Disclaimer: I own neither Naruto nor Tora. I do, however, own this idea of bringing the two together.

Chapter 7

It had been several hours since the Mizuki incident and was nearing midnight, but both Naruto and Tora were wide awake. Both summon and summoner were sitting across from each other on the rooftop of Naruto's apartment, with Naruto looking irritated while Tora merely looked bored.

"Did you know about the Fox?" Naruto asked with suspicion.

While Tora did entertain the idea of lying to the blonde, if there was one thing he took pride on besides his strength it was his honesty. "Yeah, I knew," he replied.

That simple statement burned away at Naruto's limited temper. "And WHY didn't you ever tell me? I'd think that my own summon would have mentioned that little detail!" he all but screamed at the tiger.

Looking unfazed by the fuming child in front of him, Tora said, "Well, you never asked." Seeing Naruto was about to explode on him, Tora cut the boy off. "You know me, Naruto. I don't lie, so if you have ever asked me about the Fox I would have told you no questions asked. And before you blow a gasket, use that pea sized brain of yours to think for a moment. I think its pretty obvious that the people of the village didn't tell you for a reason. Maybe they thought it would be better for your life if you didn't know, or maybe they wanted to wait for when they thought you were mature enough to handle the news because, let's face it brat, you probably would have flipped out if you learned too soon. Honestly, instead of bellyaching about the past you should be focusing on where you go from here."

Naruto looked like he wanted to argue further, but soon realized his sensei/summon was right; arguing and worrying about the past wasn't going to help his current situation and took a few deep breaths before turning back to the tiger and fixed a serious look on his face. "So what happens from here?" he asked.

"That's up to you, brat. As far as I'm concerned, nothing has changed since the day I met you. If yah want to do something different because of some revelation I won't stop you, but personally I think that'd be stupid," Tora waved dismissively.

Naruto managed a small smile as Tora, in his own blunt way, was comforting him about the Kyuubi like Iruka-sensei did. It was then that a thought occurred to him as he remembered something he read in the scroll where he found the summoning contract for Tora. "Hey Tora, I remember in that scroll that the Sage of the Six Paths mentioned something about the Jubi…is that related to the Kyuubi?" he inquired.

Tora was actually surprised by this. It had been a while (by human standards) since Naruto read that scroll, so him remembering such a small detail over this long was fairly impressive, as well as he was able to make that connection off so little evidence. Then again, Tora drilled it (sometimes literally) into the boy the importance of learning to be observant. After all, it's the predator that's aware of its surroundings that gets the prey.

Tora nodded his shaggy head and said, "Yeah brat, the two are related in a way. However, that's a story for another day. Besides, you have to start preparing for actually starting your ninja career now."

Naruto grumbled at the obvious dodge to his question but let it go for now as he knew that if Tora didn't want to tell him something right now then no amount of pleading, bribing, or threatening would make him change his mind. The tiger would tell him eventually, but only on his terms. Scratching the back of his head, Naruto yawned and said, "Alright, I know how pressing the issue with you doesn't work so I'll wait for now. Goodnight, yah stupid cat."

Giving a toothy smirk, Tora responded, "Don't push your luck fishcake. I'll see yah in the morning."

Later the Next Day

Naruto had just had an interesting day. First, he got his Ninja Registration done after having his tiger face paint rejected by the photographer. Then, when meeting with Old Man Hokage, he then met Konohamaru, the Third's bratty grandson and the boy's closet pervert of a tutor Ebisu. One thing led to another and somehow he got Konohamaru as both a part-time student and rival for the positon of Hokage, as well as sending Ebisu flying away via nosebleed thanks to his improved version of the Sexy Jutsu mixed with the Tiger Clone Jutsu that he called the Kitty Harem Jutsu (which basically created dozens of his female transformed state but clad in revealing tiger themed lingerie complete with ears and tail). As the sun was setting, Naruto was getting ready to go back to his apartment with Tora perched on his shoulder as always. However, he then spotted a familiar lavender eyed girl and decided to go talk with her.

