Authors Note:
i. I made Kurenai an Uchiha. She's often called the Genjutsu mistress of Konoha, and her skills were said to rival Itachi's, which obviously they didn't, but since she already had the black hair and red eyes, I figured I might as well add the tomoe and give kurenai back her street cred. The only difference is Itachi has the Mangekyou, which is why he's better. I might give her the Mangekyou if/when Asuma dies but that's a maybe.
ii. By extension I am leaving the Uchiha women and children running around. Danzo is smart enough to know that getting rid of a military asset like the uchiha so soon after the Kyuubi attack would mean konoha's destruction. Obito knows that if he fails there needs to be an uchiha to take up the eye of the moon plan. Thus the clan lives. The remaining uchiha shinobi have been informed of the clan's treason, and the reason for their execution. I might tell Sasuke early, maybe not. Just to be clear, everyone involved with the coup was killed, as well as anyone who knew about it and did nothing.
iii. Sasuke also knows he activated his sharingan during the massacre. It's currently only at the 2 tomoe stage, because he hasn't had enough chakra to use it until recently.
iv. Itachi's girlfriend Izumi is alive. I don't know if I'll spare Itachi's life, I might or I might not.
v. Sasuke still has his fan girl's but it's not as bad, he's not as edgy, (you know since he has family) Ino and Sakura didn't destroy their friendship over him.
vi. The 66.66% failure rate for the real graduation exam is bullshit. It doesn't matter how hard a test is, the only way that many people could fail is if the teachers are absolute ass at their job. Children, especially that young, can be taught almost anything, their brains are malleable. Anyone with 0 talent for the ninja arts would have been weeded out by now. Either the jounin are Gi ring out tests that are way too hard, or Kishimoto just threw in a fancy number to limit cast size and create more suspense, which to be fair worked. But since most of us have seen Naruto before and thus aren't affected by the scary number anymore and I have no problems with a larger cast, (because I have no life) I will be flipping that statistic on its head. 66% pass rate and those who fail go straight to the reserves.
vii. The other reason I'm adding the other teams to the possible roster is because eI can play around with interesting ideas, and practice making my own characters. Maybe I'll kill one of them once you guys are nice and attached to them to give Sasuke his Mangekyou. Who knows. In any case at the least they'll make for some Interesting background characters, some interesting C plots during downtime between arcs, and perhaps some neat interactions in the forest of death.
viii. I know the pacing might get weird in some places, but this is only my second real attempt at writing, so it can only go up from here. I might come back to rewrite the story later though, so don't worry.
Chapter 1: Getting to Know the Teams!
22 January 78 AV (After Villages)
When Hatake Kakashi walked into the academy, halfway through Iruka's introduction of the jounin instructors, the entire classroom went dead silent.
The silver haired jounin slouched casually, hands in his pockets, right eye half open, and took his place alongside Sarutobi Asuma and Uchiha Kureni. He pulled out a book that all the adults, and Naruto, recognized as smut, and started to giggle.
After a moment, the stunned silence was broken by the voice of a bewildered civilian graduate, "Are you reading porn?"
The stunned silence became strangled, and the jounin became wooden faced.
Kakashi gave the person who'd asked, an eye smile, and held up his hands in defense. "Ma, ma, It's erotica literature."
Asuma's eyes began to twitch and Kureni sighed, Anko grinned broadly. The student's openly gaped.
Kiba, who had just recognized the book from his sister Hana's reading collection, began to howl with laughter.
Shikamrau woke up long enough to grumble something about troublesome one-eyed bastards then went back to sleep.
Iruka sighed. Honestly he didn't really care what the Copy-nin read, or where he read it. Sure the chunin instructor was pissed that the bastard had the nerve to read Icha Icha in front of a class of preteens, but It wasn't like Iruka could tell Konoha's War Hound what to do, better men than him had tried. Frankly Iruka was just glad that the man hadn't waited for two hours before bothering to show up.
Naruto who had been holding back her laughs for as long as she could began to laugh uproariously, spilling out of her chair and joining the inuzuka boy on the floor.
