I was sitting on the ground, Hinata was on my left side and Shino on my right side, Kurenai-sensei was standing and talking about how we should channel chakra into the paper so that it will show our affinity, yadda yadda yadda. I yawned and she sent me an irritated look. What was her problem?

"I see you're bored, come, Shikanai." she said.

"Why me?" I whined. "I was sitting so comfortably, and do you know how hard is to actually get a good position on the ground? The ground is so uncomfortable, but I finally got this good position, do you really want me to move? There are Shino and Hinata, I bet they are curious as well, spare them so that they won't die of curiosity. I-"

"Hinata." Kurenai sighed and Hinata got up. There, that was a tactic I got from my father. All hail laziness!

Hinata did as Kurenai instructed and the paper lit up, but it crinkled a little as well.

"Fire and lightning." Kurenai said, watching Hinata. "It's rare to have two." she added. "But seeing that the flames were first and that they were powerful flames, that means your fire affinity is the main one." Hinata nodded and sat down. Hinata had lightning? Huh. Not bad.

"Shino." Bug-boy went next. The paper began crumbling away, but then it lit up. "Earth and fire, the earth one being the main." Shino nodded and I got up.

"Now you want to know?" she asked me with a raised eyebrow.

"Oh, spare me. I just got up, you know how much effort that takes?" I complained and she sighed.

"Nara." she muttered. "Every one of you just as lazy."

"Then we'll just have to train the laziness out of me, huh?" I asked with a smirk and she smiled that.

"Exactly." she agreed.

"And add to that list, Hinata's shyness, and Shino's calmness." Hinata's eyes widened and she gulped.

"What's wrong with my calm?" the only boy in the team asked.

"Well, I want you to loosen up sometimes, alright, Bug-boy?" I crossed my arms and smiled teasingly, Kurenai chuckled.

"Alright, we add those to the list as well. Now, here's the paper." I took it and smiled at her.

I looked at the paper and focused my chakra to flow through it, only a little amount of it. Given the fact that Hinata had fire and lightning, Shino had earth and fire, I was hoping to get water and wind, so that every element would be at use in our team, giving us an advantage in most cases. The paper began crinkling and then it turned brownish and crumbled.

"Lightning and earth, lightning being the main one." Kurenai-sensei told me and I nodded.

Man. I didn't want those. Earth was fine, but I didn't want lightning at all, since Kakashi was most likely occupied with his team and I had no idea who else possessed lightning style, besides Kakashi was THE ninjutsu master. Damn it! I should've been on his team!

"It looks like you complement each other." Kurenai-sensei said. "I want to ask you, what do you want to improve on? Do you have any plans?" she gave each of us a determined look. "Shino?"

"I want to focus mostly on my clan's techniques, other than that I'm open to learning basic ninjutsu with my affinities." Kurenai nodded.

"Shikanai?" she turned to me with the same look she gave Shino.

"I want to learn some genjutsu, maybe those that involve singing since I enjoy singing, other than that I want to work on my speed and ninjutsu. I want to be good at taijutsu as well, so it can rival my ninjutsu level. That should be useful." Kurenai nodded.

"Hinata?" she turned to the last member of our squad.

"I…uh…" she looked away timidly. "I want to work on my taijutsu." she said after a little while, Kurenai nodded.

"The other day you said that Shikanai was the team leader." she turned to me and I nodded. "Do you have suggestions for your teammates?" she asked and I nodded.

"Hinata will need to improve greatly with her taijutsu, she needs to be fast and precise, I also believe that she should learn basic ninjutsu, I mean learning to use lightning from her fingertips could be deadly and pair that with her family taijutsu, she would kill the enemy in no time." Kurenai nodded with a weird glint in her eyes. "Shino though." I turned to the boy. "You know Bug-boy, I think you should not rely that much on your little crawling soldiers. I think you should learn basic taijutsu forms, just in case, and both earth and fire ninjutsu, so if the bugs cannot help you out, we won't find you dead. Besides that, I know that this team is a track and capture team, I'm the capturer and Hinata and Shino are the trackers. That means we all have to master our family jutsu." they nodded.

"I'm impressed, good evaluation." Kurenai said and I yawned.

"Can I go to sleep now?" she sighed.

