Posted: June 16, 2012
Last Updated: June 16, 2012
Chapter WC: 8,263
Story WC: 44,167


Worth Dying For

Chapter 7
Exploration


-11:00 AM, March 2nd, 312 TE-

-Hidden Leaf Village's Northern Gate-

It was almost surprising to see that the other Genin and the Chuunin were already waiting at the northern gate when I arrived. I was so used to Hatake-sensei being late that timeliness seemed bizarre. I didn't recognize any of them, but it quickly became clear that the Chuunin knew me—and had had the honor of being on the end of one of my pranks.

"Uzumaki," he growled, grinding his teeth. He was in his late twenties, and had probably been a Chuunin for a while. His bitterness and obvious hatred for me combined with this mission was a Very Bad thing.

Could I never get a break?

I ignored the Chuunin and stood by the other Genin without a word. I could feel Tokui's massive form brushing against me, silently letting me know that he was still there. For a long second I desperately wished I could have Tokui reveal himself just so that I could see what kind of expression the Chuunin would make.

Either the Chuunin knew I was mocking him in my head or he was already in a bad mood—either way he didn't let me go so easily. Instead he strode over and glared down at me. I looked up at him, unimpressed. His glare barely reached a three on my Hatake-sensei Serious Glare Scale.

"You will not cause any trouble on this mission, Uzumaki," he said with more force than strictly necessary. "Do you understand me? You put one toe out of line, and I will make sure you're demoted."

"Yes sir, I will watch my toes, sir," I said in a bored tone and then, just for effect, stared down at my feet.

From the corner of my eye I watched the Chuunin turn red. To my disappointment he had enough self control that he didn't explode, and instead turned on his heel to wait stormily next to the Chuunin guarding the gate.

Great, that didn't make anything awkward. The other two Genin completely ignored my presence, and each other's. I assumed we were a team that had been thrown together for the mission, based around Takauji's request for me. Hmm, I hoped the Chuunin didn't know I'd been requested; he'd probably just make the mission harder for me.

Thankfully Takauji's caravan arrived a few minutes later, looking exactly as it had last time. This time, however, I could recognize the older nobleman on the horse as his guardian, Sazaki. I started to head to the back the first wagon where Takauji would be, but the Chuunin stopped me before I could go more than a two steps.

"Where do you think you're going?" he asked with open hostility. "You will not break formation without my express permission. Your Jounin sensei might let you run free, but I expect you to follow the chain of command."

My nostrils flared and I gritted my teeth. It took a second for me to calm down and then say, "I was requested to stay with the client, sir. Would you like to confirm it with him?"

The Chuunin frowned, torn between disbelief and wanting to look good in front of a client. At last he nodded jerkily and then disregarded me completely. "I want you two doing perimeter duty around the caravan," he said to the other Genin.

With Tokui at my side, I climbed into the back of the first wagon. Takauji greeted me cheerfully, already setting up a game of shogi. I rolled my eyes but took the seat across from him and consented to getting my ass kicked in a board game again.

We set off from the village when the sun was alright high in the sky. I wound up having to split my time playing shogi with Takauji and walking in formation with the other shinobi. They weren't very good company, frankly. One of them, a thickly muscled, broad shouldered guy who was two or three years older than me just grunted whenever I asked him something. The kunoichi of the group—who was easily eighteen, which said a lot about her skills as a Genin—wouldn't even look at me. And of course I made no move to go anywhere near the prickly Chuunin. Messing with him might be fun, but setting him off before I disappeared with Takauji wasn't exactly a good idea.

I was almost starting to miss Hatake-sensei. It was a rather horrifying prospect.

Four boring days passed in this manner until finally—finally—we stopped near where the underground compound was located just before dinner. Almost before I knew it Takauji had all but leapt out of the wagon, grabbed me, and was rushing away with a hurried goodbye to his guardian.

"Did you see Sazaki-san's expression?" I mused as we reached the trees. "He looked like he'd just bitten into something sour."

Takauji smothered a laugh. "He will probably send someone to follow us," he said.

"Well I think I can provide us with at least some cover," I said with a grin. A few hand signs later and I'd made several dozen bunshin. I sent them rushing off in different directions and then gleefully said, "Run!"

Takauji's grin matched mine and we both took off into the woods, following alongside a small dirt trail. Of course, we had to slow down when Takauji began gasping for breath a few minutes later. He kept on apologizing, but even with him being a civilian it took us less than half an hour to find the area we'd been in last time, and another five minutes to find the tunnel entrance. I could feel Tokui's tail brushing up against me every now and then. It had taken me a while to learn not to jump out of my skin every time it happened, since it was just his way of silently letting me know where he was.

Then we stopped, and stared.

Where the entrance to the tunnels had been was now nothing more than steep ditch filled with dirt and mud. It had partially collapsed again, probably from recent rainfall.

"What do we do now?" Takauji asked despairingly. He turned to me. "Do you have another jutsu you can use? I've heard of ones that can move earth."

