Here we go again. Sorry for keeping yall waitin, but it took a long time for inspiration to do this fic came back. Even now I kinda had to force myself to do it. This fic's not exactly my style. I'm more a drama/angst/action/adventure kinda guy and humor is really hard to write. Enough of this though, just get on with it and read

what you've all been waiting for.

Chapter 1

Blunt Impact Trauma

Naruto yawned. The sunshine that spilled into his room prevented him from getting further rest. Until he pulled the curtains shut, that is. Snuggling back down into the warmth of his bed covers, he allowed a content sigh to escape him, as sleeping late was on of the simple pleasures he enjoyed immensely. Naruto's trip back to the realm of the unconscious was cut short when someone banged loudly on his door. Now wide awake, Naruto pulled himself out of bed, intent on finding out just who had robbed him his morning enjoyment.

"Damn it! The one day I get to relax and someone has to go and screw it up already!" He stomped toward the door, intending to find out just who it was and what was so important.

"What the hell do you-Sasuke?" Sure enough, his black haired nemesis was standing outside his door with a slightly amused expression on his face.

"Damn it Sasuke! Don't you have anything better to do than to bother me on our day off?" Naruto asked.

"Don't flatter yourself Dobe. I just came to inform you that Tsunade-sama has called a meeting for all the genin teams because Kakashi-sensei asked me to. The meeting is at eleven in front of the academy. And you're right, for once. I do have something better to do idiot, it's called training. You should be doing it too instead of wasting your time if you ever want to beat me; then again, you will never beat me no matter how much training you do," Sasuke drawled out with a smirk.

Anger boiled in Naruto's chest. "Bastard!" He cried out as he swung at Sasuke. Sasuke pivoted on his left foot, shifting his right leg back and leaning back a little, letting Naruto's fist pass right by him. He took advantage of Naruto's over-extended position by grabbing Naruto's wrist, yanking him forward, and planting his knee in the blonde's solar plexus.

Naruto went crashing to the floor. He gasped for breath as he pulled himself into a sitting position. The exchange had only lasted a second, but Sasuke had come out as the obvious winner of the mini skirmish.

"My point exactly", Sasuke said smugly, before turning to leave. Naruto grumbled out "lucky shot" as he got back on his feet. Sasuke only replied with a "Pft" before bounding over the rooftops.

Naruto sighed as he watched him go. Shaking his head in disgust, he grumbled out loud. "Why can't I be asshole free for one day? This day isn't going as I hoped it would, and it just started!"

Another sigh escaped him when he realized the implications of what had just happened. He just had his ass handed to him by Sasuke, again. He knew that if it had been a ninjutsu fight, he could have held his own and maybe even beat Sasuke. However, there were times when using ninjutsu wasn't possible, and genjutsu and taijutsu were the only options; both of which he was weak in comparison to Sasuke and most of the other genins.. Genjutsu he didn't really care about because in his opinion, it was weak, but taijutsu was something he knew he had to work on. Sasuke's ninjutsu was as good as his and Sasuke's taijutsu was better. Sasuke was right in saying that he needed to train if he wanted to beat him.

He pushed thoughts of Sasuke out of his mind as he made his way into his kitchen. It was impossible for him to go back to sleep after his little scuffle, so he decided to make the best of it by starting the day off early. He opened up his cupboard to be confronted by a wall of ramen. Making a quick decision to have plain instant ramen for breakfast because he had misao ramen for dinner, he set the container on the counter and filled up the tea kettle with water. While filling up the kettle he decided to take a shower while he waited for the water to boil. He made sure to fill it up with more water then he knew was necessary so as not to start a fire if all the water evaporated (which had happened more then once) and headed to the bathroom.

Refreshed from his short five minute shower, Naruto took the whistling kettle off the stove, filled the cup with hot water, waited impatiently for the noodles to soften, and slurped them down with reckless abandon. When he attempted to get dressed, he ran into a problem. His normal orange outfit which happened to be his favorite clothes seemed to have shrunk. Naruto scratched his head. He didn't think that they shrunk in the wash. After all, he did all his laundry, as infrequent as it was done, by hand. He knew he had grown some since he had bought the outfit. Recently it had been feeling tight and restricted but it had still seemed to fit. With a sigh towards the fact that his ninja outfit was definitely too small for him, Naruto began to look for something else to wear

He dug through his closet, trying to find anything that fit him. After searching for awhile, the only thing he had come up with were an old pair of denim pants where the waist still fit but the pant-legs were too short, and a faded navy blue t-shirt with an orange spiral design on the front. He quickly solved the pants problem by using a kunai to fashion them into shorts.