"Hey Hinata!" Naruto called out cheerfully.

The girl gave a small 'eep' of surprise before spinning around and seeing her 'secret' crush walking up to her. "H-hello Naruto," the heiress greeted in kind.

"It's good to see you. You excited about us starting our Ninja careers tomorrow? I can't help but wonder who will be on my team. I hope you're one of them!" Naruto finished with a grin at the end.

Hinata blushed deeply at that and Tora couldn't help but snicker at the girl's obvious feelings for his ignorant summoner. 'Oh, she is totally still into blondie and judging by his face he's still completely oblivious to it. It is going to be hilarious when he finds out!' Tora thought before a Cheshire grin spread on his feline face. 'Although…it'd be even more fun if I…helped things along a bit.'

The two future Genin talked for a few minutes more, each wondering about their future teams and what all missions the two would do (Hinata was patting herself on the back for not fainting nor stuttering too much). They were just getting ready to head their separate ways for the night when Tora sent a small amount of his hair to act as a trip-cord under Naruto's feet. The result was instantaneous, Naruto fell forward and crashed into Hinata who was still standing right in front of him. The two fell to the ground and Naruto felt his lips lock onto something. Opening his eyes, he blushed as he saw that during the landing, Hinata and he had ended up unintentionally kissing each other with Naruto on top of the girl. While Naruto was blushing, Hinata was going nuclear. While a bit more confident then she was as a child, the fact that she was currently kissing her crush and that it was both of their first kiss made the girl's brain shut down. She fainted.

Panicking, Naruto quickly got off of the out cold kunoichi and was wondering what the heck he was supposed to do now. Tora, meanwhile, was laughing his furry butt off. Jerk.

Day of Team Assignments

Naruto sat awkwardly in his chair, taking care to avoid eye contact with Hinata as said girl tried the same. Both however risked a glance at the same time, met each other's eyes, then quickly looked away from each other blushing furiously. After nearly an hour of trying to wake the Hyuga up last night, Naruto had to carry her back to her home. It was tricky trying to sneak someone home inconspicuously when the entire family has eyes that literally see everywhere, but Naruto was able to pull it off thanks to both his stealth skills hardened from pranks and Tora's training, as well as said summon finally calming down enough to act as a lookout as Naruto carefully placed Hinata on her bed and hightailed it out of there. The two did meet briefly that morning and agreed that the kiss was just an accident and that neither party was to blame. However, it was needless to say that things were going to be somewhat awkward between the two friends for a while.

They were so busy stewing in their own preteen awkwardness that they almost missed Iruka going over the team assignments. "…Team Seven will be Naruto Uzumaki, Sakura Haruno, and Sasuke Uchiha."

Both Sakura and Naruto slumped over in a slight depression at this. For Sakura, she was ecstatic to be on the same team as her crush, she was not a fan of being paired with the class clown even though he'd stopped pestering her for dates a while back. For Naruto, he was alright having Sakura on his team but he still butted heads (sometimes literally) with Sasuke. He'd been fine with seeing Sakura as just a friend about a year after meeting Tora when the summon 'convinced' him that he should focus more on his training then going after "a pink haired harpy who obviously has zero interest in you." Eventually he realized what he had for Sakura was nothing more than puppy love, but he was still interested in being friends with her. The downside was, first impressions were hard to get over, and so Sakura still saw him as little more than an annoying troublemaker.

Iruka continued listing the teams, "Team Eight will be Shino Aburame, Hinata Hyuga, and Kiba Inuzuka with Akamaru. Team Nine is still in rotation, and Team Ten will consist of Choji Akamichi, Shikamaru Nara, and Ino Yamanaka. It has been an honor teaching you all these last few years, and I know you'll make the Leaf proud! You have an hour break for lunch, then meet back here to meet your new sensei. Dismissed!"

