I own not that which is named Naruto, the title belongs to Kishimoto-san

Chapter 3: Rough Team Starts

Kakashi sighed, seriously, how much could one possibly sigh?

But what could be the source of his current frustration that would make the great, A-ranked (wrongly graded; but hey, who cares right?) a thousand technique, copy ninja to release an expression of that magnitude of despondency?

Well, mentioned form of irritation personified was tagged Inuzuka Kiba.

Like, damn, Kakashi always hated brash people, but the kid's own was off the charts, and with little to no skills to back it up. Back when he had his team, at the very least, Obito could back up his talk, but this kid was so weak, a fart could probably beat him up. But then again, seeing as he is an Inuzuka, which meant his olfactory senses were far greater than even normal dogs; so, by implication, a fart might just beat him.

After him came the largest fan girl, in the history of fan girls. Haruno Sakura was so much a fan girl that even the unfeeling Naruto confessed to feeling pity for the Last Uchiha. Once he spotted the girl staring almost reverently a kunai the boy threw during training, made him watch just to see if she would kiss it, or something of that sort. The only thing she had coming out of the academy was book smarts and the academy trio, but all in all, she wasn't bad seeing as she was from a civilian family. It was up to him to whip her into shape or lose her on their first mission outside the protective walls.

The final member of his genin team was the famed Uchiha. Uchiha Sasuke was best described as a brooder. There was no other word to substitute. His first words when they met "to avenge my clan and kill a certain man". Come on, if that did not scream "I'm a brooder, look at me" then the definition of the word needed to be changed. But at the least the boy had the skills to back up. He was a genius, plain and simple. He was ready to be a chunin, he only lacked experience. But he had a superiority complex the size of the Hokage Mountain. He believed he was stronger or to be stronger than everyone else.

He chuckled to himself silently, the scenario of the volatile Sasuke and the reticent Naruto meeting. The disaster would be even greater than that of Naruto's birth. Apparently, his silent expression of amusement did not go unnoticed as his squad turned to regard him, hated and rage boiling on their faces, well, Sasuke's just looked a little more sour than usual.

"What's so funny sensei?" Sakura asked as politely as possible when on the inside she and her weird inner self raved and ranted about the menial task they were given, a glorified chore as a mission. She hated the fact that she had to dirty her hands pulling up weeds when her Sasuke-kun was so close.

"I'm supposed to look my best dammit" she thought furiously, as she observed the dirt between her fingernails.

"Oh nothing," her masked sensei finally replied after more involved giggling "just an outside thought."

"Sigh" she turned to see Kiba trying to get Sasuke to start a conversation, and failing horribly. Her thoughts drifted back to her enigmatic sensei. They all knew next to nothing about the man who had been assigned to guide them through their early years in the world of ninjas. The deadly world of super powerful ninjas who would kill without batting an eyelash if they had been paid to.

Powerful.

Ruthless.

Dangerous.

These were words used to describe individuals that undertook the profession. Whereas, the one made to teach them, they knew little about him, and even less about his strength. But surely he was strong. He fended off Sasuke; blindfolded, she might add, without even taking a single hit during a sparring session. If that wasn't strong, she didn't know what was. Seriously, Sasuke was 'Oh Sasuke' and Kakashi held him at bay, she could still see the look of respect Sasuke had in his eyes after that spar. She wished he would look at her that way.

"Finally…" she looked up at the sound to see Kiba clutching a huge weed triumphantly like the man who just discovered the cure for all ailments. She looked around even as he spoke observing that they had indeed finished the field. She danced around in her head, they were done with the stinking mission, and they would go on to spend the day training before sensei would discharge. But lady luck decided to ignore team 7 at the moment. Therefore, when they turned in the mission report, they were unhappily surprised to see Kakashi request 3 more for them to complete before calling it a day; shockingly, Sasuke was the first to make is groan audible.