Sakura looked quietly horrified, which soon turned into loudly horrified, as she began to make truly horrifying threats to the Silver Fang, along with some truly vitriolic insults. Insults which, had they been made to anyone other than Hatake Kakashi, probably would have left her with an overnight stay in the hospital.
As it was, Kakashi just looked up from his book the genin hopeful, and gave her an eye smile.
"Ma, ma, You should be careful talking to your superiors like that. Sakura-Chan." The air shifted as Kakashi fixed the girl with a neutral stare. The laughter of Naruto and Kiba cut off as the air became a cold oppressive weight and they found it hard to breathe. Shikamaru woke up startled. "Other jounin might not be as nice as me, ne? You wouldn't want to end up in the hospital."
The message was clear, jounin were their superiors, such disrespect would not be tolerated, and the other jounin may not be as lenient as Kakashi. Sakura nodded jerkily. Kakashi eye-smiled and went back to his reading. The presence vanished as quickly as it came, and there was a scrambling sound as Naruto and Kiba regained their seats. Shikamaru slouched in his chair, no longer looking sleepy.
Kakashi eye smiled. "Ma-ma, so serious."
Iruka, who the class noticed had been completely unaffected by the cold weight that the jounin had given off, cleared his throat. "Thank you Hatake-san."
"No problem Iruka-kun."
Iruka's eyebrows twitched minutely before he turned his desk, retrieving the scroll which contained the genin team assignments.
"When I read your name from the scroll please stand up, when your team is announced you will follow your jounin sensei out, is that clear?"
There was a chorus of, "Hai Iruka sensei" from the mildly terrified genin.
Iruka smiled. "Good"
Iruka called out the names of the civilian children on Team 12, and watched them leave with one of the few Nara clan jounin that actually existed.
It was likely that they would pass the real genin test, the man would probably say it was too troublesome to fail them.
Iruka sighed.
"Team 3"
"Team 15"
"Team 11"
"Team 4"
"Team 20"
With each team a jounin and 3 civilian students, or as Kiba liked to call them, kunai fodder, left the room until only the clan kids and Sakura remained. It was expected that they would be grouped together, they were the best of their class…and shikamaru, but everyone knew that was because Nara's were just too damn lazy to actually do anything.
"Team 6!" Iruka called out. "Yamanaka Ino, Choji Akimichi, and Shikamaru Nara."
Asuma stepped forward and his team followed him out of the classroom, Ino grumbling under her breath about lazy bastards, and fa- husky annoyances being a pain in the ass to motivate.
Really Ino wasn't surprised she was on a team with Shikamaru and Choji, after all they were the next generation of InoShikaCho. Ino did however bemoan the fact that she, like her father, would have to help her sensei get these idiots to do anything. Maybe Dad has some tips. Ino really hoped he did.
Shikamaru muttered something that sounded like 'cumbersome bonds' on his way out. Which Ino smacked him for.
"Team 8! Inuzuka Kiba, Aburame Shino, and Sakura Haruno." Iruka announced.
Kurenai Uchiha stepped forward, and shepherded team 8 out the door. Sakura was cheering about having a girl sensei. Kib was grumbling about loud pink kunai targets. Shino buzzed appreciatively, he was happy with his team.
Sakura, despite her civilian background, had shinobi relatives and was as close to a clan kid as a civilian kid could get, and even though she tended to be a bit hot headed, like with Kakashi earlier, she was a capable teammate. Kiba was a loyal kid, and the Inuzuka had a similar mentality to the Aburame, to both of them Konoha was a larger part of their pack/hive.
Hinata began to look back and forth between Kakashi and Anko in stark terror.
"Hinata-san." Iruka said gently, "You have been given an apprenticeship under Mitarashi-san."
Sasuke twitched. The uchiha had accidentally knocked Anko's dango out of her hand a few years ago and after his beating she had carted him off for a few days of "awareness training", which had really just been her throwing kunai at him for 48 hours.
