Three weeks later in which Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura felt like they'd gone to hell and back several times over, they were coming along very nicely under Kakashi's instruction, currently they were on the training grounds.
Kakashi had declared a free for all taijutsu spar, it was his way of assessing his students as they sparred against each other, "Come on Naruto what'cha running for" Sakura asked with a grin as she met Naruto who turned and simply fled.
Ducking under Sasuke's roundhouse kick on the way as Sakura chased him down while punching Sasuke causing him to go flying back several feet "You know why I'm running Sakura-chan, your scary and your hits hurt" Naruto cried over his shoulder.
Noticing that she was quickly gaining on him until Sasuke managed to trip her by kicking her feet out from underneath of her and she hit the ground face first "Looks like we'll be making a trip to the hospital again" Kakashi shook his head.
When Sakura sat up, nose bleeding and glaring at Sasuke who took off after Naruto and even bypassed the blonde who was now laughing at him because Sakura was after him now "Tch" Sasuke grumbled.
As Sakura managed to catch him, deliver a kick to his back then charge after Naruto, with a leap the pinkette landed on him and they rolled trading punches until coming to a stop with Sakura on top and the victor of the free for all.
Since Sasuke hadn't gotten back up "Alright, alright you three, as promised I'll teach you a jutsu and you'll have your C rank mission" Kakashi sighed, not reneging on his promises because the genin had actually been good for him.
At the mention of learning a jutsu all three of the preteen's gathered around him as he pulled out a book that he'd borrowed from the library "Choose one jutsu out of this book that's not elemental, we'll save that for later and then I'll demonstrate it for you" the Copy Ninja ordered.
Passing over the book to Naruto first who immediately flipped it open "Err lets see here, that one looks cool but so does that one, maybe this one, the black dream genjutsu, I might not be good at breaking out of them, but surely I can cast one right" Naruto asked.
Letting Sasuke take the book from him, Kakashi nodded at the blonde while waiting patiently for the Uchiha to pick his jutsu "I'll go for the chakra scalpel" Sasuke finally shrugged handing the jutsu book over to Sakura at long last.
Who looked through it excitedly "The mystical palm, that way we don't have to waste money on hospital visits all the time and I can patch us up after a rough sparring or training session" Sakura exclaimed, settling on something that would be time consuming most likely.
"Very well I'll show Naruto his first and leave him a clone to practice on, come on Naruto this way" Kakashi relented, not outwardly showing his intrigue as he led Naruto a short distance away so that the other two didn't get caught up in the genjutsu.
Though Naruto was not good at breaking out of illusions, he could certainly cast a genjutsu onto another person after experiencing the illusion for himself "Your turn Sasuke, the chakra scalpel is no easy jutsu to master, it requires fine chakra control to use it" Kakashi warned.
Going through the hand signs until the tips of his fingers were covered in blue chakra then to demonstrate he slashed his hand through a tree before letting the chakra scalpel recede from his fingertips then turned to Sakura.
When Sasuke began working on his jutsu, it was then he realized that he wasn't properly prepared to teach Sakura what she wanted so he sent off a clone to get what he needed "Here we are sorry about that Sakura-chan" Kakashi apologized.
After his clone had returned with the object necessary, then he went about teaching Sakura the hand signs then made her practice on the melon, by the time it was the time he usually dismissed them they'd made minimal progress.
"Don't feel so bad Naruto, I couldn't heal that melon at all either" Sakura pat the sulking blonde on the shoulder because he'd barely managed to cast the illusion on his target only for the clone to immediately break out of it with little to no effort.
Naruto slumped his shoulders further "It wasn't just you and Sakura who failed, I could barely get mine to work for me as well" Sasuke chimed in, attempting to help cheer the knucklehead up, he'd really changed his attitude in the past month.
Eventually Naruto seemed to understand he wasn't the only one having trouble as he finally perked up "Thanks Sakura-chan, Sasuke, that just means we have to work harder right" Naruto smiled his wide goofy grin.
Relieving his teammates as they were released for the day "Now that your not depressed any more I want to go shopping for medical supplies" Sakura exclaimed, grabbing the blonde by the hand and practically dragging him from the field.
Their sensei chuckling after them before he body flickered off to wherever "Your obsessed" Naruto groaned, hating shopping with a passion, did Sakura care, no, in fact she had the nerve to laugh at him.
"There is nothing wrong with being prepared knucklehead" Sasuke piped in from the other side of Sakura obviously intent on tagging on today like he did ever so often, it wasn't all the time of course, but he had shopping he needed to do today as well.
Upon being ganged up on by his teammates Naruto heaved a long suffering sigh but let himself be drug along by Sakura as they reached the store, only then did she let him go as she grabbed a basket and started loading items into it.
