.

Individually we are one drop,

but together we are an ocean.

Iruka let out a breath, collected his thoughts, and knocked his knuckles against the aged wood; the sound echoed through the hallway outside of the office.

Somebody shuffled papers and cleared their throat beyond the door. "Come in."

He hesitated for a second before he pushed the door open and walked through the threshold, dipping down in a low bow as his feet landed in front of the desk. "Lord Hokage."

"Iruka," Hiruzen said, the start of a frown pulling at his features. "Is something the matter?"

"It's about the team placements."

"Oh?" Hiruzen reclined against his chair. "There is no need to rush this, Iruka. In light of the events that transpired earlier this evening, it would be understandable if you and the other chunin took another day to reorganise the teams—and if you went home to rest."

Iruka flushed, forcing his eyes to stay up instead of dropping down to his feet. "Your concern is appreciated, Lord Hokage, but I'm fine. The medics did their job well. The teams have all been re-organized, as well."

"Then what is the issue?"

"It—It's about Team 7."

Hiruzen extended his hand and Iruka gave him the sheet of paper which contained all of the different team placements. His eyes scanned the page and he let out a hum when his pupils halted their movements.

"Naruto Uzumaki, Sasuke Uchiha, and Sakura Haruno," Hiruzen said. "Sasuke is Rookie of the Year, Sakura is top kunoichi, and Naruto is at the bottom of his class. It is a standard team. On paper, they have the potential to be our top performing genin team."

"Yes, but… but I don't think Sakura Haruno is the correct choice for that team."

Hiruzen picked up his pipe and gave it a puff, expression neutral. "It is a tradition that they are placed together," he said, bits of smoke drifting out from between his lips as he spoke. It wasn't intended as an argument against him, Iruka noted, but as a statement of fact. "It has been that way for many generations."

"I know it has. On paper they'll balance each other out perfectly, yes, but in reality, they won't function well as a team. Sakura doesn't get along with Naruto at all, and while she does quite like Sasuke, he—ah, doesn't feel the same. Sakura will spend all of her time attempting to work with and protect Sasuke, but none with Naruto. In the same vein, Sasuke won't be willing to work with her while Naruto will only want to work with her. Kasumi, however, gets along with Naruto and will be capable of working with Sasuke. She won't have that issue at all, and neither will the boys; she can balance them out."

"Personalities clashing is not unheard of with this team," Hiruzen reminded him. "Look at the Sannin. They fought like cats and dogs for their entire time as a team and yet they are one of, if not the most, powerful team this village has ever produced."

"They are," Iruka agreed, "but this is different." He took in a breath. "Kasumi Kurosawa should have been the one to take the spot as top kunoichi."

"Yet," Hiruzen said, inclining his head, "she didn't."

Iruka didn't want to take an opportunity away from Sakura, he really didn't, but he didn't think that being placed on Team 7, being forced to compete with Naruto and Sasuke for attention, would benefit her. Naruto was the village jinchuriki and had the potential to be an absolute powerhouse. Sasuke was the last Uchiha, with a potent dojutsu and ninjutsu capabilities that could put some chunin to shame. Sakura was a civilian girl with brains and chakra control that went above average and passable everything else; she wasn't exceptional in the way that her two teammates were.

He knew that she had potential. If her skills were nurtured, if she was given the chance, Sakura could become a formidable kunoichi.

Iruka was certain that on Team 7 she wouldn't be given a fair chance. Placing her on Team 7 would be a waste and Iruka refused to allow one of his students to be done such a disservice.

Kasumi, on the other hand, would have no issue holding her own on a team with Naruto and Sasuke. She was stubborn and determined to stand out in a way that Sakura wasn't, she had a drive to fight that Sakura lacked, things which may have made it difficult for her to function with other teams, but would be essential for her on Team 7.

"Kasumi didn't get that spot because I failed in my job as her sensei."

"Oh?"

"If both girls had equal motivation, Kasumi would have been the one to take the spot as top kunoichi. Her low academic scores were a result of low motivation, not low intelligence—she would do half of her tests, enough to pass, and then just stop because she didn't want to finish them."

