knew that, thanks to his Last Loyal Uchiha station, things go easier for him. And right now he needed the info where the blond bastard took off form this old man ramen stand owner. "My name is Uchiha Sasuke and my teammate. Uzumaki Naruto, blond with whiskers, was here and we need to know where he went." Sasuke, at the mention of his named, expected to have his doors opened for him, sadly, he went for a surprise with the unimpressed response of the old man.

"Oh, nice to meet you, my name is Teuchi. Yeah, Naruto-kun was here a couple of hours ago. He was kind of pissed at something and was unnaturally quiet the whole time. The most worrying thing was that he only ate 2 bowls of ramen."

"And why that is a bad thing, Ichiraku-san?" asked Sakura. She was kind of annoyed that Sasuke neither introduced Kakashi or she, nor he had include them in the conversation.

"Well, for starters, Naruto is never quiet, calm. He is always a goofball of bouncing energy with something interesting to tell or eager to talk about whatever. But the worst is that how much ramen he ate. Usually Naruto eats between 15 to 18 bowls of ramen. The least he had eaten in the past had been 8 bowls, so you can see why I'm worried."

Sasuke, Kakashi and Sakura were caught out of guard by this. "No matter how you look at it, that is WAY TOO MUCH ramen for a normal human being, if you are not an Akamichi." was the shared thought.

But something else was bothering Sasuke."Naruto, hyperactive? Since when? Naruto had been quiet and reserved ever since he started to hang out with the meek mouse of the class." Secretly, Kakashi shared his concerns since it contradicted Naruto´s academy report.

"Ichiraku-san, do you know where Naruto went for training? We need him for our team session." Said Sasuke.

"Well, I often found him in Training Area 43 passed out for exhaustion. You may find him there."

Quickly the team thanked the old man and started to run off the said training area. Again that last piece of information baffled them again.

"Who are you, Uzumaki Naruto?"

Team seven found Naruto nor after long. What they saw surprised them and let then look in awe.

Uzumaki Naruto was running and jumping ON the water while dodging some sort of water tentacles that were popping out form the river that Naruto was using as training ground. He was blindfolded but his evasion moves were graceful, if simple and not too flashy, and his reflexes were something that could only be seen after years of intensive training.

"Unbelievable," though Kakashi, "that is an ANBU version of a high chuunin level chakra control exercise. Most chuunin cannot do it. Heck, a lot of ANBU struggle with it. How and who taught Naruto this much? May be is the Fox doing?" Kakashi's astonishment was comprehensible. The water chakra control exercise didn't require that much chakra form the user, but the concentration and focus that it demanded to work were insane. Subconsciously, Naruto had to control the water tentacles with his chakra and his own mind while dodging the attacks. It not just divided the chakra in one's body, but also divided the brain's attention in different functions at the same time. The fact that the tentacles were controlled automatically by Naruto's brain without his control over it added new heights of difficulty.

Sakura was totally awe. She knew, while she hasn't done it herself, that the chakra control exercise that Naruto was doing was really difficult and really taxing to do.

Sasuke, in the other hand, was furious. "Not only Sakura, but Naruto too. When these worms started to gain such skills and power? I deserve it more than them. I suppose that is a good thing that I am in this team after all, because when I get my Sharingan, their strength will add to my own." His characteristic arrogant smirk twisted to something more sinister.

It seemed that Naruto noticed the new arrivals because he stopped his dodging while the tentacles return to heir natural calm water state. Removing his blindfold, the blond jumped out the water to approach the group.

"I assume that you are our jounin sensei." Stated Naruto.

"I assume that you are my third wayward student." Said Kakashi with one of his oneeyesmile.

Kakashi stared at him for a couple of seconds before smiling again. "Please come here, we have things to discuss." He said while sitting on the ground. The genins followed suit.

"Alright, just you to know Naruto, thanks to that stunt that you pulled you and your team would have failed my test and you three would have been sent to the academy." THAT got their attentions immediately. "Don't worry, I only would this when genins don't pass my test, and so far, you haven't take it yet."

