The boy in black lifts Konohamaru up by his scarf.

"Hey, you put him down now!" Naruto orders, letting himself slip into prankster mode.

"Or what, shorty?" sneers the strange boy. "You gonna fight me? Sure you can reach high enough?"

"Just put the kid down, Kankuro," says the girl. "We don't want to cause trouble and mess up our chances."

"What chances?" asks Naruto, grinning. Then he opens up a bag of prankster-prince on Kankuro's backside. Roughly ten minutes later, Konohamaru is back on the ground, standing beside Naruto. He and his friends, Moegi and Udon, are staring up at Naruto their faces filled with awe.

The blonde girl is staring at Naruto in a mixture of pure horror and respect, while Sakura just stands and smiles angelically at Kankuro. Kankuro is tied up in Naruto's orange pranking rope. He is also hanging upside down from a nearby tree with messages painted all over his face and body. His hood is lying on the ground below him and his naturally brown hair has adopted a beautiful shade of fluorescent green. The messages say things like; "I'm an egg", "I'm a stupid pussy cat", "I wear my mum's makeup" and "I love to wet my bed!". Across Kankuro's face in big, bold letters Naruto wrote "I eat sand".

"I'm a little afraid to ask," says Sasuke's voice from up a tree. "But what happened here?"

Naruto and the others all look up to see Sasuke sitting on a branch above where Kankuro is suspended. On another branch, a red-haired boy about their age is standing upside down and watching the goings-on with his arms crossed.

"Ga-gara!" the girls stammers out.

"This guy tried to beat up one of my friends, so I took Iruka-nii's advice and graffitied him," Naruto explains.

"Nice," says Sasuke.

"Kankuro, you are a disgrace to our village," the red haired boy drones.

Sasuke turns to look at Gaara. "When did you get here?" he asks surprised.

"About five minutes ago."

"Who are you three, anyway?" asks Sakura, "I can see by your headbands that you're from the Hidden Sand Village. You can't be here unless you have an official permit."

"We're here for the chunin exams," says the girl proudly. "My name is Temari, and these two weirdos are my little brothers Kankuro and Gaara."

"Boys are all weirdos."

"Brothers are worse. You have to live with brothers." Temari shudders. "And they leave their dirty undies in the living room-"

"It was one time!" Kankuro protests from his attempts to get out of Naruto's rope.

"It still happened!" Temari snaps back. "Anyway, as I was saying, brothers leave their undies in the living room and their sand in your shoes." She sends a pointed glare at Gaara. "So what's your name, then?"

"I'm Sakura Haruno," Sakura replies. "The the loser in the orange is my teammate Naruto, and the hottie in the tree is my other teammate Sasuke. I don't know who these brats are; friends of Naruto's or something."

"We're leaving," orders Gaara, who has finally taken pity on his brother and untied him, leaping down from the tree. He turns and starts to walk away, Kankuro following behind him.

Temari can't help but snigger when she sees "I eat my own poop" written over Kankuro's butt. "I have to go," she says to Sakura. "Gaara gets cranky when he doesn't get enough sleep. And he NEVER gets enough sleep." She runs to catch up with her brothers and, turning to wave to Sakura, she calls back, "Catch you later!"

After the siblings from the Sand are gone, Naruto asks, "Chunin exams? How come we haven't heard about this yet?'

"Dunno," Sasuke shrugs from up in his tree. "Maybe Kakashi sensei got summoned to the Hokage tower to be briefed on the exams."

"Will you be entering, boss?" asks Konohamaru excitedly. "You totally took out that guy, you'll be so great at it!"

"I don't think first-year genin are allowed to enter," says Sakura. "So we probably won't be."

"Aw, I wanna 'nother go at that Kanki-boy!" Naruto whines.

The next morning at team training, Kakashi sensei is only ten minutes late. "Sorry I'm late," he says. "I wandered a bit from the path of life, but i managed to find my way again pretty quickly this time."

"How did you like the present we left in your apartment?" Naruto asks gleefully.

"It was...pretty," Kakashi forces out. "Which reminds me, I have something for you."

"What? What is it?" Naruto jumps up and down excitedly. Sakura wonders how such a childish boy ever became a ninja.

Kakashi sensei holds out three sheets of paper. "Registration forms for the chunin exams," he says. "I recommended you three based on your performances against Zabuza and Haku, and Danzo."

"I love you Kakashi-sensei!" Naruto throws himself at Kakashi and hugs him tightly.

"I guess we won't trade you in for a sensei that shows up on time after all," says Sakura.

"Hn," agrees Sasuke.

They take the forms and start to read them.

"Whichever of you decide to take the exam need to report to room 301 at the school by four o'clock tomorrow," Kakashi says. "Take the day off to rest up and gather your strength in case you decide to participate. Bye!" he smiles cheerfully and shunshins away.

"I'm definitely entering," says Naruto enthusiastically.

"Hn," Sasuke agrees. "If we have the day off, I'm going back to bed. I had an awful dream last night and didn't get much sleep."

"I'm gonna practice my pranking!" Naruto yells and runs off.

Sasuke also turns and heads home.

Sakura stares at the registration form for a while. Should she enter or not? She's still so much weaker than the boys. Maybe she should just give it a pass and try next time. "Not likely, Shannaro!" Inner Sakura shouts at her. "We sent Danzo running with his tail between his legs! We can handle some stupid exam!"

A smile slowly spreads across Sakura's face.

Omake

So They Did Leave a Prank.

Dedicated to Twisted Pxl for that comment about the Log and Clucky. There are a lot of references to Vegeta3986 and MasakoX's Naruto abridged in the coming chapters. But none as blatant as what you are wanting.

After a long, interesting day training his team and recommending them for the chunin exams, Kakashi heads back to his apartment. He is genuinely surprised they didn't prank him. Kakashi unlocks his door and goes inside. He went out for dinner, so he doesn't need to cook (unlike some people he actually can coughFugakucough). Kakashi opens his closet to put his gear away.

The whole apartment - which is really only one room and a bathroom - fills with colourful, sparkly confetti.

Kakashi swears. Then remembers what used to happen if he so much as thought a swear-word in Kushina-nee's presence. "Sorry Kushina-nee," he apologises automatically.

Great. His apartment is filled with confetti. Hopefully it was only in the closet.

He opens a drawer carefully. Might as well find it all now. Nothing happens. He repeats the process for every draw and cupboard in his apartment. Thankfully, nothing happens. So he has a shower and goes to bed. The moment he opens his bed a ton of confetti flies out.

Not even sorry, Kakashi swears enough to make Gamabunta blush.