Lunch was a fairly uneventful affair. Naruto asked Sakura if she wanted to meet up with him and invite Sasuke so they could do some team bonding, but she blew him off in favor of going after Sasuke herself which failed miserably. Naruto ended up eating lunch on the rooftop of the Academy and discussing his team with Tora, who seemed to think that they had as much a chance of becoming a cohesive unite as a snowball had of not melting in hell. Finally the hour was up and the fresh graduates met in the classroom to meet their new sensei. Time trickled by as each team was picked up until only Team Seven remained. Naruto was doodling in a scroll on possible new combinations he could do with the new Jutsu he learned from the Forbidden Scroll (Fang over Fang and a basic understanding of the Shadow Clones) while Sakura stared at Sasuke with hearts for her eyes and Sasuke just glared out the window at nothing in particular. And they waited. And waited. And waited…

Finally, after nearly two hours of waiting, Naruto's patience ran out. "ARGH! Where the heck is this guy?! Everyone else has left already!" he ranted, disturbing Tora out of his nap causing him to raise his head and wipe some of the drool off his fur.

"So why don't you prank him?" Tora asked with a yawn.

Naruto gave a malicious grin. That was just what he was thinking! Quickly, he went to work setting up a little surprise for their sensei when he would show up.

"Naruto, what are you doing?" Sakura asked while looking at her new teammate suspiciously.

"Oh, just showing our new sensei our…displeasure…for his absence," Naruto grinned back.

"You're so immature, you moron! Whatever, just keep me out of it," Sakura snapped before going back to gushing over Sasuke.

Naruto merely shrugged his shoulders and went back to setting up his trap before going back to his seat while trying to contain his laughter. It was nearly a half hour later when they heard the door open. Their new sensei was a tall man with gravity defying silver hair, his headband slanted over his left eye, and a black facemask covering the lower portion of his face. The rest of his attire was a standard jonin outfit complete with flack jacket. The man stared at them all lazily for a second before saying, "My first impression of you guys is-"

Before he could finish his sentence, the man tripped over the tripwire Naruto set up and fell forward…face first into a pan of used kitty litter (how the blonde got that into the Academy, we will never know)! "AUGH!" the man screamed in disgust as he quickly stood up and wiped at his face furiously. "There's nothing sanitizing about THESE crystals! (1)" he shouted before finally getting the last of the unspeakable horror off of him.

"…I hate you!" the man said in what was an attempt to be a neutral tone but still held some of the disgust he felt from liter diving.

Naruto and Tora were howling with laughter at the man's misfortune while Sasuke looked at the man in disappointment for not being able to avoid the juvenile prank and Sakura was trying to apologize to the man while internally she was laughing just as hard as the jinchuriki and his summon. Finally the man was able to compose himself before straightening up and saying in his previous bored tone, "Meet me on the roof." He then proceeded to vanish in a swirl of leaves.

The group of four (plus one unseen fifth) met up on the roof a few minutes later and the silver-haired man looked at them all impassively (after making a quick stop home for a change of clothes and a shower). "Alright then my cute little genin, how's about we introduce ourselves?" he asked after a moment.

"What'd yah like to know, sensei?" Naruto asked.

"Oh nothing much, just likes, dislikes, hobbies, dreams for the future, stuff like that."

"Why don't you give us an example, sensei?" Sakura suggested.

Giving a nonchalant shrug, the man said, "All right. My name's Kakashi Hatake, my likes and dislikes are none of your business, dreams for the future…hmm…I have a few hobbies."

'All we learned was his name…" the three genin sweat-dropped.

Tora just snorted, "Way to mess with a group of twelve year olds' minds, weirdo."

Naruto sweat-dropped, 'You're the last person who should call anyone weird, Tora.'

The now named Kakashi pointed at Naruto and said, "Okay Mr. Funny Man, why not you go next?"