The tips of Hiruzen's lips twitched upward, a smile flashing across his face. It was brief, a blip on his face, and Iruka wondered if he imagined it. "I see."

"It's different with Sakura," Iruka continued. "Her low physical scores are beyond my control. To improve those, she would require special attention that I can't give her, the type of thing only a jonin can do. I did everything I could for Sakura. Kasumi, though, I… I feel like—no, I know that I could have done more for her. I could have pushed harder than I did."

Hiruzen nodded, pulling his pipe from between his lips and setting it down on the desk in front of him. "I can see you have given this a lot of thought," he observed. "You truly believe this?"

"I do, Lord Hokage," Iruka said.

"Then I will take your word for it."

I was in a daze when I walked through the front door. I tossed my shoes onto the mat and made it five steps into the house when I remembered to call, "Tadaima."

"Okaeri," came the reply, mingled with the steady draw of metal grinding against stone.

My feet carried me towards the noise, to where Maen sat on the living room couch, the radio droning on in the background as he sharpened the blades of his kunai with idle movements. He had a mass of equipment scattered around him and an empty pack sitting at his feet.

"Mission?" I asked, my mouth turning down in a frown. "You've only been back for a week."

"Yeah. Something came up and Lord Hokage needs to send me out, I'll be leaving tomorrow morning."

"Oh."

"It should be a shorter mission, a couple of weeks at most," he said.

"'Should be'?"

"That's the projected timeframe," he said. "I doubt it'll go over, but anything can happen."

"Yeah."

I threw myself onto the couch beside him and sank into the cushions, dropping my bag onto the floor in front of the couch. Maen paused in his task, setting his kunai and stone on the table amidst the rest of his supplies, one of his hands coming to rest on my head and tilting it back to meet his gaze.

"Any reason in particular that you're not telling me about your team placement?" he asked.

I went with the safe answer of: "My sensei's an ass."

"And who's your sensei?"

"Kakashi Hatake."

A flicker of surprise, a flicker of annoyance. "Ah."

"I'm guessing you know him?"

"Yeah," he said and pulled his hand back. "Who're your teammates?"

"Naruto and Sasuke."

"Huh. Yeah, alright—I see why you're mopey."

I groaned. "You're supposed to make me feel better about this."

Make me feel better about getting placed on the most dangerous team I could have.

Make me feel better about throwing the fate of this universe into question.

It wasn't fair; I shouldn't have been on that team. Sakura had gotten the title of top kunoichi, not me, it was her role to inhabit, not mine. Never mine. I hadn't gone out of my way to avoid being on Team 7, but I hadn't gone out of my way to be placed on it, either. Who would? Seriously, who would?

A mission that would pit me against an S-rank ninja not just once, but twice? No thanks.

An encounter with an even more dangerous S-rank ninja that could stomp me into the dirt with his pinky toe? I'll pass.

I was content to be friends with the various main players, to give them minor pushes here and there, to help them if I could, but I had zero desire to get caught up in the mess that was bound to unfold past what would be strictly necessary of me. Minor involvement was a guarantee, no matter what, as I was a ninja of Konoha and I had a duty to uphold, one that I had no qualms performing.

That was fine. That I could handle.

At the end of the day, though, I just wanted to live.

As much as I wanted to help my village and those I cared about, as much as I wanted to give this world a better future, I wanted to be alive to see it.

A finger tapped on my forehead, snapping me from my thoughts. "Hey, kiddo—you feelin' alright?" he asked. "You're zoning out."

"More than usual?" I asked, my voice no louder than a mumble.

His frown deepened. "What's wrong?"

Pretty much everything. "Nothing."

"Are you getting sick?" His palm smoothed out over my forehead. "You're a bit warm."

I'm not sick, I'm terrified. "Maybe. I think I'm going to go take a nap, or something—I have to be up early tomorrow for my jonin-test."