His clothing problem solved, he walked out his apartment, not forgetting to lock the door behind him, and dashed off into the streets. His scuffle with Sasuke was still in the back of his mind. The smug look Sasuke had given him had him just itching to start training so he could wipe it off his face.

Before long he reached one of the wooded training areas. After he warmed up, he started with endurance exercises. Most people knew that he had very high stamina. That was in part due to Kyubi's chakra and healing capabilities. Naruto was at loath to rely on the demon's help for anything, so he now trained to increase his stamina so he would only have to use Kyubi's chakra as a last resort.

After finishing his regular exercises, he began working on his jutsus. The Kage Bunshin was second nature to him now, so he had no need to practice it. He did practice the Rasengen though. He had yet to master it, and still needed clones to create one. After working on that for awhile, he began work on his new jutsu. The jutsu was not really something new, but a variation of the Rasengen. In order to use Rasengen, he had to get close to the person he was attacking and hit them. He figured that if he was able to attack from long range, then it would be more of a threat. This all sounded good in theory, but it wasn't working. As soon as the ball left his hands it lost cohesion and his chakra went everywhere. Dropping it because of his lack of progress, he remembered that he wanted to work on his taijutsu. Part of the reason it was hard for him to improve was because he never had a sparring partner to help him out. Clones worked somewhat, but since they fought just like him and weren't as tough as a human opponent, all they were really good for was to sharpen his reflexes; which he did. Sasuke would just throw it in his face if he asked him, especially since he was training to be stronger than Sasuke, and Sakura was too busy trying to get Sasuke to like her that she'd barely notice if Naruto tripped and broke his neck.

Hmph, I'll show her one day that that asshole Sasuke wasn't worth her time. He won't be so smug when Sakura starts liking me after I beat his ass into the dirt! Naruto grinned, letting himself relax and slip into a daydream of him and Sakura. When he came to the part when she was going to give him a kiss his stomach growled, shaking him out of his fantasy.

Damn it! I was just gettin' to the good part too. Ah well, I guess I might as well head over to the Ichikaru for some lunch. He rose to his feet and wiped the sweat off his face with his sleeve. The sun beat down on him as he made his way out of the training area and past the fence that separated it from the village. It was getting too hot to train as the sun had almost reached its zenith. Something tickled the back off his mind but he couldn't quite grasp it so he shrugged it off. He bobbed and weaved through the midday crowds, eventually making it to the shade of the Ichikaru stand.

"Hey kid, what'll it be?" asked the familiar chef.

"The usual, and make it fast, I'm starving!" answered Naruto with a grin.

"Yea yea, one miso prawn commin' up." With that, he turned and made his way back into the kitchen.

Naruto swiveled his stool and leaned back against the counter as he waited. He stared out into the sunny market place and watched as people went about their business. There were people doing errands, stand owners trying to get potential customers to buy things, and children playing in the streets. He watched as a little girl approached a group of kids playing "catch the ninja" and asked to join in there game. The children agreed, and soon they were all running around again, giggling as they played. His own childhood memories sprung up and a wave of sadness and a little envy washed over him when he thought of all the times he had asked to join in other's games. These thoughts were abandoned as he heard the clinking of a dish being placed on the counter behind him. He dug into his huge bowl of ramen, savoring its miso goodness.

"Hey, Shinta! It's a quarter past eleven; your break was over fifteen minutes ago! So get back to work!" the head chef yelled to one of the employees. The young boy gave a sigh of annoyance as he said goodbye to a pretty village girl he had been talking with.

Naruto wasn't paying attention to that though. Eleven-fifteen, why do I feel like there's somethin I should remem-The meeting! "Crap!" he cried out as he grabbed his bowl and dashed away from the stand.

"Hey you forgot to pay for that!" shouted the chef.

"Put it on my tab!" Naruto yelled back.

He took to the rooftops to avoid the crowds of the market place. He gobbled down his ramen as he ran, putting his hard earned ninja skills to good use (at least in his mind) by not spilling a drop as he bounced from rooftop to rooftop. Finishing his soup he tossed the bowl aside, ignoring a yelp of pain from someone in the streets below.