Smiling, Naruto said, "Well, my name's Naruto Uzumaki. My likes are ramen, my friends, tigers, and the people who support me. My dislikes are the three minutes it takes to cook instant ramen and people who look down on me, my friends, or my dream. As for hobbies, I guess playing pranks and learning cool new things. As for my dream," at this Naruto straightened up more and gained a confident look, "I'm going to be the best Hokage the village has ever seen! And I plan on helping my friends out along the way."

'Well, he's turned out interesting,' Kakashi thought before nodding his head towards Sakura and saying, "Alright. How's about you Pinky?"

Looking slightly put off by the nickname, Sakura started, "Well, my name's Sakura Haruno. My likes…" she looked at Sasuke and giggled while blushing, "…my hobbies…" cue giggle and blush, "…and my dreams…" at this she added in a squeal, not noticing Sasuke roll his eyes at the attitude.

"…Ooookay, and your dislikes?" Kakashi deadpanned.

"Ino-pig and immature idiots like Naruto!" she stated firmly.

'Ouch!' Naruto thought at the harsh dismissal.

"Ooh~, burn!" Tora taunted, to which Naruto subtly rolled his eyes to.

"Hmm, alright. And how's about dark and broody over there?" Kakashi continued in the same bored tone.

Sasuke sighed and looked up at the man. "My name is Sasuke Uchiha. I hate a lot of things, and I don't particularly like anything. What I have is not a dream, because I will make it a reality. I'm going to restore my clan, and kill a certain someone."

'So cool!' Sakura gushed.

'…As I suspected,' Kakashi thought sullenly.

'…Jeeze, that guy had better not be talking about me,' Naruto sweat-dropped.

"…Okay, it's official: this kid has issues," Tora noted.

Kakashi squinted his visible eye up into what could be considered a smile and said, "Well, now that introductions are out of the way, let's get down to business shall we? Tomorrow, meet at Training Ground 7 at seven a.m. for survival training." The trio looked confused so he explained. "There's one last test you have to pass to see if you'll be genin of the village. And I'll be giving it to you tomorrow."

"Then what was the point of the test we passed here?" Naruto asked annoyed.

"That was just to see if you had the ability to be useful and weed out the hopeless cases. This test will see if you have what it takes to be genin. Just so you know, this test has a sixty six percent failure rate. Meaning out of the eight teams formed this year, it's likely only one or two will pass at best. If you fail, you'll be sent back here for another year before getting to try again." This got all the genin hopefuls to pale yet gained a determined look in both Sasuke and Naruto. "Now, remember to be at the grounds at seven a.m. tomorrow. Oh, I'd recommend not having breakfast either, you'll just puke it up." He then vanished once more in a swirl of leaves, leaving the three on the roof alone.

"Well, you're boned," Tora supplied helpfully, to which Naruto face-palmed and groaned.

Time Skip

"Man, if I'd have known him taking so long was a regular thing, I'd have brought a book or something," Tora yawned in a bored tone the next day as it neared ten a.m. and Kakashi was nowhere in sight.

"Oh, shut up," Naruto grumbled to his summon in a tone no one but the tiger could hear as his stomach let out a moan. He'd followed his new sensei's instructions to the letter, and this is how he's repaid? 'If I'd have thought I woulda brought my prank supplies again, but no instead I brought all my survival gear for this. This sucks.' He thought glumly.

"Where is he?!" Sakura grumbled, looking just as tired and hungry as Naruto felt.

"Hmph," was Sasuke's reply.

Suddenly there was a swirl of leaves and Kakashi appeared in the clearing. "Yo," he said casually.

Leaping to his feet, Naruto yelled, "Where the heck were you, you jerk?!"

"Oh, I got lost on the road of life," Kakashi shrugged.

"…I honestly don't know how to respond to that. I've been around for a long time, and that has got to be the lamest excuse I have ever heard," Tora said blankly.

Ignoring the death glares he was receiving from his genin, Kakashi walked over to the training posts and set an egg timer on top of the middle one. Turning towards the trio, Kakashi spoke, "This timer is set for noon. The objective until that time is to get one of these bells off me," he held up two small silver bells for emphasis at this. "Anyone who doesn't get a bell gets no lunch and will be tied to one of these stumps while I eat lunch in front of you."