He gave Hinata a sympathetic glance, which was really more of a not-as-cold-as-usual glare, as she was dragged out the door by a cheerful Anko, who had proclaimed that she was going to introduce Hinata to Aoda after they had some Dango.
When Hinata, who had actually fainted after learning that Aoda was a giant snake, was finally dragged the rest of the way out of the classroom, Iruka addressed his remaining students, "Uzumaki Naruto and Uchiha Sasuke"
Sasuke turned to look at Naruto who was looking equally as apprehensive about being on a team with Sasuke as he did.
It wasn't that Sasuke disliked Naruto, because he didn't really mind her. They just had a complicated relationship. They had been friends before the academy because Sasuke's mom had urged him to hang out with the girl. His mother had said something about the Uchiha being the protectors of Konoha and its citizens, and so she'd be damned if the poor girl didn't have any friends.
After the Massacre though, Sasuke had shut her out. Naruto, who didn't know what happened, had been hurt when he wouldn't talk to her anymore, and had started picking fights with him in order to get his attention. It had worked and they had become rivals.
After a few months Naruto worked out what had happened, and she apologized. Then the red-headed menace had declared that they were still rivals and Uzumaki Naruto wouldn't lose to an emo duck haired bastard like him, because how was she supposed to be Hokage if she couldn't kick his ass Dattebane!
Then Sasuke had responded that there was no way such a loudmouth dobe like her would ever beat him at anything.
And then there was that kiss-no, no, no, repress, repress. That never happened. Sasuke went a little green.
Sasuke looked back at Kakashi, who was no longer reading his porn and was instead watching them with an amused expression on his face, eye? The man looked very smug about something, like he knew something they didn't or had just won the Jounin betting pool and was waiting to tell someone. Izumi-nesan looked like that sometimes.
"Meet me on the roof in five minutes." Then their sensei disappeared in a swirl of leaves.
"Show off." Naruto growled.
--
Kakashi watched as his two cute little genin walked up the side of the building.
"So I had this tonkotsu ramen yesterday, and I was thinking miso ramen today."
"Your blood is made of broth. With all the ramen you eat I seriously don't know how you're still alive." Sasuke exclaimed.
Naruto's eye twitched and she smacked sasuke on the back of the head sending him face first into the roofs flower beds.
Kakashi sweat dropped, Naruto was a scarily familiar figure. She had her mothers scarlet red hair that was tied behind her in a ponytail, and her eyes were the same violent hue as Kushina's. Though significantly more feminine her face was distinctly minato.
Additionally Naruto appeared to have developed Kushina's temper and love for ramen. That was not good.
Sasuke, who had pulled his face out of the dirt, had returned the favor, and introduced Naruto's face to the poor… uh… yellow ones. Whatever type of flower they had been, Naruto's enraged thrashing had destroyed them.
Iruka probably wouldn't be happy about that. Kakashi sighed and before the two genin could continue.. whatever it was they were doing cleared his throat. "Are you done?"
The two genin paused, they looked at each other then back to him.
"Not really." Naruto informed Kakashi.
"Yeah can't you see we're in the middle of something here,"Sasuke added, managing to look incredibly annoyed.
"How rude can you be?" Naruto asked, sounding affronted.
Kakashi's eye twitched, at least they had teamwork down. He stood up, and the genin hesitated for a moment, just a moment.
"Can you leave? As I said we're in the middle of something."
The little shits. Before either of the genin could react Kakashi was behind them and had chopped them on the back of the neck. He caught them before they could slam face first into the concrete. He'd get them back.
--
Shikamaru watched with amusement as Choji inhaled his food. It wasn't surprising, the Akimichi had worn himself out using his family's signature jutsu during the real genin test.
Asuma, on the advice of Ino, had taken them to Choji's favorite restaurant as a reward for passing.
"Choji, slow down man, you're going to choke."
Choji tried to swallow so he could speak, he had been raised right after all, and table manners were important, especially to an Akimichi. However, Choji struggled to swallow, then began to make choking noises.
"Troublesome."
Ino ignored the sounds of Shikamaru's complaints about how much work it was to give Choji the Heimlich, in favor of talking to her sensei.
