A/N: Oh by the way...I didn't convince you this would be an entirely serious story, did I?


Act I: Breaking the Ice

Graduation..?

Present day

Sasuke Uchiha sat at his desk in his thinking pose. It wasn't the same as Shikimaru's thinking pose, but it bore a marked similarity Sasuke would deny to any who brought it up. Currently, he was using it as an excuse to stare straight ahead and ignore the disaster going on at his left.

"I honestly can't believe you managed to pass the exam!" Sakura yelled.

"Same to you! How you made a transformation jutsu that hid that forehead of yours is beyond me!" Ino yelled back.

"Shut up! It's not that bad! Besides, it's not like you don't-"

"Oh it is sooo that bad. I bet any man would agree that it's ridiculously ugly! Isn't that right Sasuke?"

"Don't be ridiculous yourself! Sasuke would never tell me I looked ugly! Right Sasuke?"

"Sasuke?"

"Sasuke!"

Sasuke tried not to sigh. When he brooded, they swooned, and when he smiled, they swooned. He wondered if maybe he was cold and uncaring all the time, they would get the hint and leave him alone. Or maybe that would just make it worse. He'd probably have to figure it out soon, given that his primary fan girl defense had gone and gotten himself held back a year-

His ears pricked. In the distance, he heard some oddly familiar guitar chords. Then there was an intake of breath from outside the classroom door.

"Some-" the door slammed open, "BODY ONCE TOLD ME THE WORLD WAS GONNA ROLL ME, I-"

"Naruto what the fuck are you doing?" Sasuke called out over the painfully off key singing.

"SHE WAS LOOKING- oh hey Sass-Gay." Naruto Uzumaki, leaf headband firmly fixed on his forehead, waved to his 'friend', before jumping towards a wall. He hit it, pushed back off, and landed in a slide on his stomach on Sasuke's desk, ending up perfectly in front of him with a shit-eating grin on his face. "Did you miss me?"

Sasuke let his head hit the desk. "Naruto, I know the ninja academies are big on alternative methods of passing, but I don't think stealing some poor souls forehead protector qualifies you for genin."

"Oh no I'm officially a genin now, Iruka-Sensei says so." Naruto stretched on the desk. "Yeah I stole a forbidden scroll, learned an A-rank jutsu, made a dramatic revelation about my past and then beat the crap out of Mizuki-Sensei. They basically had to promote me after that."

Sasuke looked up at him. "Really?"

"Yep."

"That's what you're going with?"

"It's the truth!"

"You're not fooling anyone Naruto." Ino huffed.

Naruto arched his back to look, upside down, at the two girls there. "Oh hey Ino!" He wiggled his eyebrows. "Sakura~"

"Get the hell of Sasuke's desk." The pink haired girl rolled her eyes.

Naruto rolled his body in response, falling in Sasuke's footwell with a grunt.

"So does this mean you'll be able to maintain your role as my girl repellent?" Sasuke asked, looking down at him. He hadn't lost any of his previous effectiveness, Sakura and Ino had already wrinkled their noses and sat down at their desk.

Naruto rolled his eyes. "Sass-gay, you're a genin now. You can't ignore all the ladies forever."

"Watch me."

"Come oooon." Naruto clambered to his feet, sitting down next to Sasuke. "If you had to go out with one girl from this class, who would it be?"

Sasuke actually thought about it. "...Hinata."

Naruto's eyes widened. "Ooh, that's out of left field! Why?"

Sasuke shrugged. "She's the only one who doesn't pester me all the time."

"Huh, that's a good point. Well, one way to check if it'll work out."

"Don't-"

Naruto stood up on his chair and called across the room. "Hey, Hinata!"

Sat in the back corner of the room was a girl with short, navy blue hair, and a thick fur lined white jacket. Her eyes, white irises with no visible pupils, were staring down at the desk with a blank expression. Said eyes looked up upon being called, and widened when they saw the caller. "Naruto?"

"Yeah!" Naruto returned, waving and then grabbing Sasuke by the hair (the latter having slumped back down in embarrassment.) "Hey, how would you feel about dating Sasuke?"

Hinata didn't reply, she just shook her head.

"Crap. Don't worry Sasuke, it's not you, it's her. Look, I'll prove it. Hey Hinata! Wanna go out with me?"

She froze, and a blush appeared on her cheeks. "I...um..."

"Wow." Sasuke stated, nonplussed. "You're so unappealing you made Hinata stutter. I've never heard her do that."

"Really? She does it all the time around me, weird."

The door opened again, and Umino Iruka stepped in. "Alright class, settle down!" He called, body-flickering to the front. "Now everyone here has passed their genin exams, so congratulations! And Naruto, special thanks for how you caught Mizuki. I'm not sure if you officially get a bounty for that, but I'll bring it up with the Hokage."

Sasuke looked across at Naruto. "Wait, you were telling the truth?"

Naruto just grinned.

"Now as you know, you are to be sorted into three-man teams." Iruka continued. "Thanks to Naruto's last minute success, the class can be evenly distributed into threes, so that's good."

Naruto frowned. "That's a good point." He called out. "What would have happened if I hadn't showed up?"

Iruka shrugged. "Root probably would have inserted a spy into the class, I guess. Anyway, the teams are as follows..."

Sasuke waited, listening with glee as ("Ino, Shikimaru, Choji!) Ino's face fell and ("Sakura, Shino, Kiba!") Sakura's followed moments later.