"They exist, but I don't know them," I said as I shook my head. I'd certainly been pulled into the ground up to my neck by Hatake-sensei more than enough times. I looked up and down the rocky trail, vaguely recalling the direction the tunnel ran in. "But…this opening was just a fluke, so there must be another entrance somewhere."

Takauji brightened up at the prospect. "Well then, let's find it!"

"It could be miles away," I carefully pointed out. Takauji didn't waver so I nodded, satisfied, and we set off into the woods, away from the trail. I made a bunshin every fifty feet or so, to make sure we wouldn't get lost and that we were taking an exact straight line over where the tunnel should be.

Of course, there was a very good chance that there was a turn in the tunnel somewhere. If that was true, we were fucked.

We walked for what must have been another half an hour before we came across something that made me stop short. We had been vaguely following some more of those man-made stones before, but this? This was on a completely different level. It was a massive stone statue of a man, almost as tall as the treetops. It wasn't the statue itself that shocked me—I had grown up seeing the Hokage Mountain every day, after all, and the Great Izanagi Statue in Keishi completely dwarfed this one—so much as the fact that it was made out of a pure black stone, completely flawless and perfectly smooth despite the decades or even centuries it had been there for.

"What?" Takauji queried.

I shook my head without taking my eyes off the statue. "I don't know," I replied. "I have no idea what it is or how it could be here without anyone finding it."

"What are you talking about?" Takauji asked. He sounded honestly confused.

I frowned again and looked back at him. "The statue."

Takauji's gaze darted around the clearing, sliding right over the statue without looking directly at it. "What?" he repeated.

"Oh…" I looked back up at the stone with renewed awe—and confusion. "There must be some kind of Genjutsu over it. But why? And how, for that matter. Jutsu need chakra to keep them going and this clearly has been here for a while—there's moss and vines growing up its legs, covering almost everything below its waist. Maybe it's hidden by a seal of some sort…"

"Why can you see it while I can't?" The teen noble's frown reflected my own. "What is it a statue of?"

"Uh, a man. It's like thirty feet tall and really detailed—like jutsu-made detailed. He's wearing samurai-esque armor and a forehead protector with horns sticking out of it."

"Some kind of spirit, demon, or deity?" Takauji guessed.

"It could be… But why make a statue like this and then hide it? And you're right, how come I can see it?" I wished I could ask Tokui if he could see it too, or if he knew anything else about it, but the risk was too great.

"Do you think it could be related to the underground compound? It's right nearby."

"Well the door was locked with chakra. And maybe when we passed through it, it deactivated something? Though that doesn't explain why you can't see it, unless it's something to do with me being a shinobi," I said with a shrug.

"Do you think this could be the entrance?" Takauji asked, intrigued.

I grinned. "Only one way to find out."

I approached the base of the statue. His feet were actually buried a few feet in the ground, and I wondered if that said something about how long it had been there for. I brushed away some of the growth around his legs, but frankly I had no idea what I was looking for.

"Channel some chakra into the ground," Tokui suddenly said right next to my ear. "We're standing on top of a seal."

I shot a glance back at Takauji, who was watching me expectantly. I almost told him right then and there about Tokui, but something held me back. Instead I surreptitiously patted the tiger's side, silently thanking him. Standing directly in front of the statue, I took a deep breath and then began to channel my chakra. Much like when I was 'feeding' Tokui, I let it mingle in the air instead of twisting it into a particular form. Still holding my breath, I touched my hands to ground beneath the statue.

The effect was instant.

I jumped away when the loud grinding of metal against metal started up beneath us and the ground began to shake. "Holy shit—!" A light began to shine through the dirt around the statue as a bright, shining seal appeared. When Tokui had said we were standing on a seal, he hadn't been kidding—it was a massive seal around the entire clearing, with a diameter of at least two hundred feet.

Just as I was starting to think that activating the seal had been a Very Bad idea and that running away as fast as possible would be smart, the light flashed up around us and the world bled into white and—! I blinked the spots out of my eyes as the light faded away. Takauji, Tokui, and I were definitely not in the forest any more.

We were standing directly in the middle of a massive room. There were four steel walls around us instead of trees and a concrete floor beneath our feet where there had once been dirt and grass. Each of the walls was at least a few thousand feet away and I had to crane my neck back just to see the ceiling high above us, several stories up. The entire merchant district of Hidden Leaf Village could have comfortably fit in the room. There were more characters from the old language we'd found around the compound painted on the walls in a bright yellow, with each character over ten feet tall.

On the floor was a replica of the large seal that had lit up around the statue. It was painted black, inert.

"I've never seen anything like this before," Takauji said, awe coloring his voice as he looked around the cavernous space.

"It reminds me of a docking warehouse for ships, only a whole lot larger," I mused. At Takauji's questioning look, I added, "I saw one on TV once. It still doesn't even compare to this though."

"The oddest part is that this chamber is completely empty. It looks like it was made to house large constructs," Takauji said.

I shook my head. "Forget what it's used for, I want to know where we are! And what the hell this seal is, for that matter."