"Nara." she muttered.

I chuckled.

From that day on, we began training hard. I was pleasantly surprised that Kurenai-sensei knew how to teach, why hadn't that ever been shown in the anime? Anyway, we learnt how much chakra is necessary for running, so we wouldn't overuse it, then we learnt how to be better at stealth, apparently, that was a natural for us, then we learnt how to walk on trees. That was tricky, especially since I had more chakra than most my age, but luckily I was placed in a team with other clan children, they had more chakra as well. Kurenai realized that was the problem and so we learned how to control it with some chakra control exercises. By the end of the week, we knew how to walk on trees.

So, the following day was the day to finally get some D-ranks, since we were advancing in heaps and bounds, Kurenai-sensei said that we should get every D-ranked mission for the day, then we'd get a day off, and after that, we'd start training again. And just like that we were jumping and running on the rooftops, we were making it part of our training, we had to be super stealthy. It was a challenge we took on, I was in the front, on my right Shino, Hinata was on my left, Kurenai-sensei was following behind us. I loved running like that, it made me feel free. I kept a steady pace, one fast enough for us to move rapidly than usual, but slow enough so it won't tire us.

Then I jumped down and the others followed. When I straightened from my crouch I saw Team 7, watching us with wide eyes.

"Yo, guys!" I saluted them.

Naruto was in the front in his normal orange attire, on his right stood Sasuke, who flashed a little bit of malice in his eyes, he was probably jealous that we were so good at stealth, then, on Naruto's left side was Sakura, in her red attire. Gosh, those colors! Orange, blue, and red… Did they want to get killed? Behind them stood Kakashi, who was clearly surprised as well, he was holding his book, but he was watching us.

"Guys! You-you changed." Naruto began.

Well, yup. Kurenai-sensei told us that our outfits were impractical. Shino remained mostly the same, except that he wore dark khaki and black-colored clothes. Hinata was wearing a dark grey hoodie with no sleeves, the hoodie had a few pockets that came in handy, her undershirt was the same, but she had arm pads on her arms, her pants were black. I was wearing the same as Hinata, except that my sleeveless hoodie was dark purple and my arms were bandaged under the arm pads. We were looking more like ninjas than ever.

"Shikanai, you passed?" he asked excitedly and I shook my head.

"I didn't pass." his smile dropped. "But we passed." I pointed at my team.

"As a team." Shino filled in and Naruto's smile returned.

"Anyway, we were on our way to get some missions." I told them.

"Missions?" Sakura asked. "More than one?" I nodded, she gave me a bewildered look and looked at her sensei, who eye-smiled in return.

"You gave them missions from the first day, right Kakashi?" Kurenai-sensei asked.

"I did." Kakashi said with his eye-smile and Kurenai-sensei looked Sakura.

"While your sensei gave you missions from the start, I didn't do that to my team." she began explaining.

"It's time to catch up." Shino said and I nodded.

"Well said, Bug-boy." all of Squad 7 turned to look at me, but then Shino smiled.

"Thanks, Troublesome-girl." he said, by then Squad 7 was watching us like we were some kind of aliens.

"Hey, Shikanai!" Naruto began once again. "I'm going on a C-ranked mission!" he pointed at his chest and grinned.

Oh my. Land of Waves. Heck. Already?!

"Good luck then." I stated and looked at Kakashi, he realized that I watching him and nodded. "Good luck to you all." I said to him, I saw his mask move a little, he was smiling.

So, we entered the Hokage Tower and took every D-ranked mission available. We babysat a three-year-old child, we went shopping with a woman, dag up potatoes, painted fences, weeded gardens, and helped deliver groceries to old people. By the end of the day, we were exhausted. I walked home and entered the house, after I called that I was home I went straight to the bedroom. I saw my brother sitting on his bed and reading something, I didn't care, I fell face-first on my bed.

"What's with you?" he asked.

"Who knew missions could be so troublesome?" I mumbled into the bed and before I knew it I was fast asleep.

I don't own Naruto.

So, the current arc is slowly getting to an end, and that's why there are minor time skips. The following chapter will be a little bit darker, so I'm warning you in advance.

Have a nice read!

Amaterasu53: And thank you for reading my story! I'm really glad that you liked what I did in it! :)