"Sensei, how many teams had you evaluated?"

"With you, more or less 9."

"How many had you passed?"

"None." He answered a way too happily.

"What kind of test do you use?" asked Sakura totally horrified.

"Don't worry about that. I know for sure that, even without my test, you would have failed." Again answered Kakashi with his cheerful smile.

The protests from Sakura and Sasuke commenced at the same time, while Naruto was silently staring at Kakashi, something that the jounin noted, trying to decipher a hidden meaning to all this. "A shame for him," though Kakashi, "I'm just having my fun."

"Don't worry. Instead to give you a test that you would have failed for sure, I am going to do something different this time."

The three of then could not held back the shiver that run through their spines when Kakashi smiled again. The teens could have sworn that for a moment, the sky darkened and lighting crossed the clearing where they were at. The fact that was a really sunny day didn't help their assumptions of a genjutsu being involved.

Two months had pass ever since team seven was formed. Kakashi, true to his fashion, established some ground rules for them. First, both Sakura and Naruto had to teach Sasuke tree climbing, water walking, kunai and shuriken balancing exercise. They weren't taught anything else only Sasuke completely mastered these exercises. It irked Naruto that Sasuke managed it even faster than him did, but he never voiced his thoughts of the matter. What pissed Naruto more was the fact that Kakashi was giving the emo-queen private tutoring after each day of training was called off.

The second rule that they had was that they need to complete at least 10 D ranked missions per day during two weeks. If for any reason they didn't reach this goal, they had to start the count again. It annoying them because they have to restart like four times after they have like 10 or 11 days already in the sack.

A good thing about the normally boring D ranked missions was the way Kakashi use the opportunity to train. Naruto still remembered that first time they took the amazing and exciting mission (please, note the sarcasm) of… fence painting.

(Flashback)

Team seven was on the backyard of Mrs. Noriko´s house. She was a retired civilian council member and, as such, had a huge house with an equally huge yard surrounded by a big yellow fence. Their job was to paint it. It normally would take like 2/3 of the day to finish the job but Kakashi had something in mind.

"Okay, most of the time, D ranked missions are considered a bother and just cheap way too build teamwork on the team. But it was not always like this; before it was used as one of the most useful tools of training. Watch…"

And with that, Kakashi opened a can of paint to put his extended open palm on the surface of the gooey liquid. To the awe of the student, when the jounin took of his hands of the paint, a perfect orb of the pain of the size of a basketball ball stuck on his palm. Standing up, the sensei approached the fence and touching it with the paint orb, Kakashi pushed a little bit. Immediately, the paint spread it self in a big section of the fence while Kakashi's palm was extended facing the fence without touching it. When the self-painting liquid stop, a section of the fence was perfectly paint, even better that it would have been with a brush or a roll and it looked like a the careful work of and artist. Kakashi show his palm to his students to show them that the palm itself was licked off clean, with no sing of any paint in it.

"Impressive, isn't it? Now is your turn. This is how you do it…"

(End of flashback)

That day they finished like in two hours the whole fence. Kakashi conveniently forgot to tell them that it was freaking taxing. When they finished they felt like they had been training 24 hours straight without any kind of rest or paused. Kakashi did warn them that at first it will feel like that. It wasn't too chakra consuming, but it put a lot of strain on their chakra coils and their bodies.

Similar principles were used on other chor…missions, like taking out the mud from stored water or local ponds.

Sasuke, Naruto noted, had been even broodier than before. The fact that he needed that both Sakura and Naruto himself, whose he saw as inferior to him, to help him with some exercises was a sore blow to his ego. The Uchiha hadn't forgiven the blond, not that Naruto cared, for almost jeopardizing entirely his ninja career and his unquestionable path of power to destroy Itachi. And to add salt to the injury, he was having troubles during the spars. Even with Kakashi secret extra help, of five spars in a row, he won to against Sakura, lose two and let one as a tied. With Naruto, he even couldn't touch him losing all five matches. Sasuke, of course got strong really fast and, when he though that he had totally outclassed Sakura at least, the pinknette surprised her team and sensei coming back stringer too. Sasuke seemed to forget that he was not the only one growing in skill and power.