I pushed myself up, reaching a hand down to catch the hook of my bag as I did so, and headed to my room, the sensation of eyes on the back of my head trailing me the whole way.

Some time to think on my own was what I needed, time to plan, to figure out how I was going to deal with that new development.

"Your assignment is very simple. You just have to take these bells from me, that's all there is to it. If you can't get them by noon, you go without lunch. You'll be tied to those posts over there and you'll get to watch me while I eat my lunch."

I stood, one hand on my cocked hip while the other hung at my side, my face impassive as I watched Kakashi dangle the bells in front of us.

Naruto and Sasuke had placed themselves on either side of me. Their expressions were teetering on either side of the spectrum, Naruto radiating a red-hot anger whilst Sasuke shot Kakashi a look so cold that it could have frozen hell over. Kakashi was nonplussed—in fact, I was certain that he was getting a kick out of how little effort he had to exert in order to rile the two of them up.

"Eh? But, hey—wait! There're two bells, but three of us," Naruto shouted.

"Terribly astute of you," Kakashi answered, his eye crinkling up in an eye-smile that had to be fake. "That's because only two of you will pass. One of you will not receive a bell, you will be disqualified for failing to complete the mission, and then you will be sent back to the Academy. Though, really, all three of you could fail out if you aren't careful."

Naruto cried out in outrage and Sasuke released a watered down form of what I assumed was killer-intent.

That neither of them picked up on the lie was almost as annoying as the fact that the lie existed in the first place. It was obvious when one took all of a few seconds to think about how many two-man genin teams they had seen around the village and realised the answer was zero. Kakashi kicking one of us off and keeping the other two was a logical impossibility.

"What do we do?" Sasuke asked, hands shoved in his pockets and eyes trained on Kakashi.

"You will come at me with the intent to kill me," Kakashi answered. "If you aren't ready to do that, you won't be able to take the bell. You can use any weapons, including shuriken and kunai."

"If you couldn't dodge my eraser then I don't see how you can dodge those," Naruto scoffed.

Ignorance is bliss, huh?

"Keep that attitude up," Kakashi told him, reaching down to link the bells up to the pouch on his hip. "You're just making my life easier by not coming at me with everything you have, like the class clown that you are—those are usually the weakest links, you know, and hold the lowest scores. The losers of the ninja world."

I caught sight of the smirk that spread across Sasuke's lips. "Class clowns may not always pull the highest academic skills but they do have other important traits that ninja require," I said. "They learn to think outside the box from coming up with their pranks, and pick up good stealth abilities from putting those pranks into action."

Naruto laughed, grinning from ear to ear. "Yeah! What she said!"

Kakashi shifted his gaze to stare at me, managing to give off a distinct sense of being unimpressed with the outburst despite the fact that more than half of his face was covered by cloth. He watched me, his hands in his pockets, his shoulders slouched and held in a loose manner, and it felt as if he mentally took me apart and put me back together again in the second that ticked past.

"You can begin when I say 'start'," Kakashi said, ignoring the fact that I had spoken. He turned on his heel and walked a few feet away, leaving his back turned to us, taunting us, begging for one of us to attack in a preemptive strike. None of us took the bait. "Start."

I grabbed Naruto and Sasuke by the back of their shirts and launched myself towards the tree line, hauling the two of them with me. Sasuke landed on his feet, treating me to a glare that I brushed off with practised ease, while Naruto hit the ground in a heap beside him.

There was no chance we could get the bells, not even close. I had an advantage because that was clear to me from the onset—Naruto and Sasuke weren't in the same position. Neither of them understood where the root of the test was and remedying that was the important thing because from there a plan could be put into place. We didn't have to succeed but we did have to try, and we had to do it together.

"Hey, Kaka, what gives?" Naruto whined.

"We need to come up with a plan," I said. "All three of us."

"I don't need your help," Sasuke said, moving to go off on his own.

"You do, actually, because it's not a test to see which of us can get a bell—it's a test to see how well we work together."

Sasuke stopped in his tracks and turned towards me, the scowl set firm on his face but no immediate protest leaving his lips. "How?" he asked instead.

