A/N: I'm terribly sorry for the long delay in putting this chapter up, life's been pretty busy lately, and to be honest, I found this chapter rather difficult to write. O.o


For the first time ever since the year had started, Iruka found himself stepping into a lively environment close to bursting with excitement. No longer did the students stare at him dully from their seats within the classroom – they sat in groups, talking excitedly about which teams they hoped to be in, and wondering who their Jounin instructors were going to be. He glanced down at the list of teams in his hands, and sighed wistfully. After he made this announcement, he would be bidding farewell to his students. Though they had been naughty, disobedient and at times made him want to tear out his hair and scream in frustration, they were, to him, his precious students.

"Okay, class!" He said loudly, "Settle down, I know you're all eager to know your teams!" He watched, amused, as the students clambered back to their seats and stared at him, broad grins on their faces. He could see the tension on everyone's faces, and his attention was in particular focused on the three of his favorite students.

Haruno Sakura, Uchiha Sasuke and Uzumaki Naruto.

Sakura was being cornered by Ino, the blond girl pestering her, as usual, for information on Sasuke's likes and dislikes, and how she could get to be Sasuke's girlfriend. Shikamaru and Chouji were close by. Having denied Sakura's pleas for help, knowing better than to incur Ino's unholy wrath, Shikamaru was fast asleep and Chouji was happily munching away on a bag of chips.

Sasuke and Naruto were hanging out together in one corner of the class, as they always did, Naruto recounting his beating up of Mizuki and his usage of the Kage Bunshin (conveniently leaving out the bit about him being Kyubi) to the other guys in class. The boys had been skeptical at first, but once Sasuke had said that every bit of the story was true, they had been staring at Naruto with newfound respect and hanging mouths.

"Team 7! Uchiha Sasuke!" At those words, everyone quickly turned their attention back to Iruka. Naruto and Sakura wanted to be on Sasuke's team for obvious reasons, the guys wanted to be Sasuke's teammate for the reason that he was strong and could help them better themselves (and hopefully score some girls in the process), whilst the girls… well… they simply couldn't get enough of the raven-haired genius.

"Uzumaki Naruto!" All the guys in the class scowled as Naruto whooped loudly and slapped Sasuke on his shoulder. The girls all held their breaths, willing their names to be the next one to be called, staring so intently at Iruka that he began to feel nervous.

"Haruno Sakura!" Sakura immediately fled to Naruto and Sasuke's sides as the girls simultaneously whipped around to glare at her, their eyes filled with so much killer intent that if looks could kill, the Hokage would find himself having to inform the citizens of Konoha of a massacre at Konoha Academy.

Iruka smiled ruefully to himself as he continued to read out the groupings. Truth be told, Naruto had not been meant to be in Team 7, considering that each team was supposed to be balanced, with a strong ninja, an average one, and a weak one. Sasuke, being the top of the class, was to have been paired with the poorest ninja in the class – possibly Shikamaru, considering his abysmal grades and overall performance. However, the Hokage had personally requested Iruka to group all 3 students together. When Iruka had questioned why, all the Hokage would say was: "It would be interesting to watch them grow stronger as a team."

Iruka suspected that the Hokage had been watching the three of them the night Mizuki tried to kill Naruto, though he couldn't be exactly sure. But there was something about the Hokage's smile that made him certain that the Hokage had grouped the three of them together for a special reason.

Once done, Iruka waited for the excitement to die down, and then began to speak.

"Now that you all know your groupings, please sit with your fellow teammates and wait for your Jounin instructor to arrive. As of now, you're officially qualified as proud ninjas of Konoha." At this, Iruka swept his gaze across the room proudly, looking upon his students, who were wearing the forehead protector of Konoha with pride. "Do Konoha, your instructors, and yourselves proud. That is all I have to say. Congratulations on passing the examination." As he turned to leave, the class began applauding and cheering. Smiling as he closed the door behind him, he paused just as a group of students, with Team 7 in it, stood up and yelled: "Iruka-sensei! You're the best!"