~Damned Namikaze~

Naruto sat at the edge of a clearing, observing as Hinata and Ino simultaneously attacked Kurenai. It was training session and the females were currently engaged in a spar. The rules were simple, no justu, only weapons and hand-to-hand were allowed, Hinata's jyuuken had been disallowed also. Even then gap in strength was glaringly obvious seeing as she was holding them off without breaking a sweat. As the fight got more involved, the two girls taking their minds off the fight and just flowing through their moves, they became more compatible, their teamwork became less forced.

Hinata went in with a palm strike, Kurenai dodged by leaning backwards. Ino came in with a flying kick forcing her sensei twist her torso, and taking the chance, Hinata charged forwards with a kunai in a forehanded grip. Kurenai saw through the maneuver and countered. Kicking up with her left leg, she caught the air-borne Ino in her abdomen, sending the girl flying, with her pouch bearing leg closer, she shimmied out three throwing stars and chucked them halting Hinata's advance. The Hyuuga successfully parried two and dodged the last, missing the palm heading towards her face.

Contact was made and she was sent flying back some twenty meters, Naruto winced internally, that had to hurt to be able to send her that far back. She crashed on the ground besides Ino who was still gathering strength after the brutal kick she hosted and her impromptu flight. Naruto felt slightly impressed, they had been sparring some 20 minutes and though they had yet to land an actual hit on the genjustu mistress, they took some nasty hits and still got up. He looked back at the downed kunoichis; they had lost the energy to go on. He stood up and turned to face Kurenai signaling that he would like to fight her. She nodded and waited for him to prepare; i.e. to take off the seemingly heavy cloak her wore always.

"Seriously," she thought "how does he even see with that thing?" It was huge and the front which would have shown a little of his face but was rendered to an inky blackness, by what means, she knew not.

Yet, he did not take it off. She raised an eyebrow, either he was overconfident or he was undermining her abilities. She could not tell, the boy was like air, always present but never thrust into the spotlight. She broke the stare down with her charge, abandoning defense in view of offence. He surprising dash was met head on by Naruto less than ten meters way from the point where she started. Her eyes widened considerably, "he's this fast" she thought. On the sidelines, the pair of worn out kunoichis looked on in disbelief, wonder and awe. The only person with such speed who wasn't a chunin or jounin was Sasuke, and even his paled in comparison to the display they just bore witness to. In her moment of shock, she almost missed the sleeve heading on a collision course with her chest, she danced around it not knowing what to expect within its confines. He spun around before she could get into striking position and quickly flung a handful of unseen shiruken at her. Kurenai's sixth sense developed from years of experience kicked in and she lumped backwards, spinning as she went, allowing the pointy weapons of damage to soar past her form. She decided to get more serious; the boy was beyond genin, maybe even chunin, as her toes got reacquainted with the ground, she pushed off at twice her former speed and angled a punch at his face, only to see her fist firmly planted in a finally revealed fist. Said fist was clothed in fingerless gloves having something akin to a malleable metal band around the knuckles, she wrenched her fist from his strong grip and twisted around or a kick; and yet the same obstacle stood in her way. She turned around just in time to block his flurry of punches coming in so fast each and every one aimed at a vital area she was hard pressed to block.

"Wow, Naruto-kun is really good, his pushing Kurenai-sensei back, even we couldn't do that" Hinata reiterated her thoughts to her seat/team mate.

"Yeah, that's really amazing" Ino drawled blandly looking at her clenched fist, she was a future clan-head dammit, she couldn't land a single hit, but then here was some newbie, pushing back their freaking JOUNIN sensei like he was doing homework. It was frustrating, then something hit her "Naruto-kun, hmm?" She asked her partner with a mischievous smile playing on her lips.

Hinata understood her wording and blushed brightly at the insinuation, "no, no, I just… you know what, forget it" she pouted.

Ino knew there was no implication to the naming, she just wanted to tease Hinata, and it worked. They returned their attention to the spar, which seemed to be coming to a close due to the fact that both opponents were slowing down.

