First Arc: IV

I did not, in the end, have breakfast before the bell test. It hurt to skip it, a soul-deep wound down to my very core, but I was still paranoid about knowing things I shouldn't be able to know. If anyone checked whether or not I'd followed my sensei's instructions - not that I thought they would, but if they did, then I had no plausible reason to have ignored them and eaten anything.

I waved a mournful goodbye to my fruit bowl and hopped over the fence at ridiculous o'clock in the morning. At some point I should probably get around to putting a gate between the kitchen door and the street, but on the other hand I was used to the fence now and couldn't be asked, so. Myeh. Some point.

What I was not used to was the pre-dawn cold. I was Uchiha. We were fire people. We liked the sun. My outfit consisted of a shirt, a pair of three-quarter length trousers, sandals, and arm guards that were more there for the flame resistance than for warmth.

I was suffering, and I hated it.

"Good morning, Sasuke-kun!" Sakura chirped, looking far too cheerful and unaffected by the cold despite wearing even less on her arms than me. I decided I hated her too. And Naruto, in his warm and cosy jacket. How dare he.

I made a vague sound of acknowledgement that didn't even try to be a hello, and decided to redo my morning stretches. If I was lucky, I'd snap a tendon in the subarctic temperature and be whisked off to hospital where I could have a blanket and a minimum of four breakfasts. Shit, forget a tendon; I'd give my entire right foot for coffee. You know how long it's been since I had coffee? Five years. You know how long it's been since I died and got roped into being Sasuke? Five years.

Itachi, you have a lot to answer for. I still love you and I'm still going to help you overthrow Akatsuki from the inside, but. Coffee.

"What kind of weird workout is that?" Naruto asked. I couldn't see his face from my upside down position, but I could hear the squint.

"The one I do when it's too early and too cold and Sensei's a dick who's going to make us wait four hours before bothering to show up." It wasn't even weird, just an all-over flexibility routine that anyone familiar with the academy basic would recognise. They were so similar that clan history claimed the academy basic was developed by one of our kunoichis, and donated to the village as a sign of her devotion to the Senju's dream.

Clan history also claimed that the Senju shamelessly spied on the kunoichi while she was training and the academy basic was straight up theft. Given what our bloodline's famous for, I'm not sure we had much leeway for getting pissy about that, but. Old wounds.

I frowned though, because origins aside, the routine I was doing was an extended version of academy basic. Naruto should know it. His education was messed up, sure, but stretching was first steps. Had he seriously not been taught it?

"Stop bothering Sasuke-kun!" Sakura snapped, followed by a crash and a yelp as Naruto's head met her fist and then the floor. I didn't wince. A muscle in my jaw may have twitched from how hard I was not wincing. Kami, I was on a team with a psychopath. "It's not his fault that you're such an idiot. He's just being super prepared for the test, right Sasuke-kun?"

Go away, I thought, and skipped the next stretch in favour of staying in a handstand where I didn't have to look at them.

"That's cheating!" Naruto complained, and I gave up, collapsing into a forward roll just so I could look at him in exasperation.

"In what universe is it cheating to be prepared?" I asked.

"Ninja life is unpredictable! You have to be good at being surprised instead of being ready for things or else you aren't being a real ninja!"

I stared. Sakura stared. Naruto crossed his arms and glared at us, jaw set stubbornly forward, and refused to back down.

"What the fuck," I said.

"That's not how it goes," Sakura agreed.

Naruto glared harder. "It is," he insisted.

"Ninja life is unpredictable," Sakura recited, her voice falling into the familiar sing-song of a learned saying. Because it was a learned saying, one we'd all picked up so early that I couldn't even tell you where from. Where did you first hear that a stitch in time saves nine? Impossible to say. Unless you first heard it here, in which case there you go, free saying from me. "So be ready for anything and be ready for surprises, because a ninja is never unprepared."