Takauji suddenly grabbed my arm, his eyes lighting up like they did whenever he found something fascinating—which seemed to be often. "This must be a part of the underground compound we found!" he exclaimed. "We would have to check with a Seal Master, but I'm pretty sure this is a type of transport seal. The knowledge of how to make them was lost a long time ago, so this has to be the compound."

"Which still leaves us with no idea where we are," I said. I turned on my heel and surveyed the room. At one end of the room was a suitably sized—meaning it was large enough to make a giant uneasy—garage door made of metal panels.

"No, no, it does," Takauji replied. "One of the main reasons why transport seals were forgotten is because no one was ever able to modify them to work over a distance large than a mile. It's a two part seal that works both ways, so the other part—the one we came from—has to be within that distance. And considering the size of this room, I'd bet we're a mile underground, directly beneath that invisible statue."

"Yeah, I guess," I said, scratching the back of my neck. "Well if that gives us a way to get in and out of here, should we explore?"

Takauji looked like he was about start clapping his hands together from sheer happiness. "Oh yes, right away," he agreed.

We headed to the metal garage door, which was the only obvious exit to the cavernous room. There was a normal, human-sized panel on the wall to the left of it. It looked much like the one I remembered being next to the elevator in the other part of the compound we'd been in, except that below the currently blank screen was a hand-sized pad with a seal inscribed on it.

"You wouldn't happen to know what that seal is, would you?" I asked.

"No; my knowledge of seals is limited mostly to theory," Takauji replied with a shake of his head. "But from its location I would assume it is a lock of some kind. It does look like a simplified version of the blood seals I know though, so there is a chance it might be activated by any kind of blood or chakra."

I shrugged. "Well there's no harm in trying. Unless it explodes and kills us, of course." Well, by 'us' I meant 'him', but getting the daimyo's nephew killed would still end very badly for me. Maybe I could spend the rest of my non-life hiding out in this compound.

I pressed my hand against the pad and channeled a small amount of chakra into the seal. Instantly we heard more metallic grinding as the metal shielding of the door began to lift upward, revealing a large, long hallway beyond it. Once we were sure the door wasn't going to drop on us, we headed through the opening and proceeded further into the compound.

Two things immediately became apparent. The first was that this compound, whatever it was, was huge. Like size of a minor city huge, covering miles of space deep underground. The second was that it was split into two main sections: giant-sized and normal-sized. The part of the complex that was filled with giant-sized rooms was mostly locked off by large steel doors that required specific blood or chakra to open. Those that we could get into were usually completely empty like the first room we'd arrived in—which we'd dubbed the Cavern, though I still voted for That One Really Big Room—but a few were filled metal machines and devices that Takauji said he'd never seen before.

"You have no idea what a discovery this is!" he kept saying over and over. "Most Saichuu Era technology was lost during the war!"

"You know, in the Academy they don't really teach us much history about before Hidden Leaf Village was founded. So you mind explaining a bit, like while all this 'technology' is rare?"

Naturally, Takauji was more than eager to launch into an academic explanation. "The Saichuu Era ended with what we call the Jūbi's War, because it was the Jūbi, a powerful demon who nearly destroyed the whole world. Historians say it was a reign of destruction unlike anything we can imagine, destroying entire cities at a time, killing millions upon millions of people, and ruining most of the known world. Technology in the Saichuu Era didn't use seals, but most of it was destroyed during the Jūbi's War so we don't know exactly how it worked.

"Today during the Tsuyoi Era, however, we have chakra, which back then we hadn't yet discovered how to manipulate. We have most abandoned the pursuit of ancient technology in favor of jutsu and seals. That's part of the reason why this compound is so incredible—it must have been built during the end days of the Jūbi's War, after chakra manipulation started to spread. I've never heard of a mix of chakra and ancient technology existing like this before. It's amazing!"

Note to self: Never ask Takauji for an in-depth history lesson.

"Right so, all this stuff is worth a lot then?" I asked.

"It's priceless!"

I scratched the back of my neck absently while repressing the urge to smile at that. "And what about this Jūbi thing? How was it stopped?"

"Your academy really didn't teach you about the Sage of the Six Paths?" he said, shaking his head in disbelief.

"Eh?" I shook my head. "Of course they did—he's the father of all shinobi. But what does he have to do with this war?"

Takauji shook his head again while frowning deeply. "It has everything do to with him. The Sage of the Six Paths is the one who stopped to war. He was practically considered to be a god because he was the one who managed to defeat the Jūbi. He sealed it away into himself, and then split it's chakra into the nine parts—nine parts which became known as the tailed beasts."

It took all my effort not to miss a step or even completely freeze in place. The 'tailed beasts' could only refer to one thing—and one of them was sealed away inside me. And Takauji was saying the Sage of the Six Paths created them?

"I suppose you were not taught much about it because many believe the Sage of the Six Paths to be a myth," Takauji continued.

I stayed silent instead of answering, and Takauji fell into a thoughtful silence as well. When we reached the end of the large hall we found a pair of normal-sized double doors waiting. There was no lock on these and we passed easily into a long, normal-sized hall. Almost immediately we came across some sort of medical bay. It was actually one of the closest rooms in the complex to the Cavern. I was becoming surer and surer that this had been a military compound of some type. If Takauji was correct about its age, then maybe it had been a base during this 'Jūbi's War.'