Kurenai thrust her blade at her student's torso; her pushed down the offending arm and tried to use the opening to bring her into an arm lock. She spun out taking advantage of her body's natural flexibility and continued to she stopped behind him where she made to kick out his knees, he jumped over the offending limb, expectedly she smirked as she pumped her strength into a double fisted punch aimed at his head when he would begin his descent. Shockingly, he planted his hands on hers and pushed his body out of reach, flipping mid-air to land directly opposite her. They held defensive positions as they surveyed each other, searching for any exploitable weaknesses; she dropped out of hers and called the other two students over, signaling the end of the bout.

When all her genins were gathered and focused, she decided to teach a vital lesson, one that saved lives even though it was amongst the most basic of skills in a ninja's arsenal.

Chakra control.

"How do we perform our justus?" she started off easy.

Hinata stepped up to answer the question "justu is performed by gathering chakra, made of spiritual and physical energies, and molding it to suit a particular form before releasing it while maintaining its purpose"

"Correct, very astute Hinata" the dark haired girl beamed at the praise "as such, we all know every ninja has a chakra pool of varying sizes, and the bigger your justu, the more chakra it eats up. In this lesson, we will be learning the steps to proper chakra control." She had no doubt the lesson would be short, the Hyuuga used very precise amounts of chakra for their fighting style, so they mostly had almost perfect chakra control, same went for the Yamanaka, cause using too much chakra, you could throw your mind away from yourself and your target.

Rendering you to a vegetable state, that was to say, a body without a mind to instruct it.

For her last student, he trained under Kakashi for years, she had no doubt he must have mastered what she wanted to teach.

"Chakra control, as is self explanatory; means channeling your chakra with such precision that not even a singular extra percentage is used. To start off, we'll be channeling chakra to our feet, to climb trees without our hands. The tree walking exercise as it is called."

"Sensei, is that really possible?" Ino questioned scepticism present in every word.

"You tell me" Kurenai replied almost smugly as she turned around and strolled to the nearest tree and continued till she was facing her team upside down, her dress being made to stick to her skin. Ino and Hinata glanced up at her with reverence. Kurenai cut the chakra flow, flipped upright and landed on her sandaled feet before motioning her team to try. Immediately, Naruto tree walked, even making a show going round its bark. Ino glared at him before rushing up a tree… and falling just as quickly. She forgot to channel her chakra; she picked herself and went again, wobbling but gradually climbing alongside Hinata. They got a distance of twenty feet before turning around and going down the tree.

She was panting as she reintroduced herself to the earth, besides her, her blonde teammate swallowed air like a baby doing so to milk. Who knew it would be so hard, but then, if it was easy it wouldn't be worth learning right.

"Good." She looked up to find her sensei smiling at them as their male counterpart stood off to the side watching "You girls are getting the hang of it," she beamed at the praise "some more practice and you'll be able to do it without putting any actual thought, then we'll move on to water walking." She felt her jaw drop, a sideways glance confirmed Ino had done the same, was it possible to walk on water.

"By the way, where's Tsukaze, I thought you would have brought him along?" Kurenai inquired at the lack of the wild canine semi-member of her squad.

"He chose to stay at home, probably bored by now; might have gone out to play with whatever he deems worthy of his time." His teammates gawked at him in shock; he thought it over and figured out that it was the longest sentence he ever spoke to them. He could live with that, but they better not get used to it, they were a team, not friends. He had no use for such paltry relationships.

~Elsewhere, within the village~

Deep in the woods, in places only fauna resided, some sort of contest was being staged. Animals of all kind; prey and predator, aerial and terrestrial, hoofed, beaked, clawed or pawed sat round about a central arena. Off to the left, there was a fallen tree on which a compilation of objects, ranging from berries to bones to shiny stuff rested. A deer sat beside the stash of goods, and in the arena, the center of attraction was the fauna companion of our protagonist. Tsukaze was currently engaged in animalia combat with a grey wolf. There were some splotches of red staining the earth, rivulets of the same running down the opponent's body while Tsukaze bore only a few uncommon scratches.

