"Moooorning Sakura-chan, morning Sasuke-teme," Naruto's enthusiastic greeting grates on Sasuke's still sleepy ears.
"Oh, hey, Naruto," Sakura says.
"Hn," says Sasuke, by which he means 'good morning Naruto. I'm still half asleep; please don't shout, you're hurting my ears.'
"Oh, sorry Sasuke," apologizes Naruto, understanding perfectly.
"So what are we going to do to sensei for being late today?" Sakura asks.
Naruto's grin scares Sasuke.
Three hours later…
Sasuke is bored. Naruto's prank involved letting shadow clones do all the work while they waited for Kakashi. The sooner we trade him in for a new sensei the better, Sasuke thinks. Unfortunately they kept forgetting to ask the Hokage for a new teacher.
"Yo, guys," Kakashi finally appears. "I'm afraid I got lost on the way here."
"That's the worst excuse yet!" Sakura screams, angry.
"You could at least come up with a good excuse," Naruto chimes in, pointing angrily. "Sasuke had time to take a morning nap while we were waiting for you!"
"Hn," Sasuke agrees. He'd actually taken a nap, too. Not that he'd admit it to anyone outside his team.
"What, no pranks today?" Kakashi asks. "Good, then let's go on a mission."
After the mission…
"I can't believe you over did it again Naruto," Sakura scolds her teammate as she drags him back through the village. (Sasuke hopes Naruto knows that Sakura has cootis. But, judging by the amount of time Naruto's been in contact with Sakura, he should be infected by now. So it probably doesn't matter. All the same, Sasuke decides, he'd better stay away from the two of them for a while, just to safe.)
"You're such a nuisance, dobe," Sasuke says. "I wish you would stop trying so hard; you're better when you don't try."
"Grr," Naruto gets mad and tries to attack Sasuke.
Sakura holds him back. "Calm down or I'll flatten you!" Sakura orders, waving her fist at Naruto.
Sasuke notices Kakashi looking up at the sky. He looks up to see what caught Kakashi's attention. A hawk is flying overhead, calling and circling in a seemingly random pattern. It swoops over team seven's position and screeches loudly. Sakura and Naruto don't notice because they are squabbling.
"Well, it looks like I have to go and hand in our mission report," says kakashi. "You kids have fun." Kakashi shunshins away, disturbing book in hand.
"So Sasuke," Sakura says, her entire demeanor changing. "Do you wanna train together, just the two of us?"
"No," snaps Sasuke. "Training with you is too easy. You really need to improve. You're worse than Naruto when he's trying his hardest."
"Hey!" Naruto shouts, lunging at Sasuke. "That sounded like an insult!"
Sasuke quickly steps out of Naruto's path and shunshins away. He does NOT want to risk catching cooties.
"What's gotten into Sasuke?" Naruto wonders. "He's gone back to being all emo."
"He probably misses Itachi," Sakura says, feeling downhearted. The worst on the team? Even Inner Sakura feels crushed. It is true, of course. But she has been improving. Training has been much easier since she stopped dieting - she has so much more energy than before, and she feels stronger too.
Then Sakura sees the oddest thing: a square rock is trying to sneak up on Naruto. Naruto glares at it then walks away. Or at least he tries to walk away. The rock scoots after him. Naruto snaps around. "Show yourself! That disguise is horrible; everyone knows rocks aren't square!"
Sakura watches as three eight year olds climb out from underneath the rectangular rock disguise. There are two boys and a girl, all wearing goggles like the ones Naruto had worn in the academy. "You saw through our disguise," says one of the boys, obviously the ringleader. "That's why you're our boss, kore."
"Oh, it's you guys," Naruto says. Obviously he knows these kids. "What's with the goggles?"
"We're copying you!" the boy announces.
"Uh-ha," Naruto pretends to be nonchalant, probably trying to impress Sakura or something. "So what do you guys want anyway?"
"You promised to play ninja with us today!"
Sakura can't quite believe her ears. "You, a ninja, play at being a ninja with little kids?" Inner Sakura is worming her way to the surface, all she needs is provocation…
"Hey boss, is she your girlfriend?"
"Well, um, not yet." Naruto says blushing.
"More like never!" Inner Sakura breaks free and punches Naruto.
"What kind of girl are you?" the kid screams, the other two kids huddling behind him in fear, as well they should. "You're like some kind of big-browed monster pretending to be a girl!"
"What was that, shannaro?!" Sakura turns on the kid, every inch of her body consumed by anger.
The three kids and Naruto turn and run, much like Danzo had that time. Sakura gives chase. "You aren't getting away from me, shannaro!"
The little kid who made fun of Sakura runs into someone and falls to the footpath.
"Now, what do we have here?" says the person, a tall boy dressed in black, with purple face paint and a large wrapped object strapped to his back.
Beside him is a girl with four blonde ponytails and a giant fan on her back.