Asuma was was looking vaguely disturbed at the color choji's face was turning.
Ino was much more concerned with the topic at hand, how to motivate her teammates.
"Look sensei, my dad said that Shikamaru should be pretty easy to motivate, 'Nara's don't care about anything unless it's a challenge' and an Akimichi will do anything for anything for good food. So all we have to do is—."
Shikamaru finally got Choji to cough out his food. Unfortunately….
Asuma watched as the half chewed glob of barbecue meat struck Ino on the side of her face.
Ino went scarlet with rage and whirled on her teammates. "YOU"
The two boys froze.
"Troublesome."
--
Elsewhere with team 12 Nara Shikadai, Nara Yoshino's brother, sighed and looked at his genin.
"Well after all that it would be too much of a bother not to pass you."
The battered and bruised genin cheered.
--
Kurenai watched as Kiba and Akamaru prostrated themselves before Sakura. They had just finished up the true Genin test and the team had passed spectacularly.
However Kiba had made a comment about Sakura and the girl had taken it onto herself to instill some classical conditioning into Kiba's, and by extension Akamaru's, head.
"With a temper like that the girl would make a great med-nin, don't you think Shino-san?" The sharingan eyed woman asked.
"Indeed." Shino observed. Med-nin were famous for their explosive tempers. When patients tended to check themselves out whenever they felt like it only to hurt themselves again an hour later, doctors resorted to using any means necessary in order to keep patients in their rooms. They found that angry women worked best.
Sakura delivered a fist to the top of the duo's skulls, sending them into the dirt. "How's that for kunai fodder Dogbreath!?"
At that moment, Kakashi appeared in a swirl of leaves, with an unconscious Naruto and Sasuke under each arm.
"Hello Kurenai-san!" Kakashi greeted the other jounin with an eye smile and a wave accidentally dropping Naruto on her back. The girl didn't wake up, she did however begin to snore loudly.
"Oh God, she snores like her father." Kakashi whined. Out of the village missions were going to be a pain in the ass if this is what she sounded like when she slept.
Sakura, Kiba, and Shino blinked.
"Kushina sensei was always complaining about that." Kirenai agreed.
The genin blinked.
Kakashi hummed in agreement and began tying his charges to the wooden stumps in the middle of training ground 3.
Blink.
"I hope you don't mind that I used training ground 3 Kakashi." Kurenai said. "I know this is usually team 7's stomping grounds, but training ground 12 was being used by the previous team 8 and I didn't feel like kicking them out in the middle of a spar."
Blink. Shino, Sakura, and Kiba looked like their brains needed to be rebooted.
"Ma, Ma, there's no need to worry Kurenai-san," Kakashi assured her. He finished tying up his genin and began to write on a note which he stuck to their faces.
Shino, who had recovered first, asked hesitantly, "You know who Naruto's Parents were?"
"Of course, anyone from your parent's generation could tell you all about the Red-Hot Habanero, Kushina Uzumaki, S-Class Kunoichi extraordinaire." Kakashi said.
The genin gaped. Naruto had been asking for years who her parents were, and all of a sudden some Jounin just name drops her mother out of nowhere.
"It's supposed to be a secret, so don't tell anyone, or the ANBU will bring you off to T ." Kakashi chirped, finishing his note and sticking it to Naruto's forehead.
Kurenai snicker at the terrified look on the faces of her genin.
"It's not that we didn't want to tell Naruto, it's that we couldn't." Kakashi said, suddenly serious. "The brat's a lot more important than you realize, and it's thanks to her that everyone in the village is still alive. Her mom had a big responsibility, and now that belongs to Naruto, we had to protect her from the same people who tried to kidnap her mother back in 53."
It was a partial truth, enough so that the Aburame boy's bugs wouldn't detect any deceit.
Kurenai smiled, her genin looked so cute, all serious-like.
Kiba and Akamaru were looking at Kakashi, eyes wide. A big responsibility huh, maybe it had something to do with the fact that Naruto smelled like foxes.