This was Animal Fight Club, hosting weekly with this week's host being Starry Deer. Weird right, once a week, animals irrespective of species came together to challenge, prove dominance and win sweet prizes.

Our opponent dove at Tsukaze who angled his body, and then twisted to gather force. When his fellow wolf landed, he sprung on him and closed his pointy mouth trap in what was the fauna version o an arm lock. Then he pushed the other to the ground making sure to press him to the ground with his other limbs trapped between the ground and his own body. Poor grey had no choice but to tap out or risk fracturing, as Tsukaze let go, he howled victoriously and the audience cheered the champ. He swaggered to the fallen tree to collect his spoils while the animals who bet on him followed to get theirs, good thing he stayed back or he wouldn't have met the Inuzuka hound who brought him to AFC. He sat to enjoy some meat, and observe the next match, life was great.

~Back with Team 8~

"He's probably regretting not coming along" Naruto thought to himself even as they walked in the direction of the Hokage Tower. He spotted the Ramen Emporium as the quartet walked by but he was still on duty, Kurenai wanted them to finish two more missions before they called it a day. They had taken about 55 of the dreaded glorified house chores they were obligated to do in the two months since they formed the team, oh what he would give to step outside the village again.

Lost in his thoughts, he had no recollection of them getting to the office.

"Jiji-sama" he greeted the aged Hokage who was chewing on a pipe, looking like he was about to murder someone. His team had gotten used to the fact that he called the famed Hokage old man, though not after admonishment from Kurenai.

"Ah Team 8, happy you could make it, you're here for a mission, yes" he addressed them as a whole, and when Kurenai nodded in the affirmative, he pulled a scroll from a pile sitting on his desk. "Think you can manage that?" he asked the squad leader.

"Hokage-sama, this is a c-rank mission, you are really assigning this to us?" Kurenai asked with surprise, while besides him, Hinata and Ino practically radiated happiness.

"Finally" he said to himself.

"Yes…" the Hokage replied positively and his female teammates let out subdued cheers "it a simple bandit extermination along the eastern borders. Small groups of bandits banded (pun intended) together and are ravaging some villages, you are to stop them."

The whole team gave their acceptance and filed out of the office, "pack for 2 months," their sensei voice ran out stopping their advance home "it should take but a few weeks but it never hurts to be prepared"

"Hai sensei" Hinata and Ino answered while Naruto simply nodded and continued on his way home. While he walked, he turned and spotted his comfort place outside of the clan grounds, it was his first c-rank mission and it never hurt to celebrate. He made his way in the direction of the restaurant ready to gulp down some 30-44 bowls.

~Damned Namikaze~

"Good day sir, how can we help you?" greeted our pretty faced guard, Akane.

"Err, I' m a super bridge builder Tazuna, from the land of waves, I came to put in for a mission." The man wore a brown shirt and brown travelers slacks, clutched tightly in his left palm was a bottle which was half full of some strong sake, going by the smell. As he talked he wobbled before balancing himself on the walls of the outpost.

"Yeah, okay, just wait a little; we've alerted a chunin who'll come escort you to the assigning office" her partner drawled looking as nonchalant as he sounded.

"Oi, stop being so rude Izumo, he our client, you are meant to be courteous to clients." Akane slapped his arm as she admonished him. Izumo looked the offending arm and sighed, he missed his partner, Kotetsu, who had gone on a mission with his current partner's other partner and some others. They would have been chilling out but Hokage-sama decided he wanted to draw them out of their title as the 'Eternal Chunin'.

"Thank you beautiful lady, young men these days have no respect for elders" their guest spoke after a while of watching the gatekeepers, he picked up Akane's palm and began to stroke it lovingly getting the girl's eye to twitch and a muffled laugh from the other male, who was promptly glared at.