"That's… not…" His voice trailed off in a way that, knowing what he was probably thinking, was pitifully sad to listen to. "What I learnt?"

"Well, relearn," I said flatly. Epiphanies about how screwed up the academy's treatment of him was could happen on his own time. Not that I didn't care, but I had no idea what to say or do about it, and I knew he'd be fine without my intervention. Ish. Fine-ish. Eventually. "We're not at the academy any more, a lot of things are going to be different."

"Fine," he bit out, his hurt morphing quickly - at least on the surface - back to belligerent anger. "If you know everything, then what's the test going to be?"

"How the hell should I know -"

"Then what are you preparing for, bastard -"

"I was stretching! Because it's cold!"

"Oh, it's cold? Sorry Hime-chan, let me just get your coat for you -"

"Will you both shut up!" Sakura finally exploded. She eeped, flushing bright red when we both stared at her in shock, and flapped her hands at me in apology. "Sorry! Sorry, Sasuke-kun, it's just, um. We're meant to be a team, aren't we? And it's best if teams don't fight?"

Naruto opened his mouth, probably to shout a violent agreement or more violent denial, but snapped it shut again as Sakura brandished a fist at him.

I took a breath and tried to squash my crabbiness. Paranoia could go fuck itself. Next time I was having breakfast, Kakashi be damned. "Haruno's right," I said, when I could finally trust myself not to growl it. Adulting and maturity right there, that's what that was. "We're a team."

"We're a sucky team -"

"Naruto! Language!"

"Did you hear what the bastard's been saying all morning?"

"And," I continued, raising my voice over the byplay. "Haruno's our team leader. So. We should do what she says."

They blinked owlishly at me. I resisted the urge to fidget. Adult. Also, this was the whole point of establishing yesterday that they shouldn't look to me to make decisions. I made crappy decisions that ended up with Naruto shouting at me.

"I'm the team leader," Sakura repeated, shaking her head. "Ok. Um. We should, um." She glanced around nervously. "We should… all be prepared. Like Sasuke-kun. With, um. Stretches."

"How are stretches meant to prepare us for anything?" Naruto asked. Sakura bristled, but it seemed like an honest question, so I answered.

"They stop you injuring yourself when you're training."

"Huh. Ok, then, if Sakura-chan says stretches, I can stretch." He sketched her a sloppy salute that had her standing straighter, even if she pretended to be annoyed.

"Great," I said, and turned myself upside down again just in time to tune out Sakura's scolding as Naruto completely butchered the first position.

This team was a mess.

.

By the time Kakashi finally deigned to show up, my stomach was digesting itself, lack of calories had given me hypothermia, and I was ready to commit murder. I glowered my way through his explanation of the rules.

"Remember," he finished off with, "Whoever doesn't get a bell goes back to the academy - or fails out of being a ninja all together." He shook the two bells with a happy little jingle of sadism and torment and clipped them to his belt. "You'll have to come at me with intent to kill to even have a chance. Begin!"

Intent to kill. Boy, give me an opening and I'll choke you with your own hair. In one long silver string I wound three times his little throat around…

"This is bullshit!" Naruto exploded.

"Naruto!"

"What's the point of putting us in teams if they're just gonna split us up, huh? It's stupid!"

"It… He's still going to pass two of us," Sakura said. "Maybe he's just making sure he gets the stronger two?" Her shoulders slumped and she looked between us, clearly already marking herself out as weakest.

Which was idiotic. Naruto was the dead last; based on what she'd seen of him so far, she should be writing him off as a lost cause. He wasn't, we know that, but Sakura had seen nothing to make her think that Naruto was better than a beached jellyfish, and she still ranked herself lower than him.

Worse was that Naruto was doing the exact same thing, glaring between me and Sakura with his face scrunched in an unhappy pout as he decided that clearly, the two of us were going to pass and leave him behind.