Across from the medical bay was a conference room with a basic chakra seal lock. It was large enough to comfortably seat at least fifty people and in the middle of the room was an oval-shaped conference table with about half as many seats. There were several small black devices, three empty mugs, and a couple of randomly placed papers on the table, and the walls were covered from floor to ceiling in screens. It was a bit disconcerting to see everything left just as it was hundreds of years ago. I almost expected a ghost to walk in and continue about its business. But even more than that, it made me wonder what had happened here for everything to be left like this.

Takauji walked up to the table and began examining the devices that had been left there. The second he touched the first one there was a mechanical whirring and then abruptly a light on top of it began to flicker. Surprised, Takauji instantly dropped it back onto the table, just as the light above it expanded into a projected image of an orb. I could only describe it as a hologram like I'd once seen in a sci-fi show.

"That's different," I said. Takauji was too enraptured by it to reply.

Slowly the orb made of light began to rotate in the air. There were lines on it forming odd shapes. Takauji gasped and pointed to a section of it—a section that looked exactly like a map of the Elemental Countries.

"It's a globe! A world map," Takauji said quickly. "Look, this is Fire Country. The country borders are the same as they were during the early Tsuyoi Era."

I squinted at it. "So Fire Country used to be a lot smaller?"

"Yes, we have gained a fair amount of land over the years. But this…" Takauji shook his head in wonderment. "Few have ventured very far past the borders of the Elemental Countries in recent years, so we do not know much about the lands beyond us. But if this is accurate, then the world is even larger than we knew! Look at how small a space the elemental countries take up."

Takauji reached forward as he spoke, pointing out the countries. The second his finger touched the projected lights, the image suddenly grew and changed before our eyes, zooming in on a larger map of the Elemental Countries. Takauji jerked his hand back as though he'd been burned, but a moment later was once again exclaiming happily and fawning over the device's capabilities.

I felt Tokui brush up against me, harder than he usually did—and thereby nearly knocking me into the table. "Er, I think it's time we go," I said aloud. "We don't know how long we've been down here, but my bet is at least an hour and it will still take time to get back to caravan. I'd really rather not have your guardian think I've kidnapped you and sold you into slavery in Stone Country."

Takauji looked disappointed, but nodded slowly in agreement. "How about one more room then?"

I rolled my eyes. "Why do I feel like we're tempting fate?" I grumbled.

Takauji shot me a grin. He fiddled around with the black device until he figured out how to turn it off, then pocketed it. With one last longing look at the other things on the table he turned and left the room with me. The next door down was some kind of mechanical sliding door. We'd come across a few of them already, and they were generally the hardest to get into.

When I place my hand on the seal lock, nothing happened—not even the usual beep and flash of red letters that came with a locked room that I couldn't get into. Frowning, I took my hand off and then tried again. This time screen above the seal flashed green and with a whoosh of air the door slid open a quarter of the way—then stopped abruptly.

"It must be jammed," Takauji said as he stepped forward. He pushed against the door and immediately it smoothly slid open. "There we go."

He stepped into the room, casting a curious gaze around. It looked as though something had exploded in it. Half the ceiling had caved in and a large support beaming was groaning audibly. I watched, alarmed, as some debris was dislodged from the ceiling and began to shower onto the floor.

"I think the movement of the door might have disturbed its balance," I said, eying the unstable ceiling warily. "Come on, this is definitely not safe—"

Takauji was just turning to leave when the half fallen support beam gave a much louder groan and began to buckle. Eyes shooting wide open, I found my legs already in action, running forward into the room even as the loud, bone-chilling sound of metal snapping reverberated through the small space. I grabbed Takauji by the front of his clothes and pulled as hard as I could, literally throwing him out of the room as entire sections of steel and concrete began to collapse around us. A foot away from the door I felt something slam into the back of my legs, knocking down to the ground and pinning me there—and then suddenly I could feel powerful jaws wrapping around my arm, but the pain of the fangs sinking into my flesh nothing compared to the white hot agony of my arm nearly being yanked out of its socked when half of me was pulled forward while the lower half of my body was still pinned beneath the collapsed rubble and—

Suddenly my legs pulled free and I was being dragged across the floor by Tokui, who had a solid grip on my upper arm.

"W-wha—" Takauji was stunned into incoherency. He was staring at Tokui with wide, glazed eyes. For a brief moment I wondered if he thought he was dead or something like that.

"You need to eat more meat," Tokui said to me. "Your blood is low on iron."

I rolled my eyes. "Really? That's the first thing you have to say?" I said dryly.

Tokui shrugged. "It is true."

"This—!"

Takauji struggled to his feet as his eyes shot between us. Then he closed his eyes and took in a deep, shuddering breath. The action seemed to calm him down immensely because when he looked at us again, he was merely frowning instead of looking like he was about to have a breakdown.

"Who are you?" Takauji asked, addressing my tiger companion.