"Think about it," I said. "Have you ever seen a two-man genin team?"

His expression flitted from haughty to confused to annoyed as the realisation dawned on him. "He was trying to trick us."

"Exactly," I said. "He's testing our ability to work as a team by intentionally setting us against each other. I doubt it even matters if we get the bells as long as we try and get them as a team instead of separately."

I could see the gears in Sasuke's head turning as he absorbed my words, his mind finding the logic in my words even as his attitude found fault in them. He would listen to me. He wouldn't be thrilled with it, that was plain to me, but he would do it and that was what mattered.

"What? Why would he do that?" Naruto asked. "That seems dumb."

I shrugged. "Who knows? That's not important, though—we just need to try and get those bells as a team."

Sasuke turned to Naruto, eyes narrowed. "Just don't get in my way."

"I won't get in your way, you'll get in my way!"

"As if, loser."

"I'm not a loser, you bastard!"

"That's enough," I said, rolling my eyes and positioning myself between the two of them. "Neither of you are going to get into each other's way because we're going to figure out a plan before we start attacking."

"You've got something figured out?" Sasuke asked, not hiding the entirety of his disdain at the thought.

"You could say that."

.

.

Kakashi flipped the page of his book, half-listening with chakra-perked ears as the children hatched out a plan from behind their 'cover'.

He had expected it to be the Uchiha to figure out the truth of the bell test, if any of them were to do it at all, not the little brat of a kunoichi that he'd been stuck with. Worse, she had done it in mere minutes. He supposed it was his own fault for underestimating her—she had been placed on the team for a reason, after all, beyond her ability to work as a balance between her teammates, a skill she was putting to quick use a hundred feet away.

He turned an eye to the sky once their conversation began to wind down and they prepared to strike; there was an hour and a half remaining for them.

Kakashi contemplated giving them the advantage of having an open area—for all the good that it would do them—but decided against it. The thought of stringing them along, testing out the mettle of the kunoichi's reportedly unusual sensor ability, sounded more entertaining.

He heard them stir in the bushes to his left. He let them catch a glimpse of him, gave them a glimmer of hope, waited for long enough that one of them grew bold and broke through into the clearing with a determined cry, then Shunshined away.

.

.

"He's a bit over that way," I murmured between huffs of air, jerking my thumb in the direction. The chakra signature shifted on my sense and I pushed myself against the tree trunk on instinct, the bark biting into the skin of my back. "Careful—I think he knows we're here."

In truth, I could guarantee that he knew, as it would have been impossible for somebody of his level to not know we were crouched such a short distance away. Most chunin could have discerned our presence with ease. To think that Kakashi was not in complete control of the situation, which included being aware of where we were at all times, was folly.

Sasuke nodded and readied his kunai. His face was set in a grim determination that would have been more suited to an assassination rather than the situation at hand, though, in his mind, the two may have been one in the same.

"Don't you even worry, Kaka, we got this!" Naruto said, punctuating his words with a grin and a laugh.

Sasuke gave him a look of disdain but didn't rebut the statement.

"'Course you do," I said. "Go on. I won't be able to signal you, remember, so don't stop until either we get the bells or he incapacitates you."

Naruto bounded off, running across the forest floor towards where I had gestured to. There was a cry of "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" and the area around me lit up with a sea of sunny chakra signatures.

Step one complete.

Sasuke waited, letting Naruto get a bit ahead of him, and followed suit.

I crept from my spot against the tree to get a visual on the situation. Kakashi was surrounded by clones, dodging and weaving around their offensive without breaking a sweat, his book out in front of him and his posture not showing a hint of tension. Sasuke had looped around to flank Kakashi, on the opposite side of where the bells jingled against his hip.

I sat, one hand pressed against the dirt and the other reaching out towards where the yin chakra that made up my shadow was gathered, formless without the light of the sun to give it shape. It would be harder to wield, would take me a second longer to weave around my skin, would hold its structure a second less than usual, but so long as I could feel the chakra there I could call upon it.