"No...Sasuke...kept from me..." Sakura mumbled, head on her desk.

"Aww, it's okay Sakura." Naruto called down to her. "I'm sure you'll have fun with bug-boy and dog-breath."

("What did you say?" Came Kiba's outraged cry.)

"And finally." Iruka rechecked his sheet. "Sasuke, Hinata, and Naruto."

Sasuke noticed Hinata's surprised look, and allowed himself to smile. This was...manageable. Hinata was quiet, and he could respect that. And Naruto...

He'd used to hate him. It was only natural, he supposed, everyone and their mothers hated Naruto. In fact, most of the time, everyones' mothers told them to hate Naruto. Until one day, Itachi had taken Sasuke aside and asked him specifically why he hated Naruto, and he'd been embarrassingly unable to come up with an answer. Itachi had explained that most of Konoha's adults hated the 'fox brat' (oddly specific title) for a reason they weren't allowed to share because it was Top Secret Classified Ninja Information (this wasn't something unusual for his Jonin big brother to say). However, Itachi had cautioned, it wasn't a very good reason to hate someone, so Sasuke should probably decide what to think of Naruto based on his own merit. So Sasuke had. And, to his burgeoning horror...he had actually kind of liked the idiot.

He jolted back to attention as Iruka was saying "and team seven is to report to Hatake Kakashi. Get to it, kids."

There was a blur of motion from the classroom, as a few dozen ninja children made their assorted escapes.

"Woo! On a team together! How's that for luck, huh Sasuke? And you're with your one true love!" Naruto was smiling again. He did that a lot.

"You're gonna have to stop with that soon or this team is gonna get really weird." Sasuke shook his head. "But speaking of, where's our third member?"

They looked to the corner of the classroom, but Hinata had already vanished.


A Konoha rooftop, far later than anticipated.

"Where the hell is this guy?" A head of yellow hair called to the skies. "We were supposed to meet our new leader hours ago!"

Kakashi took that moment to arrive. He appeared in a flurry of leaves right in front of them with a "Yo." This at least managed to freak out the blond one; the Uchiha was probably used to it, and the Hyuuga had seen him a while ago with those eyes. Or at least, she had seen the shadow clone he'd left to look after them while he sat at home reading Jiraiya's works.

"So, you're my genin team, huh?" He looked over the three children he knew had perhaps the most potential in the village. "You don't look like much."

"Hey!" Blond shouted. "Don't doubt me! My name is Uzumaki Naruto and I'm-" Kakashi put his finger over the boy's mouth with a 'shhh'

"Don't spoil the introductions, I had a plan going into this and I'm not coming up with a new one." He leaned back. "So then, introductions. Lets give our name, our likes, dislikes, and hopes for the future, okay?"

There was nodding. "Perfect. My name is Hatake Kakashi. I like masks, and everything else I could tell you is classified. Blondie, you go next."

The kid blinked, before shaking his head. "Right! My name is Uzumaki Naruto! I like ramen, pranks, awesome ninja moves, and ramen. I don't like people who take any steps to limit my ramen intake, and Sasuke, because he's my eternal rival and it's pretty much necessary for the job to hate him. My dream is to one day become the Hokage! You better believe it!"

Kakashi swallowed his desire to cringe. "Well, that was...something. Mrs Bright Eyes, you next."

"My name is Hyuuga Hinata." The girl spoke, enunciating her words with extreme purpose. "I hate a lot of things a little, and one person very much. I like...one thing..." her eyes drifted to blondie and Kakashi had to swallow his desire to cringe again. Hinata's eyes narrowed. "My dream is to have my revenge on one specific person. And I will make that dream a reality." Thunder rumbled in the distance.

"Well, that was...something else." Kakashi continued, unmoved. "Haircut, you next."

"My name is Uchiha Sasuke." Said haircut. "I like...well, I'm sure there's something. My big brother I suppose. I dislike annoying people who forcibly insert themselves in my life, which is especially true for my," he made quotation marks "eternal rival. My aspiration is to one day become a proud member of my clan."

"What he means is he wants his dad to notice him he gets super upset about it-gack!" Naruto shouted before being rugby-tackled by the other boy.

"...Alright then." Kakashi stalled, looking at the two wrestling boys and the girl sat watching them. "I'm sure I'll remember your names at some point but until then you'll go by issues 1, issues 2, and issues 3. This is probably a good time to mention you technically haven't passed yet."

"What?"

That got the boys to stop fighting. Kakashi nodded and smiled, creasing his mask. "Yep. I have high standards. So we're going to have a little get together tomorrow and do an extra test. Otherwise..." he let just a hint of killing intent out. "All three of you are going back to the academy."

That got a flinch out of all of them.

"Right then." Kakashi went back to smiling. "Meet you at training ground twenty seven at eight tomorrow morning. Don't be late. Oh, and don't eat anything for breakfast." With that, he body-flickered away. He stayed nearby long enough to hear "well...that guy was weird." Before chuckling and leaving for his house.


You could consider that the second half of the prologue, demonstrating the effects on modern day. Sasuke is less of an edgelord, Hinata is significantly more of an edgelord (the effort of which has brought her to the top of the class) and Naruto has actually had a friend. Yeah. Will wonders never cease.

Next chapter releasing next week and will be significantly longer, and has your first breath of action in it as our team takes on the bell test. See you then!