A sudden realization hit Kiba like a freight train. The Uzumaki were obviously kitsune, fox spirits. Kiba began to stroke his chin and nodded in understanding. This would explain why Naruto smelled like foxes, after all and why someone wanted to kidnap Naruto, Kitsune could do all sorts of things, Hana-nechan said so.
Kakashi eye-smiled at Kiba and pulled out his book.
Akamaru didn't know what His partner had discovered, but he began to nod his head in understanding. It was important for the pack to be united, after all.
Naruto must have some kind of really powerful Kekkei Genkai. Sakura realized. Naruto's mother must have helped the Yondime defeat the Kyuubi. It made sense, since the leaf didn't have any jinchuriki like the other villages, Naruto must have a bloodline that could tame Biju. It would explain why the other villages wanted to kidnap her, a bloodline that could control Biju would be incredibly powerful. Sakura crossed her arms and began to nod in understanding.
Shino stayed silent as always, contemplating what Kakashi had said. Shino knew the girl was Konoha's jinchuriki of course. Every Aburame had the concept of a jinchuriki explained to them very early in life, as did any-halfway decent chakra sensor, so he had spotted Naruto as the Kyuubi container the day they had met.
What intrigued Shino more was that Kakashi had not been telling the whole truth about Naruto's parents. He just didn't know what part Kakashi was lying about. Naruto was obviously the Kyuubi's jinchuuriki, but was her mother really the biju's previous vessel? Had Kushina Uzumaki really been kidnapped back in 53? Shino would need to think about this.
Naruto let out a particularly loud snore and began to drool more.
Kakashi and the others sweatdropped.
"In any case," Kakashi sighed, "She'll be told everything soon, so don't go around spoiling the surprise."
There was a moment of pensive silence, and the genin grumbled their agreement. Of course Kakashi knew that none of them would listen and Naruto would be bombarding him with questions before the week was out, but that didn't really matter, he had been planning on telling her anyway. It wasn;t like they would be able to keep her secrets for much longer.
"In any case, Kakashi sensei, why are you tying them up?" Sakura inquired.
Kiba snickered, "Maybe they failed."
"Ma, ma, they passed just fine." Kakashi waved his hand dismissively, "They were just being brat's, so I thought I should teach them a lesson."
Shino approached Naruto, before pausing. On second thought that was a lot of drool, he would be staying away from that. Instead, Aburame sent out his kikaichu to retrieve the note. Shino unfolded the note and read it then he adjusted his glasses in amusement. He handed the note to Sakura.
"Very funny, have fun being tied to the stumps for the next 12 hours. Next time don't be such a smartass. Signed Kakashi." Sakura read. "P.S. Sasuke, don't let Naruto out." Sakura flipped the note over. "Then there's a picture of a chibi Kakashi holding up a sign that says, 'you passed, good teamwork' with a peace sign, and then 'P.P.S. Be back here tomorrow at ten.' "
"The fuck?"
Akamaru barked in agreement.
Kurenia turned to look at Kakashi, but he was gone. Sakura put the note on Sasuke's forehead, as she didn't want to get anywhere near Naruto's snoring.
--
Aoda looked between his summoner, Anko-sama, and the tiny child in front of him. Anko sama was dancing around the poor child, who was looking increasingly disturbed by his presence. Deciding that terrifying the poor hatching, who was already unfortunate enough to be in Anko-Sama's presence, into unconsciousness would be a horrible first impression, Aoda spoke as gently as he could.
"Anko-sama, you didn't steal another hatchling for knocking over your dango did you?"
"Nope!" Anko exclaimed, popping the p. "I was given a genin student. Gotta show Hinata-Chan here how to be a proper kunoichi." The busty kunoichi wrapped an arm over the Hyuga heiress's shoulder and grinned."
"If she needs to learn to be a proper Kunoichi, I have no clue why Hokage-dono gave her to you, Anko-sama."
Anko squawked indignantly and began to pound her fists on Aoda's scales like a child. "So mean Aoda-kun" the snake mistress cried, rivers of tears flowing down her face.