Okay, so maybe the only ones that yelled were Naruto and Sakura. Sasuke merely smiled and waved, the girls were too busy imitating Sasuke, and staring at him, and the guys were too busy celebrating their graduation, but Iruka didn't really care.

After all, they were all his precious students.


Naruto was bored.

And as all teachers of the academy know, there is nothing more dangerous than a bored Naruto.

"I'm bored!" Naruto declared, his simple statement enough the strike fear into the hearts of his teachers and send them fleeing out of the building before Naruto brought it down around them. The blond-haired ninja stretched and yawned loudly, then plopped despondently down on his seat, having already explored every inch of the classroom at least a couple hundred times. Sakura wasn't feeling any much better; she had long ago given up on trying to keep up with Naruto as he leapt from table to table, then from table to the ceiling light, and then onto some chairs, and then onto something else. Sasuke had a bit of a scowl on his face, though it probably would have been far more pronounced had he not been watching Naruto bounce, jump, trip, roll and do all sorts of crazy things in the classroom for the past…

3…

Hours.

"Where is our instructor?" Sasuke demanded of nobody in particular. "Everyone already left ages ago!"

"Maybe he forgot that we're waiting for him?" Sakura suggested.

"Some instructor…" Naruto muttered, "Forgetting to come to pick up his new team. That's like Shikamaru."

"Maybe our instructor's Shikamaru's dad!" Sakura gasped in horror. Sasuke stared at her with wide eyes, as did Naruto.

"You think so? Then we probably will be better off training ourselves everyday." Sasuke groaned.

"Yeah! Shikamaru's such a lazy bum, so Shikamaru's dad is probably like… a Mega Shikamaru or something! Ultra laziness! Complaining about everything!" Naruto looked horrified at the thought. And so they went on, scaring one another with speculations on who their instructor could be, their imaginations running wild, growing increasingly vivid.

And so, when the door slid open, and a man popped in with a "Yo!", Sakura had screamed and ducked behind Sasuke, who had in turn gotten to his feet, ready to fight, while Naruto unleashed a fearsome yell and flung a kunai at the instructor.

Hatake Kakashi caught the kunai effortlessly in his hand, raising an elegant eyebrow ever so slightly, perplexed.

"Well, what can I say?" He mused. "My first impression of your guys is that… you all are weird."


"Let's start with introductions, then, shall we?" Kakashi said cheerfully as the group settled down on the rooftop of the academy, where a pleasant breeze was blowing. The three of them sat close to one another, and tried to put as much distance between themselves and their instructor as possible. "I'll go first. My name is Hatake Kakashi. My dreams are none of your business, my hobbies are too horrific to describe to innocent little children such as you," He paused and watched in amusement as Sakura twitched, and the two boys go slightly paler. "What I like and what I dislike are up to you to figure out on your own."

"… So in the end all he gave us was his name…" Sasuke thought to himself.

"You! The one with that killer-bright-orange jumpsuit! You start." Kakashi pointed at Naruto, who scowled at the insult directed towards his clothing.

"I'm Uzumaki Naruto! My dream is to become the Hokage of Konoha!" He said proudly, puffing out his chest. Nobody noticed, but at that moment, Kakashi's impassive eyes softened, and his mouth twisted into a small smile. "What an interesting lad…" He thought.

"My hobbies are playing pranks and hanging out with Sasuke and Sakura! I like ramen, and I dislike the waiting time for ramen to cook."

"The girl with the pink hair, you next." Kakashi drawled.

"My name is Haruno Sakura, and my dream is to become as great a medic-nin as the legendary Tsunade!" Her dream had mostly been inspired by the time she spent in the Konoha library, reading up on its history, and had also been influenced by her wild escapades with Sasuke and Naruto, all three often ending up bruised. When she realized that her precise control of chakra enabled her to heal faster, she had started reading up on the medical branch of Konoha ninjas, and had been hooked on the idea of being a medic-nin ever since. "My hobbies are reading and messing around with the two of them." She smiled.