With his hunger satisfied, he focused on getting to the meeting. He picked up speed as he approached the end of the shopping section. Up ahead there was a wide intersection that separated the market areas from a residential area; the academy was only about a block in that direction. Naruto frowned. If he had to abandon the rooftops it would cost him valuable time, as the street was one of the busiest in Konoha and crowded with people. However there was no way he could jump the entire gap. An idea formed in his mind and he grinned, beginning to perform the handseals that were second nature to him now.

"Kage no Bunshin!" he yelled. Two clones appeared at the edge of the last rooftop before the street. Without pausing he gave a small running hop, his feet landing in the interlocked hands of his two clones. As soon as his feet were planted in their hands the clones immediately launched him into the air, as to not kill his forward momentum. Naruto released more charka, adding more thrust to the propulsion they had given him and destroying the now unneeded clones in the process.

His plan was successful.

Naruto shot over the street like a blurry orange comet, clearing the intersection completely.

Actually, maybe his plan was too successful, he thought, as he continued to rocket over houses. It occurred to him that it might have been wiser to have thought his plan out better, as he had forgotten an important part: how was he going to stop? It appeared nature had thought it through for him, as gravity took hold and he began to descend, still traveling at an alarmingly fast pace. The flat roof rose to meet him, and he had no choice but to try role out of his fall. He land on the roof and instinctively rolled into a ball as his body continued to roll until he could safely uncurl and roll sideways until his momentum was halted.

Naruto was relatively surprised to find himself absent of injuries besides a few scrapes and bruises that were already beginning to heal. With a grin he stood up and dusted himself off. He looked across the street to his left and partially hidden by a small building was the academy's front field; which was filled with gennin.

Today might not be so bad after all, he thought. He searched through the crowd until he found a familiar spot of pink head; he had expected to find a raven haired one sitting next to his crush, but he was no where to be found. Today's definitely looking up! Excited by the chance to spend time with his love, Naruto gave a running leap; this time forgetting to check what was above him. His lack of foresight found him tangled in clothes lines. After a brief battle with the Clothes Lines from Hell, he was able to swing down to the roof on the other side of the street to then make his way over to the mass of gennins gathered in the field.

He was surprised to find that the meeting had yet to start. A few other stragglers were still arriving He continued on to the area where he had seen Sakura. As he walked he noticed that some people had started to stair at him. Some laughed, some just rolled their eyes with a disgusted look on their face, and some of the female ninjas looked outraged. Naruto mentally scratched his head. He was used to the disgusted looks thrown at him, but there was no apparent reason for the laughter or outrage. Whatever, he shrugged. A trio of familiar ninjas on their way to the stage froze. Now Naruto was sure something was amiss, considering the twitching in Tsunades eye, the amused approval in Kakashi's, and the doubled-over full-bellied laughter coming from Jiraiya.

It was at that moment that Sakura decided give him a clue; by decking him in the head with a cry of "Pervert!"

Naruto was knocked to the ground with his head ringing; he absent mindedly wondered why it was that Sakura always hit him harder than anyone else, enemies included.

"Sakura-chan, what was that for?" he whined as he rubbed his aching head. A shiver of fear ran down his spine and dread blossomed in his chest as his came in contact with something soft and lacy tangled in his hair. Dreading he was going to find, he yanked the offending item out of his hair came face to face with a lacy, black (and quite sexy looking) thong.

The idea that the day might turn out to be alright suddenly died horrible death.

With a strangled cry Naruto threw the offending article of clothing away from him, accidentally hitting a teenaged gennin in the face with it. For some reason, he didn't seem to mind very much. Naruto didn't notice though, he was too busy trying to explain his lack of fault.

"Ah, Sakura-chan it's not what it looks like! I can explain!" he pleaded with her.

"Explain what? How on top of everything else you're also a pervert? What's not what it looks like, huh? That you're not wearing panties on your head?" she yelled out.

"Yes! I mean no! I mean there was close line, and I accidentally-" he stammered to explain, but Sakura cut him off.

"Stop making excuses, you're as bad as Kakashi-sensie! At least he doesn't lie about being a pervert. Ugh, you're so disgusting!" she screamed, before stomping back to where she was sitting.

He sighed as he got up off the ground. He looked over to find Tsunade's face buried in her palm in a show of exasperation. The look in the Kakashi's eye was now mockingly amused, and he barely resisted the urge to give him the finger. His eyes found Jiraiya next, who was rolling around on the ground in a much undignified manner. He was laughing hysterically, tears of humor poured down his cheeks; he was laughing so hard he looked like he might have an aneurysm.