"I am called Tokui," was the response he got as Tokui lowered his head marginally. Now that he was visible, he made the hall look dwarf-sized instead of normal.

I rubbed the back of my head and smiled awkwardly. "Uh, sorry about not telling you about him. Tokui can hide in plain sight and it could potentially make things difficult for me if his presence was known."

Takauji sent me a sharp look. "I can see why," he said dryly. Hesitantly he lifted his hand toward Tokui and when the tiger didn't immediately try to bite it off, he rested it against his fur. Takauji's drew in a quick breath, almost as though surprised to find him solid and real. "You're so big," he said, awed.

Tokui lifted his head proudly, preening like a house cat under Takauji's praise. I snickered at the sight, instantly prompting Tokui to glare at me and peel his lips back, baring his teeth.

"Right, well, I think that was our big warning to get out here for now," I said.

"Yes, I believe so," Takauji said. He attempted to brush off at least some of the gray dust caking his clothes, to little avail. Without looking up he said, "You know, you just saved my life, Naruto-kun."

I shrugged uncomfortably. "What, should I have just let you die? Please—your guardian would have killed me. And then Hatake-sensei would probably dig up my body and kill me again…"

Takauji gave me an odd smile that I couldn't decipher, and that resembled some of Hatake-sensei's smiles a little too much for comfort. "Please, just call me Akihito."

o-O-o

-1:30 PM, March 31st, 312 TE-

-Training Ground 16-

"Do you know what tomorrow is?"

I grunted noncommittally as I preformed the same strike again and again against a post. There was gauze wrapped around my hands to prevent too many splinters from getting caught in my busted up knuckles; they were a pain to have to dig out later. Hatake-sensei continued hum an upbeat tune, so at last I rolled my eyes and looked over at him.

"What's tomorrow, Hatake-sensei?" I asked dutifully.

"Graduation!"

"Come again?"

"Your Academy class graduates and is assigned teams tomorrow," he said. He was still smiling, but I noticed it was more forced than it usually was when he was intent on making my life hell.

Frowning, I rocked back on my heels. "And this concerns me how, exactly?"

"You knew it had to come eventually Naruto. You'll be placed on an official Genin team."

Something in my chest tightened for reasons I couldn't begin to fathom, and nor did I want to. "With rookies? Sounds fantastic," I muttered. "Well at least I might finally get a sensei who will teach me jutsu. Maybe even that mysterious 'Asuma' that you mentioned before."

"No can do, Naruto-chan," Hatake-sensei said with a chuckle. "You'll still be on my team. But there are other students I have to teach as well."

Have to teach? That sounded a bit odd. Hatake-sensei was strong, sure, but he wasn't exactly 'kid friendly'. Or people friendly, for that matter. Then in a flash, my mind connected the dots—Uchiha Sasuke had been in my Academy class. And other than him, Hatake-sensei was the only person alive with the Sharingan. Naturally, he had to teach Sasuke how to use his bloodline.

I snorted aloud. "Oh, this is going to be bundles of fun, isn't it?" I muttered. "I'll at least be trained separately, right?"

"We'll see." And the obnoxious grin was back. "Maybe you can be my teacher aide!"

"Like hell I will!"

The rest of the day was pure torture. Hatake-sensei ran me through what felt like every kata and training exercise he knew, as though he wanted to cram the rest of our training into that single day. It was worth it that evening though, when he suddenly stopped our training and held out a new set of chakra suppressors.

"Awesome!" I exclaimed while grinning widely. "I told you I was ready for another one—I mastered water walking ages ago!"

"And yet you still waste half the needed chakra when performing even a simple bunshin," Hatake-sensei said.

"That's still significantly better than what I used to do."

Hatake-sensei made a shooing motion with his hand. "Just go home and put them on. I'll meet you tomorrow morning at the Academy—"

With a whirl of leaves a Chuunin appeared. He passed a folded up piece of paper to Hatake-sensei and then disappeared without another word. It was always odd to see my sensei go from playful to completely serious in a split second, as he did in that moment. It reminded me that no matter how he acted, he was still a Jounin, not to mention ex-ANBU (and hadn't that information taken ages to drag out of him).

"I already dismissed you, Naruto," Hatake-sensei, staring down at the paper. I nodded and swiftly left.

o-O-o

-7:10 AM, April 1st, 312 TE-

-Shinobi Academy-

At 7:10 in the morning on the day after Academy graduation, Uchiha Sasuke sat in his seat with his elbows on the desk and his hands folded over each other. He blocked out the rowdy noise of the children around him by counting the scratches in the wood of the desk. There was pencil grime in a number of them, and soon he had to switch to counting the ceiling tiles to avoid fixating on wanting to clean the desk.

Just after the clock had hit 7:26 the door to the classroom slid open. It admitted one Uzumaki Naruto. Sasuke immediately raised his head and narrowed his gaze on the boy, mind working furiously as he tried to figure out what he was doing there.