"I like being around friends," She said simply, "And I dislike people who make fun of my forehead."

"Alright, you next." Kakashi pointed at Sasuke.

"I'm Uchiha Sasuke. My dream is to surpass my older brother, and to prove his innocence, as well as to learn the truth behind the Uchiha Massacre." Kakashi inwardly heaved a sigh of relief at this. "Good, looks like he's going to be easier to handle than I had expected."

"I don't particularly have any hobbies other than hanging out with Naruto and Sakura. I like training, and I dislike people who put my older brother down."

"I see… so you kids like to mess around together, huh?" Kakashi observed. "Good, that makes it easier for me to handle you guys as a team. Meet me at the training area tomorrow at 7 in the morning. We're going to do a bit of survival training."

"What? We've done plenty of that in academy!" Naruto protested, then gulped when Kakashi's eyes gleamed slyly.

"This one is going to be quite different…" And though the Jounin's facial expression remained passive and bored, Sasuke could have sworn that Kakashi was laughing at them. "Oh, and don't eat any breakfast, or you'll throw up." With that, the Jounin vanished in a swirl of leaves, leaving the three young ninjas staring, bewildered.

"How can survival training be different? It's just… survival. Training." Naruto scratched his head. "And what did he mean by 'don't eat any breakfast'? That's crazy!" He started flailing his arms wildly. "I can't do anything without a good breakfast! I need my ramen!"

"Well, since we're not going to be eating anything tomorrow morning, we might as well go eat as much as we can right now." Sasuke suggested, glancing at Naruto, knowing that the ever-hungry boy wouldn't pass up a chance to pay a visit to Ichiraku Ramen. And judging by the whoops from Sakura that he could hear behind him, the girl didn't quite mind going for some ramen either. More often than not, when the three of them ate together, Sasuke ended up paying for their meal, considering that he had been left behind a huge inheritance.

A humongous inheritance.

Naruto's eyes had bugged out and nearly dropped out of his head when he had seen Sasuke's bankbook after the entire clan's wealth was transferred into his account, and Sakura had been struck speechless. Sasuke himself had been awed by the incredible amount of money at his disposal, and he guessed that even if he visited the most expensive places in Konoha about twenty times a day, everyday of the year, every year of the rest of his life, he would still have plenty of money to spare.

The cost of ramen, even if Naruto ate about thirty bowls per sitting, was pretty much insignificant to him. Naruto still insisted on paying him back someday, but judging from what he had seen of a Genin's pay, and the size of Naruto's tab, he wasn't going to be able to do that anytime soon.

"Let's go! Ramen goodness waits just ahead!" Naruto cheered, and tried to leap off the top of the building. He would have done so too, if Sakura hadn't grabbed hold of his shirt and forcefully drag him towards the stairs. Sasuke followed, suppressing a grin at the sight of Naruto pouting and protesting loudly, and Sakura bashing him over his head with his forehead protector for good measure.

Nearby, in the top of a tree, Kakashi smiled.


It was nine. And Kakashi still had not shown up.

Naruto and Sakura were so agitated that they had, by this time, started beating up an innocent training pole. Sasuke, in the meantime, was amusing himself by chucking all of his kunai and shuriken into a tree, then going over to pick them all up, going back to where Naruto and Sakura were, and tossing them at the tree again. The tree wasn't going to last much longer, though – Sasuke, growing increasingly frustrated, had started to hurl his weapons with more and more force.

And so it was when Kakashi finally showed up in a puff of smoke, he immediately had to lean to one side to dodge a kunai, and scratched his head and laughed nervously when Naruto and Sakura whipped around and fixed him with furious glares.

"YOU'RE LATE!" The duo screamed with enough fervor to scare the nearby birds out of the trees.

'Well…" Kakashi dragged the word, thinking of a plausible excuse to feed the young minds of the children – it wouldn't be too hard, seeing as how they were little kids. And little kids are all gullible. "I got lost on the road of life, and…"

"LIAR!"