Of course like usual she could only get limited supplies so when they left the store Sakura had only bought two rolls of bandage wraps, a petri dish of ointment, antidote to common poison in pill form and a book on basic first aide out in the field.
After stopping by the shop Sasuke wanted to visit, it was off to her apartment, boys on her heels "I know it's been a week but is that a recent addition" Sasuke frowned, seeing the seal on Sakura's apartment door that hadn't been there a week prior.
"Extra precaution, I found an elemental tag with lightning nature chakra in it, combined it with a sealing tag then asked permission from the complex owner if I could put it on my door" Sakura explained as she put the key in the lock.
While placing a hand on her door and pulsing her chakra into the seal to unseal it, in the exact same moment she unlocked the door and swung it open "Complicated, just like you Sakura-chan" Naruto teased, leaping back when she tried to elbow him.
Sasuke however wasn't so disillusioned "Let me guess if anyone who is not you tries to do that, they get shocked right" Sasuke asked politely taking his sandals off because he knew better at this point and so did Naruto.
Who did the same "Of course Sasuke, exactly like my bedroom door now but there are deadly traps on the other side still, only now improved" Sakura giggled while sending him an indulgent smile as she disappeared into her bathroom.
Five minutes later she returned medical supplies put away and found Naruto and Sasuke lounging on her couch "Say Sakura…I've been wondering about something" Naruto suddenly spoke up, looking more nervous than ever.
Sakura, who'd been on her way into the kitchen, paused, "Go on" the pinkette urged when Naruto hesitated and it looked like to her that Sasuke knew what the blonde wanted to say to her, so she sat, folding her hands neatly in her lap as she did so to wait patiently for him to continue.
After a moment Sasuke nudged Naruto forcefully derailing the blondes train of thought "I was wondering if I could move in to one of the empty bedrooms" the blonde blurted tactlessly then clenched his eyes shut.
Unsure of how his best friend would react to his request so he avoided looking at her out of fear, Sakura however merely blinked at him before turning her gaze on Sasuke "Naruto's not the only one who'd been considering that idea, I was as well, if you'll have us" the raven informed.
Holding his breath as Sakura pursed her lips in thought "Th..Think about it Sakura-chan, we could pool our money together to get more groceries and we'd clean up after ourselves to" Naruto rambled clearly thinking she was going to reject the request.
So he was trying to make it worth her while, disregarding the trouble they were sure to cause her "Been plotting much….but fine, you two can move in to the empty bedrooms" Sakura rolled her eyes at them but relented to the request.
"Then I suppose we ought to start moving in don't you think Naruto" Sasuke smirked, pleased that Sakura had accepted the idea of them moving in and now they to had added extra protection courtesy of Sakura always being cautious about everything.
Naruto whooped and hollered in excitement, only to quiet down when pounding erupted on the wall "Yeah my neighbor is picky about noise, don't worry Naruto, I'll explain, just go pack your stuff up" Sakura assured.
Sheepishly the blonde exited her apartment, Sasuke on his heels as they left while she knocked politely on her neighbors door "What brat and don't think I didn't hear that yelling a minute ago" it flew open to reveal her cantankerous neighbor.
"I know and I apologize, you see my friends just asked if they could take the spares in my apartment but one of them got a little excited, he didn't mean it, and I'll do my best to keep him from doing it again" Sakura bowed.
The man let his gaze soften "Only cause I know you're a good kid Sakura, keep the noise to a minimum and I'll let it slide" he ruffled her pink locks before shutting his door, apologies made Sakura returned to her own apartment.
Before setting about preparing for the arrival of her new roommates, first by removing the seal from her door in order to adjust it so that they could access her apartment now that they were going to be living with her from then on.
Next she tidied up the empty bedrooms so they were clear of dust and ready for someone to claim it, after that she cleared some room in the storage closet for anything the two wanted to store away, then did the same in the bathroom by making space on shelves for their toiletries.
Once that was done she headed down to the main office to request two more keys to be made and informed the owner that she was taking on a couple of roommates, thankfully the man was more than agreeable of the idea but took the spare key she held out to him to have two extra copies made.
Halfway back up the stairs to her apartment Sasuke returned arms full of scrolls with his belongings "My apartment owner said we should probably tell the Hokage that we're going to be sharing space" Sasuke grunted.
Sakura nodded "We'll go once you two are all settled in, we should also tell Kakashi-sensei to while we're at it" Sakura said, adding the last bit as an afterthought, though the man had yet to visit her at her apartment, it was better to let Kakashi know they were going to be living together.