All we needed now was for me to have a crisis of faith and decide that, as the heroes, those two should carry the torch for Team Seven and leave me to wither away and die by myself, and we'd have a full set of insecurities and angst. God, how was I the one representing the team's optimism and good cheer?

"If we get the bells," I said. "Which we probably won't, because he's a jounin and we aren't yet genin. He's too strong for any one of us." So therefore we should…

"Oh," Sakura said, slumping further. "If you think so, Sasuke-kun."

Kami save me.

"Then I'll be the first not-genin to be hokage!" Naruto declared, shifting himself with no warning to inspirational speech pose number four, complete with raised fist and determined expression. "And no dick-sensei's going to stop me!"

I choked. So did Sakura. "You can't call him dick-sensei!" she shrieked, loud enough that Kakashi, across the field and reading his orange porn book, couldn't fail to hear.

I mean, he was probably listening anyway, but come on. Can we at least have a pretense at being sneaky stealth ninjas, please.

"If we're doing this we're best off working as a team," I said, cutting the crap and just coming straight out with it. "Uzumaki, you're good at traps, right? And Haruno, you're the team leader. What do you want us to do?" I bit my tongue on mentioning Naruto's clones. We hadn't seen them yet, technically I didn't know for sure that he had them, and as far as I was concerned they were off limits until Naruto volunteered them.

"Um." She swallowed, eyes wide and so out of focus that the only thing she could be looking at was the far side of Suna. It occured to me, for the first time, that she was twelve, inexperienced, and completely lacking in confidence. She also hadn't actually asked to be the team leader at any point. "We should, um. Naruto should. Lay a trap? And then Sasuke can. Take the bells. From sensei. When he gets, um. Trapped."

She gets over her issues by herself, I reminded myself. Ditching both of them as soon as Itachi swings by. Just. Just roll with it until then.

"That could work," I lied. "Uzumaki, we'll distract Kakashi while you make your trap then try and push him towards it. Where do you need him, and how long to set up?"

He squinted at the battlefield in concentration. "There," he decided, pointing at the tree line. "And don't worry about set up - I've got an awesome plan. It'll be ready in time, believe it!"

"Ok. Haruno, you ready? We need the best way for two genin to approach a jounin. I've got shuriken and fire jutsu, both of us have the academy basic taijutsu and kunai, and we don't need to incapacitate him, just to drive him back to the trees to spring the trap."

The exam-question style phrasing seemed to settle her, and when she took a breath and answered her voice was steadier and less high pitched. "Distract and evade," she said. "One of us should be close enough to stop him forming hand seals, the other should control the fight from a distance. Um, shuriken are long range weapons so if you take the distance, I can… do taijutsu?" She blanched. Her taijutsu was nowhere near strong enough to pull it off and she knew it, but the roles she'd assigned were technically the text-book correct answer.

"We'll swap out part way," I said. "It'll throw him off."

"All right, let's go!" Naruto cheered - and disappeared in a puff of smoke. What. That was a clone? How was that a clone. When was that a clone. What.

"Shannaro!" Sakura yelled in response, nowhere near as mind-blown by the shadow clone as I thought she should be, and charged down the field towards Kakashi with her fist pulled back to strike.

"Jesus christ," I muttered, and sprinted after her, already pulling a handful of shuriken out my thigh holster. "I'm on a team of lunatics."

Kakashi didn't even look up from his book, the bastard. He leaned casually to the side to dodge Sakura's punch, then sat down on the floor to slide neatly under the high kick she followed it up with. I threw three shuriken in quick succession, swinging wide to get an angle that Sakura wasn't blocking, and he knocked two of them away with his shoe when he crossed his legs then hunched his shoulders in a lecherous giggle and completely ignored the third as it sailed over his head.

Shit, this was getting nowhere. I couldn't fireball because Sakura was too close, and we hadn't budged him an inch closer to Naruto. We needed to get him moving, somehow.