There was a forehead protector on Naruto's forehead. There were four visible scratches in the metal and the sheen indicating a new forehead protector was missing. He was wearing dull orange pants with three weapon pouches. The weapon pouch on his upper right leg had one button missing—it looked like it had been torn away. The bottom of his pants had traces of mud stains. His black shirt showed no visible stains, but there was a small, almost invisible tear along the neckline.

Naruto had been an active shinobi for at least a few months.

Sasuke cast his mind back, trying to remember the day Naruto left. There was no particular event that sprung to mind. One day Naruto had merely stopped attending and his name had been removed from the class roster with no explanation. Sasuke had not thought to ask questions out at the time. He merely assumed that the blond had dropped out.

Sasuke grimaced as his father's voice rung in his head, saying Never make assumptions. Assumptions are what kill shinobi. He had assumed Itachi was loyal to the clan. And now he'd assumed Naruto was a dropout. Both were wrong.

The Uzumaki boy sat down in the seat closest to the door. He leaned back against the desk behind him and folded his arms over his chest. He didn't look at anyone. Conversations that had fallen away at his entrance slowly began to start up again.

Almost immediately Kiba jumped onto the desk behind Naruto. Crouching on all fours, he peered down at the blond. His filthy dog sat on his head like a stuffed animal.

"Oi, what are you doing here?" Kiba jeered loudly. "This room is for graduates only."

While watching the proceedings from the corner of his eye, Sasuke wondered how someone who was supposed to be a shinobi could be so unobservant as to miss Naruto's forehead protector.

"The hell are you on about?" Naruto retorted. He tapped his forehead. "I'm a shinobi, moron."

"Then where have you been? You're Naruto, right? You left ages ago!" Kiba said with a laugh. His dog barked in agreement.

Naruto rolled his eyes and muttered something inaudible under his breath. From the look on Kiba's face, it couldn't have been anything complimentary.

A row behind them, Shikamaru spoke up. "You graduated early, didn't you?" he said. Sasuke nodded along absently, glad that at least someone in the class had a brain to go with their eyes.

Naruto twisted around in his seat to look back at Shikamaru. "Exactly," he said, flashing a grin. Sasuke noticed a piece of food stuck in his tooth and twitched visibly. "I could have just walked in here and sat down for fun of it, but willingly doing something like that ranks only just above being eaten alive by a squirrel on my Naruto Pain Scale."

Under his breath Shikamaru muttered, "Troublesome." Then he nodded and said, "Nara Shikamaru, if you've forgotten."

Shrugging, Naruto replied, "Yeah, pretty much."

In the mean time, Kiba's face had quickly grown red. It made his grimy hair stand out all the more, and Sasuke instantly had to avert his gaze from the sight. Inuzuka bared his teeth in a wide grin and said, "Well if you're a Genin, what got you sent back here? Failed in the real world and got sent back to school?"

"You can't really be that stupid," Naruto said with a flat stare. Inuzuka spluttered indignantly and his dog began barking loudly. The blond continued, "Because I graduated early I've been doing rotational shifts for missions, filling in holes on different Genin teams. But now that you guys are—finally—graduating, I have the immense joy of being assigned to a permanent team." He snorted and looked away. "Lucky me."

Before Kiba could reply, the door slid open again. It was not Iruka-sensei like Sasuke was expecting—it was 7:31 which meant he was late—but rather a boy and girl. Sasuke had never seen either of them before, but they were obviously both shinobi. The girl had her hair done up in tight buns on their side of her head and the boy's hair was cut in a round shape, perfectly smooth with not a single hair out of place. Sasuke briefly wished he had such hair; his seemed to be doomed to be out of place, regardless of how much hair product he used. A few years ago Sasuke sold his bathroom mirror, to avoid having to see such a travesty.

Immediately upon their entry Naruto stood and rushed to them. He moved much faster than Sasuke was expecting. The boy with the good hair lowered his head, staring at the floor. The girl's eyes were rimmed with red, as though she had been crying recently. Sasuke looked away.

"What happened?" Naruto demanded. "Where's Hyuuga? Lee, what happened?"

The boy shook his head. His face looked rather blank, neither smiling nor frowning. As Naruto's gaze switched to the girl, she said, "Two weeks ago...we had a mission that went from C-rank to A-rank. We were told to come here to…"

Sasuke did not know which Hyuuga they were referring to—Hyuuga Hinata was in her seat, slumped down and not looking at anyone. It was, however, pretty apparent to Sasuke that the two standing in the doorway had recently lost a teammate and were being added to their class for team assignment. According to theory, missions only increased in rank if they became more difficult, specifically if a powerful opponent appeared.

Several Jounin walked into the room just as the two new shinobi sat down with Naruto. Sasuke put his hands down at sat up straighter. His eyes quickly flashed over them, wondering which would be the one to help him achieve his goals.

A tall Jounin with broad shoulders and dark hair stepped forward. "Hyuuga Hinata, Inuzuka Kiba, Heisei Mamoru, and Haruno Sakura, I am your Jounin sensei, Sarutobi Asuma. Come with me," he said as he pulled out a cigarette and lit it with a snap of his finger.