'So that's why he told us not to eat breakfast,' the genin thought glumly as their stomachs growled in unison.

"Man, he's good," Tora muttered, impressed by the jonin's maneuvering.

It was then Sakura noticed something, "Um, sensei, there are only two bells?"

"Ah, very good of you to notice that," Kakashi said while smiling with his eye once again before continuing, "Yes, this means that one of you will get tied to the stump no matter what. Also, the one whose left at the end…gets to repeat the academy for another year."

…"WHAT?!" shouted the genin.

"Sad but true," Kakashi stated airily. "Oh, and if any of you want to have a chance at getting one of these bells, I'd recommend coming at me with intent to kill."

"Oh, he's going to regret saying that,"Tora smirked as he floated up into the air to get a better view of the soon to be entertaining show.

"But sensei, isn't that a bit dangerous?" Sakura asked nervously.

Kakashi eye smiled again and said, "Oh don't worry, I'm sure I can handle whatever you three come up with. Now, get ready and…START!"

With that, the three ninja hopefuls leapt into the tree line surrounding the training field. Kakashi sat in what looked like a relaxed position, but the trained observer could tell that he was ready for anything. 'They all seem to be well hidden now. Good,' Kakashi observed while observing his team's hiding spots subtly. Suddenly though, an orange blur leapt into the clearing in front of the silver haired man to reveal a grinning Naruto.

"Alright Kakashi-sensei, you better get ready to take your lumps!" Naruto cried out as he got ready to charge forward.

"…You're a little different from the average genin, aren't you?" Kakashi deadpanned before reaching for his weapons pouch, causing Naruto to tense. However, instead of a weapon, Kakashi pulled out…a book. Not just any book, but one with a bright orange cover and the title 'Make Out Paradise.'

Naruto, after pulling himself out of his face plant, angrily pointed at his sensei and shouted, "HEY! What's the big idea with the book, you pervert?!"

Ignoring the pervert part, Kakashi casually flipped the book open and said, "Well, I was getting to a really good scene and want to know how it turns out."

Naruto nearly saw red at this clear dissing of his skills and made a blind charge at the man.

"Lesson Number One: Taijutsu," Kakashi stated before he started ducking and dodging the strikes from the young blond. After a few seconds of this, Kakashi maneuvered himself behind Naruto with his fingers in the Tiger Seal. "You shouldn't let your enemies get behind you," the jonin said in a strange tone before he jabbed his fingers forward yelling, "Hidden Leaf Sacred Taijutsu: 1000 Years of Death!"

With that, Kakashi's fingers went were no man's fingers should go on a small boy, causing the blonde to rocket into the air while screeching in pain while clutching his backside before he disappeared in a puff of smoke. This caused Kakashi's eye to show surprise briefly, before looking strangely satisfied. "So he learned the Shadow Clone Jutsu and used it to see how I fought, hm? He's far cleverer than he let on. I think I might actually have fun with this group," he commented before going off to look for his students.

Team Sevens true test had begun!

1. Kudos to Fairly Oddparents for giving me this idea for a prank! Note that while I may prank Kakashi a lot in my stories, I'm actually a big fan of his character. I just love messing with him though!

AN: So here we are again gang! A bit of a cliffhanger at the end, but next chapter will focus on finishing the Genin Exam and start the Wave Arc. I just wanted to add in some interaction between Naruto and several characters before moving on to the action bits. As for Konohamaru, the story was pretty much the same as canon in both this and any other Naruto story I may write. Don't mess with what works, right? Anyway, we get to see Naruto's reaction about finding out about Kurama and Tora continues playing matchmaker this chapter. Hope you all enjoyed! For those of you who don't read my other story Kid Kyubi, I have posted a poll on my profile asking what my readers think should be the fate for Zabuza and Haku in both that story and this story. Please check it out and vote at your leisure.