Sasuke made his move. Kakashi twisted his upper body to intercept it, turned away from me and towards Sasuke.

I pulled on the chakra and forced it around me; Kakashi punted Sasuke away with a well-placed kick. I propelled myself forward, pushing off of the ground with my hands to build momentum, and started to count down in my head.

Five.

The wind whistled through my ears and whipped at my clothes as I sprinted towards the action.

Four.

I slipped around a couple of clones, taking care to not allow my skin to come into contact with them.

Sasuke picked himself up off of the ground and threw himself at Kakashi again.

Three.

I was close. The armour began to crack under my grip but I held it fast. Almost, almost. I reached a hand out towards the bells.

Two.

I became aware that my chakra had been ripped from my skin in the same instant that I was slammed against the tree trunk, my skull snapping back against the bark, the air getting yanked from my lungs in a single, choked exhale. There was pain, pain in my ribs, pain on my back, pain in my head, all made worse by the disorientation of being swatted away by a blow that landed at a speed too fast for my eyes to keep up with. I took a second to regulate my breathing, forcing myself to intake air in a slow, measured fashion.

"Was—was that really fucking necessary?" I gasped, an arm wrapping around my ribcage as I struggled to my feet. I blinked away stars. "Fuck that hurt."

"Completely," Kakashi answered from a yard away.

He ducked beneath a clone and popped another with an elbow jab.

Sasuke looked to me, to Naruto, then to Kakashi. "Fall back!" he barked.

At least he knew when to cut his losses—it was the right call to make. We weren't going to be getting anything else out of that attempt, not without a new approach. Kakashi made no move to follow as the three of us fled the scene, Sasuke taking the lead with Naruto and I trailing behind him.

"Your plan didn't work," Sasuke said as Naruto and I came to stand in front of him.

"Brilliant observation," I muttered, rubbing a hand on the sore part of my ribs, the skin bright red and swollen beneath my fingers. "I hadn't noticed."

"What'll we do now?" Naruto asked. "We can't just give up!"

"We're not going to give up," I said. "We just need to rethink this. Come up with a new plan."

"He's going to expect us to flank him like that again," Sasuke said. "We need to go for a full frontal assault."

"We can't overwhelm him, though. He's a jonin. Anything we throw at him he'll be able to just walk around. Will a frontal assault really be that effective?" I asked.

"Do you have a better idea?" he threw back at me, the tone of his voice making it clear that, in his mind at least, the answer to that was 'no'.

"Yeah," I said. "But I'm willing to give yours a shot first. If it fails, Naruto gets to come up with the next plan, and then we try one of mine again. Might as well be fair about it."

"You'd let the loser come up with a plan?" Sasuke asked.

"Of course I'd let Naruto come up with a plan. Like I said to Kakashi earlier, he's been pulling pranks his entire life—this kind of shit is right up his ally."

"Yeah, you bastard!" Naruto cried.

I flicked Naruto's nose. "Don't call him that."

"What? But—hey, he is one! You heard him!"

"No name calling," I said. "If he can't call you 'loser' then you can't call him 'bastard'." I turned to Sasuke, arms crossed over my chest. "Tell us what you had in mind, Sasuke."

.

.

By the time we got in position to execute Sasuke's plan, I knew that Naruto wouldn't be getting a chance to try a plan of his own. Kakashi had—again—led us on a wild goose chase through the forest, all the way back to the entrance of the training grounds, where the three stumps and the memorial stone were waiting for us.

As I broke through into the clearing I caught sight of the sun sitting high in the sky, the clock ticking away with a mere two minutes left in the middle of the clearing, both marking our time as nearing its end. He had waited us out, the asshole.

Kakashi disappeared in a puff of smoke, reappearing in the middle of the clearing, leaning against the middle stump and tapping a finger against the clock. "It appears that your time is nearly up," he said. "Unless you three have something incredible planned, I'd suggest you just quit now. I hear the Academy is offering summer classes, perfect for flunkee genin wannabees."

Naruto and Sasuke both stiffened beside me.