From the corner of his eye, Sasuke saw Naruto sit up, staring intently at the Jounin. No one else seemed to notice this odd reaction. Sarutobi walked from the room and didn't even look back as his Genin filed out behind him. A woman stepped forward next, quickly listed off a few names, and smiled benignly as the children walked up to her. More Jounin followed, one of them a pale haired man with a scar on his chin and the other a shinobi whose face was so rigid it looked like he could break a shuriken in half with his jaw alone.

The fourth Jounin was a man who looked like an older version of the boy sitting next to Naruto. Quickly looking back and forth between them, Sasuke was able to confirm that despite their identical outfits and hair, they were not related. Their facial structured differed too much. The set of the Jounin's nose was completely different. The Jounin was built for raw strength, while the boy was built for speed.

"Rock Lee, Utatane Tenten, Nara Shikamaru, and Akimichi Chouji, follow me. I am Maito Gai," this man said.

One by one the number of Genin began to shrink as Jounin left with their students. At last Sasuke was left alone with Naruto, the Aburame boy, and one of his dreadful fangirls. Sasuke clenched his fists. The girl alone ruined this team, regardless of the capabilities of the other two. Sasuke was not interested in dragging along a dead-weight. He knew how powerful Itachi was, and how big a gap there was between them. If he was weighed down by some silly little girl who thought being a kunoichi meant memorizing a list of past events and looking pretty then there was a chance he would never catch up to Itachi.

Their Jounin sensei was not there. That irked Sasuke almost more than the Fangirl. He would not be pawned off onto a sensei who had no real desire to teach them. It looked like Sasuke would be spending the next few days training at night in order to catch up on wasted time.

A loud yelp sounded from the front of the room. Sasuke's head snapped over to see Naruto glaring at a silver haired man who was standing behind him, leaning over his shoulder.

"You need to pay more attention!" the man said cheerfully and then flicked Naruto on the forehead. The boy grumbled under his breath. "What was that?"

"Nothing, sensei," Naruto said in an overly innocent tone. "I was just wondering: is that a black hair I see?"

The man's hand automatically rose to his head, then he flicked Naruto again, who scowled. It was obvious to Sasuke that they were very familiar with each other. Was this who had been teaching Naruto since he'd left?

"Right then, on to business," the man said as he sauntered into the middle of the room. "Since you're all here and they're all gone, we'll do our introductions here. I'm Hatake Kakashi, your new Jounin sensei. Aren't you lucky!" He stared at Naruto, who gave an innocent smile in reply, obviously swallowing whatever he wanted to say. "I want you all to tell everyone six things about yourself: Your full name, age, rank—"

"But that's obvious, sensei," the Fangirl said. Kakashi stopped and stared blankly at her until she started shifting uncomfortably and looked down. Her cheeks flushed as she mumbled something unintelligible under her breath.

Sasuke glowered. This whole thing was proving to be a waste of time. He had package of fresh fish at home that he wanted to eat for lunch. It would take 14 minutes to cook, 3 minutes to clean up, and then he could head out and spend the rest of the day training.

Kakashi beamed at the Fangirl and then continued as though she hadn't spoken, saying, "You will tell everyone your full name, age, rank, blood type, next of kin, and registration number. Listen closely, because you need to memorize what your teammates' answers are. And yes, you will be tested. If you fail, I'll stab you with a kunai."

Sasuke stared at the man and could safely say he was not the only one. However, he probably was the only deciding that he might like Kakashi as a sensei. The man was clearly not afraid to be rough with them. That he only had one eye made Sasuke concerned that his depth perception could be too off though, and that could affect his fighting capabilities.

"Yeah, this will be fun," Naruto muttered.

Kakashi then stabbed in the shoulder.

"The fuck—?" Naruto snarled as he yanked the kunai out and tossed it at Kakashi. The Jounin laughed aloud as he dodged and the blade slammed into the blackboard behind him, cracking it down the middle "What the hell was that for?"

Sasuke's hand was frozen over his weapon pouch as this proceeded. He jolted in his seat as the blackboard crashed to the floor in the background. This was…not what he was expecting when he'd praised Kakashi for being 'rough'.

"No disrespecting your sensei," Kakashi said gleefully. "And since you decided to make yourself stand out—"

"I'm not the one getting happy with the pointed weapons! You're scarring my teammates' delicate minds!"

"—You can go first, Naruto-chan," Kakashi finished.

The Fangirl was gaping at both of them, looking more than just a little horrified. It was impossible to tell what the Mute was thinking behind his high-collared jacket. For his part, Sasuke's arm was beginning to itch at just the thought of the blood drying and staining Naruto's shirt. Bloodstains were always difficult to remove, so it was best to soak them in water straight away. Naruto seemed entire unconcerned with this, which boggled Sasuke's mind.

"Yeah, whatever," Naruto grumbled. He paused for a second and his face scrunched up in thought. "Uzumaki Naruto, twelve, Genin, B, no one, 012592."

Kakashi smiled beneath his mask. "Now that wasn't so hard, was it?" Naruto glared at him, but kept his mouth shut. "Next?" Kakashi prompted.