"If only I had a pretty lady such as you to escort me on my travels" with that he wiggled his eyebrows at her, making Akane's gaze turn murderous. Izumo noticed this and resolved to save a potential client, before she could attempt to maim the stumbling man, still stroking her hand, he called out.

"Oh, your escort is here" the duo, one glaring, one swaying turned about to see Iruka walking towards them.

"I assume you are Tazuna-san?" he asked every word laced with politeness.

"That I am" the bridge builder answered in the positive.

"Well then, come with me, the Hokage would see you personally" with that, Iruka spun on his heels and continued in the direction he previously came from alongside his charge. Even as they went, Akane glared at the receding form of the builder, having had enough, Izumo reached out and pinched her cheek.

"Ouch, what was that for?" she rubbed the site of the inflicted bruise, Izumo had strong fingers.

"Be courteous to our client." Izumo drawled, using her words against her as she glowered at him.

"You still didn't have to pinch so hard"

"Think of it as payback, bye" before she could process his meaning, she heard a loud snore, causing her to jump. REALLY, he was sleeping, ON THE FREAKING JOB! She went red in the face due to her rage boiling over as steam bellowed out her ears. And yet the man slept away, like there wasn't a raging female who could spit fire sitting right by him, it was nap time; and he earned it cut him some slack.

~Damned Namikaze~

Naruto pushed the doors open to see Tsukaze lounging on the sofa, while Kakashi laid head upside down in a hammock?

"So how was today's session?" the masked porn enthusiast questioned his adopted brother.

"Where did you get the hammock?" was his reply.

"Did you guys train all day, or took missions? He quipped back.

"How did you get it in that angle? It went back and forth. Before Naruto decided to break and answer the question. "We got a c-rank and were leaving tomorrow"

"That's great, I found the hammock in the store room" Kakashi answered that which was addressed to him. "So, do you want me to help you pack?"

Naruto nodded and he got up to join the full blooded Namikaze. Together, they walked towards the stairs before stopping; they walked two steps back, turned left to see a sack with various objects and a manga hanging out of it. They turned to Tsukaze, before facing each other.

"Do I want to know?" Kakashi asked

"No its better if we don't, for the sake of our sanity."

"Remember, we're already insane"

"Touche…"

~Damned Namikaze~

The air swished as a blade cut through it, finding its mark on the neck of the unfortunate target its master chose. Red liquid matter sprayed into the air violently. The flesh stood no chance and it gave way, the head rolling to the ground before a small rabble of shady looking men. It stopped before them, a look of resignation still held on even in death. The owner of the blade sheathed his weapon and stood to his full height of 5 feet.

"So I believe this makes me the leader of your camp, hmm or are there any other challengers?" he smirked.

"Sir, we answer to you now" one of the men shouted as the others nodded.

"Good, good" the man smiled maniacally, as light glinted off his forehead showing a metal plate with a scratched mist symbol on it. The missing ninja had taken over the bandit camp.

~Damned Namikaze~

"…accomplish the mission and get your pay."

"He'll be coming back soon, get the money ready in advance" a gruff voice called out as the figure hauled a blade double the size of the man he spoke to. "The demon of the mist never fails is mission" he turned around and walked out.

The short man scowled at the retreating figure, better do so. Soon, soon, wave would be in the palm of his hand. He only needed to remove an insignificant variable from the equation.

"I shall have wave to myself" he declared to no one in particular.

Finally, chapter 3 is done; I'm getting started on 4 immediately. Ha the things I do for you guys, so please do review tell me what you think of it.

Should I get started on my other stories or should I let this one gain some more ground?

I have Naruto/PJO, another Naruto,Naruto/DBZ, Naruto/RWBY, Naruto/Power rangers (maybe).

Thanks for taking time to read, Love y'all. Ciao

GreenBar 17 signing out.