Naruto gritted his teeth. Laugh it now up Pervert-sennin, but I promise you you're gonna regret it He stomped away angrily, "accidentally" crushing Jiraiya's hand under his sandal. The yelp of pain that reached his ears was oddly satisfying. He continued walking in the direction he has seen Sakura walk off in until he caught sight of her. This time however there was a familiar raven haired person sitting next to her. Sakura turned and glared at him as he approached. Sasuke turned also but said nothing. This was because he didn't need to; his look of smug amusement said it for him.

Naruto's hands balled into fists. Bastard, he probably saw everything! Now I'll never live this down! Angrily he took at seat in the nearest available space.

By now Tsunade had made her way to the stage accompanied by Kakashi and a glowering Jiraiya. Naruto noticed that Jiraiya was cradling his crushed hand and grinned. This is only the beginning Pervert-sennin.

Tsunade stepped up to the podium on the stage while Jiraiya and Kakashi joined the other high ranking ninjas in chairs arranged on the stage behind her. As soon as the assembled gennins quieted, she began to speak.

"It has come to my attention that there have been problems between the members of many gennins teams or even between whole teams themselves. While team rivalries are normal and sometimes, to an extent, encouraged, we must never lose sight of the fact that we are all ninjas of the same village. If that happens we will be weakened. We cannot let that happen. As your hokage, I will not allow that to happen. Although the attack by the Village of the Hidden Sound may seem a long time past, make no mistake that we are still recovering. We cannot afford to be divided..."

Naruto stopped paying attention to what she was saying. Instead, he truly studied his surroundings for the first time since he had arrived. Looking around, he was surprised to see so many gennin gathered. He estimated that there was nearly fifty gennins assembled in the field. He realized that there were many gennins who he had never met before. His attention was brought back to Tsunade as he caught was she was now saying.

"I have come up to a solution to this problem through a new program which will now be in institution. From now on, four to five gennins from different teams will be grouped together, and will be required to live together in the same residence"

Naruto's eye's widened and his jaw hung open. What! The stunned faces of the gennins around him mirrored his own shock. Finaly it began registering and bursts of conversation broke out among the mass of gennins. While some were still too shocked to say anything, some looked excited, most probably and the prospect of living without their parent's supervision, while others, like Sasuke, looked annoyed.

Tsunade waited for a few moments before continuing.

"The program is will work like this. Your group will be required to survive by yourselves. You are required to find a new residence. It doesn't matter whether you decide to pay for an apartment or camp out in the forest, as long as you do it together without any outside assistance. This means that you may not receive funds or any other type of monetary or utilitarian aid from any one outside of your group, even if they are your parents or guardian. You are allowed twenty four hours away from your residence once week. You will still be required to go on missions and train with team and your instructor. You will not be penalized for being away from your residence for more than the allotted time if you are on a mission. As of today, you have fourteen days to find a new residence, move out of your current one, and inform your instructors of where you will be staying. This will be in place until we determine that the inter-team relations have improved. Now I will call out the gennins teams. When you hear your team called please to the area indicated by numbered sign."

Naruto waited impatiently until Team 7 was called. Then he, along with Sakura, Sasuke, and four other teams made their way over the area which had a tall sign with the number eight on it. Waiting for them there, along with four other instructors, was Kakashi. As soon as they arrived he tossed them each a scroll, then disappeared with a farewell message of "good luck".

Sasuke opened his scroll first. His eyes narrowed as he read it, but he said nothing. Instead he casually tossed it up into the air and then incinerated it with a wordless Katoun no Jutsu. With that, he turned and left to an unknown destination.

Sakura opened hers next. A cry of exasperated disbelief escaped her as she read the contents of her scroll.

"Who's in your group, Sakrua-chan?" Naruto asked curiously.

"None of your business Naruto" she spat, before she too turned and walked away.

Naruto stared at the scroll in his hand. He wasn't eager to find out who he was grouped up with, as his luck had seemingly deserted him today. With a sigh, he unraveled the scroll. "Might as well get it over with", he muttered as he began to read it.

To Uzamaki Naruto. You have been grouped with the gennins listed below. Please proceed to the area indicated with a sign corresponding to the number printed below as soon as possible.