The Mute leaned forward. "I am Aburame Shino, twelve years old, a Genin, my blood type is AB, Aburame Shibi, and my registration is 012618," he said. His voice was monotone, but not quite flat. He glanced toward Sasuke, whose perpetual frown deepened. He was not comfortable with handing out information about himself, especially not while the Fangirl was eying him like a piece of meat she wanted to carve up.

"Uchiha Sasuke. Twelve. Genin. AB…" Sasuke's voice constricted in his throat. For a moment all he could see was blood, the bodies of his parents, and Itachi's spinning red eyes as he sneered down at him. "No one," he managed to continue, only marginally sounding like was chocking. He would not break down, he would not show weakness to these people. "012606."

The Fangirl looked anxiously at Sasuke. That sort of pity was exactly what he didn't want. He preferred the hidden sneers to the pity. She reached out to touch his shoulder, but a short glare from him made her stop short and quickly withdraw the appendage. If he didn't let that therapist they threw at him touch him, why would she think she could?

"Umm... I'm Yamanaka Ino, twelve, Genin, B blood, Yamanaka Inoichi, 012604," she said. She stared at Sasuke the entire time she spoke. He tried to pretend she wasn't. With luck she would be like that weird stain on the outside of his apartment building that had been just out of reach, and would disappear if he waited long enough.

Kakashi clapped his hands. "Now that that's done, we can move on to the real point of this meeting: you're not actually Genin yet. Except for Naruto-kun," he said as an afterthought, "but that's still debatable.

Sasuke felt like an icy cold hand had gripped his heart and was threatening to rip it from his chest. "What do you mean?" he demanded. He'd gone through too much, fought too hard, to be stopped now.

"No need to be so angry, Sasuke-chan!" Kakashi said.

A growl rose in the back of Sasuke's throat and he glared fiercely at the Jounin. He was not about to be insulted by a man with a tilted forehead protector that he desperately wanted to reach out and straighten.

Ignoring Sasuke's reaction completely, Kakashi continued his dramatic explanation. "You still have one more exam to pass before you are officially instated as shinobi. That exam will take place…tomorrow! Your orders are thus: show up by the South Gate at 0600 tomorrow, equipped for a long term mission. If you are late, you fail. If you want to withdraw, say so now."

To Sasuke's eternal surprise, the Fangirl tore her gaze away from him long enough to evenly meet Kakashi's gaze. With determination in her voice she said, "We wouldn't be here if we weren't already sure that we wanted to be shinobi, sensei. What type of mission should we pack for?"

Kakashi smiled. "Good question. But I won't give you an answer."

The girl immediately protested, "But that's not—"

"Not fair? And I thought you said you wanted to be a kunoichi. Sometimes you have to pack without knowing exactly what you'll need, and this is one such occasion," Kakashi said.

Naruto shifted in his seat while frowning. He was eying Kakashi suspiciously—and still ignoring the blood that had dried on his arm from his shoulder wound. How in the world could he not want to clean it off? He was even more of an unknown wildcard that Sasuke had thought he was.

"Can we go then?" Sasuke asked, looking anywhere other than at Naruto's arm.

Kakashi's smile widened. "Nope! Not until all of you can recite the six pieces of information each of your teammates gave. Naruto-kun, we'll start with you. Go!"

Naruto stared blankly. "What?"

"Oh dear, is your poor memory acting up? How about blondie #2 then?" Kakashi said to the Fangirl. She glared at him. "No? Shino, Sasuke, anything to add?"

The Mute didn't move at all and Sasuke looked away, not wanting to admit that he didn't remember. He'd always had a good memory and caught onto things quick—but only if he found them important enough to remember. And to him, the Mute, the Fangirl, and the Wildcard had yet to do anything to prove themselves as worthy shinobi.

"Alright then, I guess you four had better give out that information again," Kakashi said. "You're not going home until all of you can recite everything perfectly—and I don't care if it takes all night."

o-O-o

shogi – Japanese chess
bunshin – clone technique

A/N: The image of Sasuke using words like "dreadful" and "travesty" makes me lol. And yes, part of this story will be told from Sasuke's point of view. The large difference between the way he and Naruto think and view the world makes him surprisingly fun to write. Also, I'm assuming that Hidden Leaf's Academy at least vaguely follows Japans school year system, hence why they are graduating in April.

A quick correction to the AN from chapter 6: apparently there are computers in the Naruto world. They've mainly been shown being used by hospitals however (ie to monitor Choji's vitals after his fights with Jirobo), so I'm going to assume for now that they have pretty limited capabilities and that nothing like the internet exists. Upon further research I've also found an interview in which Kishimoto specifically states that they are "low-processing" computers that would "maybe" be eight-bit and that they would "definitely not" be sixteen-bit. So yeah, pretty basic technology.

And finally, I'm starting to make some use of the new "story cover" feature that FF net has added. Hope it's not too small/indiscernible though... (You guys can tell what it's a picture of, right?) I might change it/add text later, but it works for now.

Happy reading!

—S.R.