Naruto personally though that, at the moment, Sakura was more of a challenge than Sasuke. She even managed to win 1/5 against him, something that pissed the Uchiha even more.

Is Naruto had to guest, he would say that their team was the strongest overall, even if Hinata could wipe out the floor with them singlehandedly.

And that's why they were on a high C rank mission at the moment. Nothing too important, just a currier mission to the southern borders from the Fire Country capital. It was a message from the governor to the local Mayor regarding something that the team didn't knew squad about.

While they were jumping to tree to tree, Naruto was thinking over the meeting that he and Hinata had two days before going out of the village.

(Flashback)

Both Hinata and Naruto were enjoying the sunset in their favourite sport in the park when they noticed that they were alone in the whole area, which was really strange at those hours.

"Hinata-chan…" said Naruto without changing in the slightest his position, resting his head on Hinata´s lap while Hinata´s hand caressed his hair tenderly.

"I know Naruto-kun…"

The message was clear, they were not alone.

As cue, and old man with a cane, with half of his face and upper body, right arm included, covered in bandages. The old man with tan skin had and "X" scar on his chin.

"Good evening, Uzumaki Naruto, Hyuuga Hinata. My name is Shimura Danzo and I had a proposition for you. If you are interested I will like to have a couple of minutes with you."

(End of flashback)

Danzo knew that they knew that someone had cast a passive privacy illusion that had affected anyone that was not Hinata or Naruto. What Danzo didn't realize was that they also knew that five highly trained ROOT agents were hidden observing everything.

Naruto was forced out of his thoughts when a rain of sembons fell upon them. Thankfully, well placed Substitutions with nearby logs (And The Log said: Do not fear thy use of me because I will save thee.). But it was not the end. Without paused Kakashi was surrounded by what looked like rock human sized dolls that were attacking him in rapid succession.

Out of nowhere, a man that looked like he was in his mid thirties, with curly brown messed up hair and sadistic glee in his black eyes was positioned in attacking form with an o- katana pointing towards Sasuke. In a blink of an eyed, the man was in front of Sasuke, who was looking a way to escape, ready to inflict a lethal blow.

Sasuke's eyes lighted with and idea and, immediately, substituted his body with the nearest object that he found.

Kakashi, who had destroy the rock dolls somehow, watched with horror what happened.

The nearest object that Sasuke took for his substitution was not and object but his females teammate, Haruno Sakura, who now was impaled trough the stomach by the enemy katana with the tip pocking out from her back.

Kakashi didn't saw any sing of remorse in Sasuke's eye but contempt and… satisfaction? A though crossed the shocked sensei: "Sasuke, what have you done?"

Sarutobi Hiruzen was facing twelve ANBU agents in his office. These were not normal ANBU, they where the Hokage most trusted ninja, the ones that he gave the orders that he didn't give to others. He put his life in their hands without question and he knew that they will move heaven and earth to fulfil their tasks.

"It seems that my traitorous student had not been wasting his time." Said the Sarutobi referring to the report that Yuurei had gave him. "During the next Chuunin Exams, Orochimaru, with his new hidden village, along side with Suna, will stage a campaign to destroy Konoha. Sadly, we cannot cancel the exams now. Steps are being taken to set this opportunity as trap for them and to minimize the causalities. Is possible that I don't survive, and thus, I will give you a last mission. These, " said the Hokage while passing them some folders, "are your targets. The enemy has inside help and we cannot let this pass. During the invasion, your mission is to eliminate them and make it look like it was our enemies doing."

"Now, this is what we are going to do…"

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Kudos to who can say from where I took out The Log Commandment Phrase. Clue: is a NaruHina time travel fanfiction.

Loved it? Hated it? R&R.