Hinata, who had begun to relax, giggled. Aoda, who was ignoring Anko's childish antics, bowed his head low to his master's apprentice. "My name is Aoda, I am the boss summon of the snake contract, I am very pleased to make your acquaintance."
Hinata, who had finally calmed down, bowed in return. "It is an honor to meet you Aoda-sama, I am Hyuga Hinata."
"Aoda-San will do just fine, Hinata-san, you are my summoner's apprentice after all."
The giant snake paused. "I do apologize for her behavior, Anko-sama is rather childish, however I think you and I will get along just fine."
"Hey!" Anko whined. The snake boss ignored her. Hinata flinched as the noise. Anko may have been less objectively horrifying than originally thought, but the crazy woman still terrified the Hyuga heiress.
--
Sasuke woke to the sound of excessively loud snoring. He tried to move but discovered that he couldn't, he was bound to a stump with his arms behind his back, and trying to move them was uncomfortable. Nothing a smaller application of the grand fireball jutsu couldn't fix.
The uchiha began to mold the chakra internally, which took almost five minutes to do normally because he wasn't using hand seals. However, the process actually took much longer than it should have, because of the snores louder than most explosive tags going off right next to him.
Eventually Sasuke did manage the jutsu in the end, but he had to have his sharingan active in order to pull it off.
Sasuke puckered his mouth like he was going to whistle and began to burn away the ropes. It took a while but he was finally free.
Stretching his tense muscles and cracking his back Sasuke realized that it was dusk. He's been out for about 12 hours.
Sasuke looked over to the snoring annoyance that was his rival and grabbed one of his kunai. It wouldn't do for him to leave Naruto here. Sasuke reached out to cut her ropes when a piece of paper fluttered off his forehead.
He picked it up to read it. So Kakashi had knocked them out. They'd passed the, quote unquote, secret genin test. Good teamwork.
As if that even counts as teamwork. Sasuke thought derisively.
And don't free Naruto.
Sasuke pondered Kakashi's message, on one hand it was clearly a test, the real teamwork test.
Of course Sasuke didn't give a damn what the copy-nin told him to do. They weren't on a mission, training team formations, or practicing a dangerous jutsu. Therefore, Konoha's War Hound or not, Sasuke didn't really care. Given that Sasuke had already been going to cut Naruto loose, and that Kakashi was almost certainly watching, Sasuke felt like he'd already passed.
On the other hand, it would be really funny to just leave her here.
Making up his mind. Sasuke began to wrap Naruto in even more ropes, careful not to get any drool on him.
When Sasuke was done further affixing his red-haired irritant/teammate to the stump, he walked off and grabbed a decently large and straight branch and stuck it into the ground right in front of the girl. Pulling out a sheet of paper from one of his ninja pouches, he began to write. Sticking his and Kakashi's messages into the branch with one of his kunai, Sasuke made a crude sign.
--
Kakashi watched as Sasuke walked out of training ground three, chuckling to himself.
The Copy-nin was curious as to what the boy had made. Judging by the scornful look the Uchiha had given his note, Sasuke hadn't given a damn about his order to leave Naruto be, so what had made his adorable little genin change his mind?
Kakashi walked up to the loudly snoring Naruto, and looked at the makeshift sign.
"Oh." Kakashi smiled, "His genin were going to be interesting"
Kakashi began to chuckle to himself as he walked away.
This would be interesting.
Omake #1:
Naruto and Sasuke sat alone in the classroom, it had been two hours since Hinata had left with Anko Mitarashi and their sensei still hadn't shown himself.
Sasuke and Naruto glared ahead, at the wall. Right now it was a contest between whoever would snap first.
The clock on the wall, ticked by.
Tick.
Tick.
Twitch.
Tick.
Twitch.
"Fuck it" Sasuke growled, "Naruto help me prank this bastard.
--
When Kakashi entered the room, he watched the eraser he'd seen in the doorway fall on his head.
"Ma Ma-
Then he heard the hiss of an explosive tag.
"Oh fu-"
To be continued…