"Sasuke-kun, swap!" Sakura commanded, abandoning her ineffective taijutsu to fall back towards me. I grit my teeth; Kakashi was just playing with us, but if he got serious we wouldn't stand a chance. If we were going to do anything idiotic it needed to be now.

"Catch!" I yelled, and flung myself at her. She squawked, hands flying up to block her face as I swung a kunai out, but I was focussed more on the Icha Icha book Kakashi was giggling over. Kawarimi worked best with something the same size and shape but it was my favourite jutsu for a reason, and that was that with the right timing and surprise -

Now, I thought, and switched places with the book just before I would've slammed into Sakura. I heard her shriek and fumble with it but I didn't stop to see if she caught it, all my attention on twisting out of Kakashi's hold and trying to stab the kunai somewhere painful. He blocked it, but I was already moving, foot aimed at his ear - he dodged - kunai again, slicing to his kneecap - block - elbow aimed at his -

His palm slammed into my ribcage, sending me flying with my breath hissing out in a painful wheeze.

"Points for intent to kill," he said mildly as I struggled to stand. "But you seem to have forgotten the bells, Sasuke-kun. Whatever could I have done to upset you so much?"

I hacked a cough in response, staggering to my feet. Sakura was running towards Naruto, Icha Icha clutched tight to her chest, and Kakashi heaved an annoyed and put upon sigh. "Maa, I suppose I shouldn't leave that with a young and impressionable lady. What would her mother say if she knew what you'd been giving her, hm?"

Oh, that was too rich. "She's the one who keeps perving on me!" He started trotting lazily after her, and I reached down for a shuriken to throw -

Bastard. My shuriken pouch.

"Missing something, Sasuke?" He was twirling it round his finger. Bastard.

Taijutsu wouldn't work. The hand signs for the fireball jutsu took too long - I wasn't fast enough yet to use it without a few more seconds than I had. I had no weapons, and I wouldn't trick him with kawarimi twice.

Fleeing it was. Icha Icha was the priority, Sakura would be the distraction, and speed was one thing I had. "Haruno!" I yelled, catching her attention as I ran up the outside of her and angled towards where Naruto was waiting. She stared at me with wide, panicked eyes, full out sprinting as Kakashi lazily loped after her. "Throw!" I demanded.

In retrospect, I should probably have expected the force with which the book came flying directly at my head. I snatched it out the air and increased my pace, heading straight for -

"You seem to have forgotten the bells again, Sasuke-kun," Kakashi said, voice echoing from the darkness around me. I slowed to a gentle jog, not wanting to risk my ankles on ground I couldn't see.

"Ninja art: Genjutsu," Kakashi continued, disembodied and ominous. I scowled and stopped running, dropping instead into a defensive stance. We hadn't covered genjutsu much at the academy, not beyond the foundational theory of it. I hadn't been in one since Itachi's Tsukuyomi. "If you can't keep your head on the mission, who knows where you'll end up?"

"I knew what I was doing," I said. Everything was still black; I was tempted to close my eyes so I could hear better, but I knew that wouldn't help. If anything did appear, I needed to be able to see.

"Did you? Do you know what you're doing now?"

Waiting. There had to be a point to the genjutsu. It was auditory and visual, but I could still smell the forest and feel the ground - if he hadn't messed with my sense of touch then I'd feel it if he tried to take the book.

"Perhaps you need some encouragement." I blinked, and Kakashi was standing in front of me, book in his hand - no! That had to be a trick, I was still holding it. He locked eyes with me and raised his hands in a hand seal as I frantically tried to check if the book I had was real or not. "Demonic illusion: Hell viewing technique."

I froze. Kakashi dissolved, breaking up into ripples. The dark got colder. It pressed on my chest, and my breath stuck in my lungs.