Group Members

Yamanaka Ino

Ashikanba TenTen

Inuzuka Kiba

Please proceed to area: 12

"So that's where they went", Naruto pondered aloud until what was on the scroll hit him. "Kiba! I'm in a group with Kiba! Damnit!" Naruto didn't understand why today had figuratively kicked him in the balls repeatedly. After he had calmed down somewhat, he thought about the other members of his group as he made his way over to area twelve. He remembered that the Ino chick was Sakura's rival, especially when it came to catching Sasuke. Naruto made a face somewhere between a frown and a pout. I don't think I'm gonna like her already, he thought. He knew even less about TenTen. He vaguely remembered seeing her at the last Chuunin exams, but that was it.

Finally he reached the area with a sign that had the number twelve. Waiting their, was Kiba, Ino, and TenTen along with an unknown chuunin. The chuunin waited for him to arrive before he spoke. "I'm going to assume you all can read and therefore are all meant to be here because I don't have time to sit around and babysit you kids. Feel free to introduce yourselves to one another. You can start planning what you're going to do now or something, I don't care", he said with a disinterested voice.

"Who're you calling a kid!" exclaimed Naruto. Kiba yelled out something similar. The chuunin just gave them a bored look.

"Well, we pretty much know each other already", said Ino.

The chuunin gave them an apathetic shrug before he turned and left. For a few moments they stood in awkward silence, not knowing what to say to the people they'd be living with for the time being. Naruto and Kiba glared at each other but they tried to refrain from fighting. Naruto, feeling decidedly uncomfortable with the silence, tried to strike up conversation.

"So, anybody like ramen?" he asked.

"Hmph, that's all you ever talk about, stupid. What? You don't have the intelligence to think of anything beyond that? I wouldn't be surprised" Kiba sniped, unable to refrain any longer.

Naruto growled at Kiba's comment. "You're just mad because the only food you probably eat is dog food. I bet you're not even house broken. When we get our new place you better not pee on the rug" Naruto gunned back with a smirk.

The comment obviously got to Kiba as it was his turn to growl.

"Yea? At least I'm not the one who walks around with panties on their head!" he yelled back.

Shit! He saw that? "That was an accident!" Naruto exclaimed.

"Will you two stop yelling!" Ino screamed.

"Hey! He's the one who started it!" Naruto bellowed, pointing to Kiba.

TenTen pinched the bridge of her nose, muttering "Why did I get stuck with these idiots".

Ino continued trying to get Kiba and Naruto to stop arguing. "I don't care who started, just be quite! Shut up Kiba!" she yelled as Kiba was about to open his mouth. Then she turned to Naruto and said "And let's get one thing straight. If you go anywhere near my underwear I'll make you half the man you think you are".

A vein began to bulge on Naruto's forehead as Kiba started laughing.

"I said that was and accident! Ac. Ci. Dent. As in unintentional!" he screamed at her, his chest heaving with frustration.

She looked at him for a second and blinked. Naruto tried to calm down and get his breathing under control.

"........."

"..................."

"..............................."

"I'm, serious. If I find even one pair missing I'll-"

"Aarrgg!" Naruto screamed and grabbed his hair in frustration. He then proceeded to walk to the nearest metal pole, and slam his head against it was hard as he could. He slumped to the ground unconscious.

That was when Kiba decided to speak up again, "Do you think he wears panties on places other than his head?"

Ino looked thoughtful.

TenTen messaged her temples as she attempted to ward off an oncoming headache.

Naruto twitched unconsciously.

But maybe that was for the best.

I'm finally done goddamnit! Somehow I managed to finish this. Halfway through working on the second half of this Word crashed and I lost about two hours of progress. I really hate doing things over again, but somehow I forced myself to retype it cuz I promised myself that I would get this up there for you guys today.

I would like to apologize to all my readers for taking so long to finish this, and to give much thanks to all those who reviewed that short little prologue I put out.

The next chapter probably won't be coming out for awhile, judging as I have a whole lot of other fic ideas, I want to start writing my original stories, I have to update my art stuff cuz I haven't drawn anything in awhile, and I'm not too happy with the way the actual Naruto manga is going right now nor have I read any Naruto fics that have inspired me in awhile. Oh yea, and Halo 2 pwnz me. When it does come out I think it'll be much better than this one cuz I can actually get around to the character interaction and all that good stuff.

As always, tell me what thought; it may not seem like reviews help me to update faster, but they do because it stays on my conscious.

One love,

-Z