"We won't be needing those," I said. "We're going to pass."

"That's a surprising amount of confidence to be coming from somebody who barely passed their academic courses," Kakashi said. "Was it luck that got you here?"

He was trying to goad me—it might have worked, if not for the fact that my academic scores weren't even close to a weak spot for me and that I had the awareness to see the attempt for what it was.

If luck had anything to do with it, that's some damn shitty luck. "Maybe, maybe not. It doesn't matter either way. We're going to pass this test and you're going to be our sensei."

"We'll see."

Naruto bolted ahead, fingers flying and the shouting words, "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"

Sasuke trailed after him with a roll of his eyes.

That left me.

My bloodlimit was out of the question—Kakashi had seen through it once, he'd see through it again. The bracelets that hung on my wrists weren't an option, either, nor were the rings that clinked together in my back pouch, as not only did I lack the ability to wield them with precision, but they weren't ideal in a situation where I was fighting side by side with others. There was too high of a chance that Naruto and Sasuke could get caught in the crossfire if I attempted to fight with them.

A sense of anticipation crept into my muscles, sent my blood pumping, had my heart hammering in my chest. I cracked my knuckles and rushed forward, holding my body low to the ground as I picked my way through the mess of clones, Kakashi sitting in my sights.

I was left with taijutsu. While hand-to-hand combat wasn't ideal when going up against somebody who had me so woefully outclassed, I had a couple of advantages on my side.

The first being that Naruto, his fifty clones, and Sasuke were each taking up minor chunks of his attention, instead of it sitting on me alone. That wasn't to say that I had any confidence in my ability to land a hit on Kakashi, but it meant there was a minor, itty bitty, minuscule chance that I could, instead of none whatsoever.

The second was that Kakashi wouldn't hurt me. The blow he had given me to the ribs earlier, for example, had been painful, but he had avoided causing any real injury, leaving a minor bruise instead of broken bones. It would have been easy for him to break a few ribs with that hit and he didn't. He knew his strength. That gave me room to take openings that would otherwise be considered dangerous; in that fight, there were no truly dangerous openings.

I skid to a stop, finding myself within striking distance of Kakashi, poised behind his right side, and took a breath to evaluate.

The height difference made it impossible to hit above the elbow.

I had a brief opening. My strike had to be quick and well-aimed, making the most of what was available to me.

My eyes took in the weak points that were right in front of me: back of the knee, ankles, elbow.

I closed the gap between the two of us and aimed a vicious palm-strike at the bone in his elbow. At worst it would numb his arm and disable it for a short time, at best it would fracture and make the limb useless until he saw a medic. Or neither, in that instance, as Kakashi dipped away from the attack and kicked back at me, sending me soaring across the clearing like a rag-doll. I righted myself in the air and hit the ground at a roll, letting gravity carry me back up into a crouch.

I put a bit of chakra into my hands and my feet and, with a hearty push, slingshot myself through the air—walking is for chumps—with my legs outstretched, a dropkick directed towards his face. His nose, more specifically, because if I could do at least one thing to him that day, a broken nose was more than enough. Kakashi reached up a hand and caught my ankles with inches to spare, using the momentum to fling me away.

That time, though, instead of just landing a few yards away, my projected point of touchdown was damn far away.

Shit.

I channelled a burst of chakra into my wrist and lashed out with my chains. I couldn't aim them to save my life, at that point, but I didn't need precision. There was an entire forest for me to target and the chains were bound to collide with something so long as they reached far enough.

The chain shot out from my wrist and I grabbed on with my free hand, letting the links slip across my palm as it extended, the layer of chakra around them creating a buffer between my skin and the metal. The chain connected with one of the trees and my hand closed around the chains, bracing myself against the impact—it wouldn't do to pop my arm from its socket.

I cut off my chakra. The storage seal closed and chain retracted itself and I was jerked forward.

Branches smacked me the entire way in, and the landing was less than stellar, but it was better than having to run back. The chain had embedded itself in the trunk of a tree and created an anchor. I tore the links out from the trunk with a swift pull, letting the last few feet withdraw into the seal.