Okay, maybe little kids weren't as gullible as he thought. 'Kids these days,' he thought to himself grimly, 'Just don't know how to trust adults anymore.'

"Okay, let's get straight down to business." At this, the three young ninjas sobered up immediately, and they huddled closer, listening carefully to his instructions. Kakashi held up two bells, and shook them a little. A crystal clear ring carried itself throughout the clearing. "I have two bells on me. The objective of this exercise is for each of you to retrieve a bell from me, if you get a bell – you pass. If you don't – you fail and go back to academy." The looks of shock and horror were apparent on their faces.

"What!" Naruto screamed. "But… we already passed the academy exams! We're Genins!" Kakashi glared at him.

"The academy examination was merely meant to see who had the potential to become a Genin. The real test is up to the individual Jounin instructor assigned to each team."

"But, there are only 2 bells!" Sakura argued. "Doesn't that mean that one of us will definitely fail?" The Jounin smirked.

"Yes. Don't you know? This test has a 66.7 percent failure rate." All three ninjas stared at him incredulously. "The time is now 9 in the morning." Kakashi placed a clock on top of one of the training poles. "You have until 12 to get the bells from me. Oh, and I nearly forgot this." He placed two box lunches on the ground. "Each bell is equal to one lunch. I bet you guys are pretty hungry right about now, eh?" As he said this, their stomachs began to growl.

"So this was why he told us to skip breakfast…" Sasuke murmured as he rubbed his stomach.

You may use anything – Genjutsu, Ninjutsu, Taijutsu, whatever. Come at me with killer intent and with all you have, or you won't even stand a chance. Ready? Go!"

And then they were gone.


"What do you think? He seemed pretty serious when he said there was a 66.7 failure rate…" Sakura asked. The three ninjas had met up in the forest a distance away from the clearing, where Kakashi stood staring at the river calmly. The two bells hung from his belt. "And something doesn't seem right about this test – why would they assign us to teams of three when they intended to break us up immediately after?"

"Seems like a ploy to split us up…" Sasuke said. "And it probably would have worked too, should we have been teamed up with other people."

"So, what do we do now?" Naruto questioned, as clueless as ever.

"Well… we obviously cannot take him head on, and certainly not one at a time. We're too weak compared to him. We'll have to attack him together, and plan carefully. Lots of ninjas stop at the Chuunin level… Him being a Jounin says a lot about his abilities." The pink-haired girl said thoughtfully.

"He doesn't look very impressive, though." Sasuke muttered, and Sakura smacked him on his head lightly.

"Never underestimate an opponent," She frowned, "I thought you would know that. He's fighting with just one eye – that means that he isn't going to be fighting us seriously… we should use that to our advantage."

Naruto could only look on as the conversation took place, no sure what to add. Sasuke and Sakura had started drawing diagrams with sticks on the ground, and he leaned over curiously.

"Okay, here's what we're going to do. I hope this works…" Sakura murmured after a while, and laid out the complete plan for the other two to hear. After she made sure that they were ready, all three took a moment to gather their nerves. Kakashi was still standing in the same spot impassively, but with all the time that they had taken to plan, he might have set up traps without them noticing.

"Alright, let's go!"


"You're coming alone?" Kakashi raised an eyebrow as Naruto burst through the foliage, hurling three kunai at him. He dodged all three easily, and then proceeded to evade Naruto's attacks as the blond-haired ninja released a series of clumsy punches and kicks. A few moments later, he caught hold of Naruto's foot and forced the younger ninja back, then reached deep into his waist-pouch. Naruto tensed – was he going to use weapons? A scroll, perhaps?

Kakashi pulled out a book.

"… What?" Naruto blubbered in obvious confusion. Kakashi flipped open the book, glanced through the first few pages and immediately a faint blush came on his face. He waved a hand casually at Naruto.