What was he - no, he couldn't - I was the last Uchiha, I hadn't activated my sharingan, they wouldn't kill me yet -

The water flooded over my nose, stinging my eyes until I screwed them shut. It's not real, it wasn't real, just an illusion but I could feel it - except the genjutsu wasn't meant to cover touch so how could I feel the water, it wasn't there I just needed to breathe -

"Kai," I gasped, finally remembering how to break a genjutsu. The word came out breathless, stolen in a bubble of air. My last air. There wasn't any more just water water water -

I slammed the corner of the book into the side of my head hard enough to see stars and practically sobbed in relief as the pain made the cold-dark-wet vanish. Konoha's training grounds were beautiful. Look at those trees. Trees! Gorgeous plants of perfection, full of that sweet sweet oxygen that I was never going to stop breathing again.

"Well that was disappointing," Kakashi said. "I thought you were meant to be the rookie of the year? The dead-last gave a better showing than that."

I glared, still gulping down huge breaths of air. Naruto had evidently sprung his trap; there were kunai everywhere, and at least five of him that I could see in various states of tied up and hung from the branches. It was impossible to tell which was the real one - maybe none of them were. Kakashi had Sakura in front of him in a choke hold, not tight enough to hurt her but one that she wasn't escaping from without help.

"You're an asshole," I managed. I didn't even have Icha Icha, he'd replaced it with a rock. One that was suspiciously red from where I'd used it to brain myself. Great.

"Oh," he pouted. "And here I was about to offer you a deal. These two almost got the bells, but your taijutsu was better. So! I'll give you one of their bells instead." He blinked, completely ignoring Naruto's five-fold strangled protest. "Who would you like on your team, Sasuke-kun, and who are you going to send back to the academy?"

"Asshole," I repeated. I didn't believe him for a second, but I did believe that if he didn't like my answer he'd fail us all just because he could. I frowned, thinking furiously. I had to show that we were a team. Why had he singled me out as the weak link? I was the one trying to push the others into the damn team in the first place! Was that it, did he think I'd seen through the trick and was cheating? Maybe. I'd ignored the bells, and we'd never actually decided among the three of us what we'd do with them if we got them. All we'd said was that we'd need to work together to have a chance.

"Tick tock, Sasuke. Pick a team mate."

Fuck it. "No," I said.

"Oh? Then I guess both of them are failing, if you don't want either of them with you."

"No, damnit. They got the bells. They pass." Please let that be the right answer. If I got tied to the log without lunch I would eviscerate someone.

Kakashi hummed. "That sounds like you going back to the academy then. What a turnout for the rookie of the year."

"Get on with it!" I snapped. "They make a good team. If you want me as well, pass all of us. Otherwise send me back and stop wasting time."

He hummed again, drawn out and slow, and tapped his chin in mock thought. I clenched my hand into a fist around my bloody rock and fought the urge to scream. "Well," he finally drawled. "I guess we'll need to work on that temper of yours, Sasuke-kun. Ah, that's a problem for future me. Lucky him." He let go of Sakura and stepped back, hands innocently behind his back and eye in that damned smiley u-shape again. Naruto yelped, and four of him - as well as several of the kunai - disappeared in bunshin-smoke as the fifth dropped out of the tree in an untidy sprawl.

"Wait wait, is that it? Do we pass?" he asked, pushing himself up his knees.

"You pass!" Kakashi cheered. "Congratulations my cute little genin! Look, I even made celebratory bentos for you. I only made two though, because there were only supposed to be two of you… Oh, Sasuke won't mind if I give them to you two. You nearly got the bells and he got stuck in a genjutsu, it's only fair!"

He handed the bentos over, patted a shell-shocked Sakura on the head, and flopped down on the ground with his own bento appearing apparently from thin air. I stared. My stomach growled. Naruto looked between me and Sakura with a vaguely confused expression.

"Sensei," I said in an even, flat tone. "I despise you."

"Ah, you say the most adorable things," he cooed.

That's it. I have a better dream. My life long ambition is no longer to be tall; it's to make this man's life hell. He will rue the day he met me, the sadistic motherfucker. Rue.