Done.

Okay.

I sprinted back to the clearing in ten seconds flat. The area was alight with chaos, as it had been before, except that when I watched the fight rage on, there was a desperation in both Naruto and Sasuke's movements that hadn't been there.

My eye landed on the clock. There were ten seconds left.

Even though I knew that the bells were irrelevant, knew the true purpose of the test, I began to feel it too, that itch in my limbs and the pumping of my heart and the dryness of my throat. My entire body ached to spring into action and make a last-ditch effort towards them. I didn't.

Instead, I watched as the last of Naruto's clones were popped, Sasuke was once again knocked away without a second thought, and the shrill ring of the alarm pierced the air. The entire clearing came to an abrupt halt.

Sasuke took a step back and holstered his kunai, though he kept his eyes locked on the bells. Naruto stared at Kakashi with clear uncertainty.

"You failed your mission," Kakashi said. "None of you got bells."

"Were we supposed to be able to?" I asked. "Three genin against a jonin is literally impossible."

Kakashi stared at me for a long moment. "No," he finally said, "you weren't."

"Eh? What was even the point, then?"

"Idiot," Sasuke muttered.

"You tell me, Naruto. What reason would I have to pit you three up against an impossible enemy with an impossible goal?"

Naruto's face scrunched up in thought. "Uh… to, uh… to make us work together?"

"That's correct," Kakashi answered. "Though, I'm fairly certain you only arrived there because Kasumi was kind enough to give you the answer earlier on."

Ouch.

"That was the goal though, wasn't it?" Sasuke asked. His fists were clenched at his side. "For us to work together, not for us to get the bells. That means we still passed, right?"

Kakashi stared the boys down, hands in his pockets and his head tilted—he was watching Sasuke crack under the pressure, watching Naruto squirm under it, and at that point I knew, deep in my soul, in the marrow of my bones, that Kakashi Hatake was, indeed, a sadist.

"You're the first team to ever see through the test as I presented it and think for yourselves, and you did it quickly," Kakashi said. "Kasumi, you kept a level head and thought your way through the situation. Sasuke, Naruto, you both trusted her word the entire time, even when you could have broken off half way through and gone out on your own. You functioned as a team, one of the most important things for a genin team to do in a situation like what I presented to you. For that, yes, I suppose you've passed."

Naruto whooped, punching a fist in the air.

The edges of Sasuke's mouth curled up in a smirk and the tension that threaded his shoulders eased.

Kakashi wasn't done.

He strolled through the clearing, gaze set on a point ahead of him—the memorial stone.

"Any time that you leave the village, your life is on the line. The people at your back, your team, are the people who will keep you alive. You need to be able to work with them and trust them," Kakashi said. He stopped in front of the stone. "Do any of you know what this is?"

"The memorial stone," I offered. "Where the names of those honoured in the village as heroes are engraved."

Maen had brought me with him, every so often, to visit the stone when he was paying respects to his family. Both of his parent's names were on there, as was the name of his older brother.

"Then my name's gonna be on there one day!"

I winced. "No, Naruto," I murmured. "I don't think you quite get it."

"Eh? Whattya mean?"

"These ninja are a special kind of hero," Kakashi said. "The memorial stone commemorates all of the ninja who have given their lives to keep the village safe. The names of my closest friends are engraved into this stone."

"Oh," Naruto said, his smile dropping and his shoulders deflating.

A bitter reminder of the bitter reality.

The stone, with its thousands of names that were carved into the obsidian, stood as both the ultimate dream and worst nightmare for the ninja population of Konoha, with some vowing to go out in a blaze of glory and earn their spot on it, and others refusing to become another statistic. I had the awareness to know that I was the latter; the last thing I wanted was for my name to end up beside the countless others who died in the line of fire.

I didn't need to be a hero.

Kakashi turned to face us again, demeanour lightening. "Congratulations, you three. You're now officially members of Team 7—meet me in front of the Hokage tower tomorrow morning for your first mission."