"Oh, don't worry about me, I can still defend myself…" He said in a distracted manner, which served only to infuriate Naruto. As Naruto came charging at him again, yelling wildly, Kakashi prepared to dodge the attack and counter it. He caught Naruto's fist, and was about to move swiftly behind the Genin when he sensed a surge of chakra from behind him.

"Katon – Goukakyu no Jutsu!" His eyes widened at the technique's name as he whipped around, only to see Sasuke standing a few meters away from him, and a gigantic fireball flying straight at him.

"Genins shouldn't have the necessary Chakra to use this technique!" Kakashi thought to himself in awe. He flipped out of the way, dodging the attack in the nick of time, watching as the fireball exploded where he was standing a few seconds before, wrapping Naruto in a massive cloud of dust and blocking him from view. "Looks like I have to stop fooling around…" He thought grimly, returning his book to his pouch. He landed neatly on the ground, then effortlessly caught the kunai Sasuke had thrown at him.

"You're not too bad, Sasuke." He said cheerfully, "But you're not good enough." Before he could say anymore, however, he heard a sound from behind, and jumped out of the way just as Sakura slammed her fist into the ground with such alarming strength that the a good portion of the ground cracked and split asunder, sending chunks of soil and rock into the air. She winced at the pain in her hand, but she managed to crack a smirk at Kakashi, who had been stunned speechless by the display. She came at him again, aiming another punch, but her speed was too slow and Kakashi evaded her attack easily, only to find himself facing a little orange projectile that was flying towards him at a rapid rate. Instincts told him to catch the weapon in his hand, but then he realized that something was amiss. There was an immense amount of chakra within the projectile, too much for it to simply be a kunai wrapped in a layer of chakra.

He sidestepped the projectile, expecting it to sail harmlessly past, but then he felt the concentrated chakra start to unravel itself. The projectile exploded. Sasuke had yet to perfect the technique, and the explosion had not scratched the fast-acting Jounin in the least, but it had served its purpose in distracting Kakashi. As Kakashi orientated himself within the cloud of dust, he avoided another of Sakura's attacks, and was just wondering where Naruto had gone when suddenly a large amount of water spilled all over the back of his head. Shaking his hair dry, he blinked.

'There's no water nearby to have done that, unless it was a Suiton jutsu, but then again there isn't any Suiton jutsu that does that." He thought to himself, feeling the back of his sopping wet hair.

"Oy, Kakashi!" He looked up, and saw a group of Narutos coming at him through the clearing dust, and as he punched one aside, he realized that they were Kage Bunshins. As he fought and picked them off one by one, the real Naruto suddenly charged in from the side, a blue orb in his hands. At the sight of the blue chakra in the shape of a ball, painful memories of his instructor came back to him forcefully, and for a full second he stood still, stunned.

Yondaime…

Rasengan…

Then logic took over, and he realized that the blue orb was nothing more than a ball of water wrapped in chakra. But the one second in which he had been distracted was more than enough. Sakura came from his side to attack, and he leapt backwards, and at that moment Sasuke quickly swiped the bells away from him.

The alarm clock rang.

Sasuke held the two bells up in the air proudly. All three ninjas smiled broadly – they had exhausted nearly all their chakra in their plan, but it had worked perfectly. Kakashi stood staring at them with wide eyes for a brief moment, then his face relaxed, and his mouth twisted into a smile.

"Impressive work, Team 7." He paused, looking at each of them. "The attack was well-coordinated and planned, and it looks like all three of you understand the objective of this exercise."

"Teamwork, isn't it?" Sakura asked, and Kakashi nodded.

"Yes, the entire point of the this exercise was to see if you could work well together as a team. When you're full-fledged ninjas, teamwork is fundamental to the success of your mission. On the battlefield, there is no time for you to bicker with your teammates. People say that ninjas who cannot follow orders in order to complete a mission are trash. But remember this…" His eyes glazed over slightly from old memories.

"People who don't care about their teammates at all, putting the mission above everything else, are worse than trash. Well done, you all pass."