"What happened to your seal Sakura-chan" Naruto frowned at her once they breached the top of the stairs only to find the blonde stood outside of the apartment, unsure of if it was safe to go in regardless of the missing seal.
Until Sakura simply twisted the knob and opened the door "Took it down for now so that I can add your chakra signatures to the seal that way you can get in and out without me having to be with you" the pinkette answered.
Sasuke smirked "Good thinking, we'll also need keys" the raven reminded as they entered the hall that led to the bedrooms, now came the hard part, choosing which room they wanted to take over and have as their own.
It appeared though that Sakura was way ahead of him on that front as she promptly informed him that she'd already requested extra keys to be made "But what will we do in the mean time" the blonde questioned.
Looking between the two empty rooms "Just pick your rooms for now, I'll figure out something" Sakura snorted, leaving the duo to figure themselves out for the time being as she headed back into the living room.
Not that it took her very long to come up with an idea as she took a brush to the lock, dipped in chakra ink and drew a seal, she was distracted for a brief moment when a crash sounded 'Maybe I should look into getting a sound-proofing seal for my apartment' the rosette inwardly sighed.
Then she shook her head and exited her apartment after locking the door after sending a pulse of chakra to the seal on the lock the door clicked open "And now all I have to do is get it to respond to just our chakra" Sakura commented.
Experimenting with her seal a bit "Hows it going" Sasuke emerged from the hallway eight minutes later, seeing her set up in front of the door, only to be waved over and then he added his chakra to the seal.
Before being made to exit the apartment to test if the seal worked and it did "Interesting method sure but it works, in fact I might leave it like that even after you two get your keys" Sakura grinned, pleased that her idea had worked.
Fourteen minutes later Naruto joined them "Ugh sorry for the noise earlier, I hope your neighbor didn't get mad again" Naruto grimaced, feeling terrible for making such a racket but Sakura shook her head indicating that her neighbor hadn't made a peep this time.
He wasn't given any time to dwell on it though as Sakura told him to focus his chakra into the seal on the doorknob a little test proved that the seal worked perfectly for all three of them so they headed off to inform the Hokage of their new arrangement.
Since the Hokage was the one who'd helped them get the apartments in the first place, to say Hiruzen was surprised was an understatement "So your all living together now in Sakura-chan's apartment" Hiruzen asked.
Wondering what had caused them to decide on such a thing "That is correct Hokage-sama, we aren't trying to be ungrateful, but we feel like this will bring us closer together as a team" Sasuke admitted, wracking his brain for something to say that would help their leader understand.
"And it will be easier to pay rent and stock up on groceries to" Naruto chimed in from the other side of Sakura who was sandwiched between the two of them, they'd both become a little protective of their female teammate after that incident in her apartment.
Hiruzen took a drag from his pipe "Very well, you two make a good point, I'll make arrangements and inform your sensei for you that there has been a change in your addresses, good luck you three" Hiruzen relented.
Seeing as they wouldn't back down from this "Come on lets go out to celebrate at Sushi Palace, I heard their having a special on their ninety yen plates" Sakura declared not allowing either boy to argue as she led the way to her favorite restaurant.
Upon arriving at Sushi Palace, the genin of Team Seven had an absolute blast until late into the evening after stuffing themselves silly with all different kinds of sushi before dragging themselves home utterly exhausted only to fall into their beds for some shut eye.
Two days later after catching the demon cat known as Tora for their Feudal Lords Wife, Kakashi gave them the mission they were all waiting for "More D ranks I presume" Hiruzen questioned once Team Seven was stood before him again.
This time Kakashi shook his head "No, a C rank if you would Hokage-sama, perhaps an escort mission of some kind" Kakashi requested, keeping his promise of getting them a higher rank mission for behaving well and not complaining.
His students immediately perked up "Your in luck, there just so happens to be one escort mission, to take a bridge builder back to his village and protect him while he finishes his bridge" Hiruzen listed listening to Iruka's complaints about how his former students had only been genin for a month.
Kakashi was having none of it however "Iruka, their my students now and if I say their ready for a C rank, then their ready for a C rank, I don't expect them to be perfect of course but they'll do their best as they have since they came under my tutelage" Kakashi intoned sharply.
"Exactly and how else are we going to learn if we're never given a chance" Sakura added, knowing that Iruka still cared about them and that he didn't want to see them hurt, that was inevitable though and part of the learning process.
Iruka deflated unable to combat their argument "Right if your ready, meet your mission client, Tazuna" Hiruzen cleared his throat calling out for someone who was on the other side of the door which swung open to reveal.
A drunkard, Naruto rapidly lost interest especially when the old man named Tazuna insulted him "Be at ease Knucklehead, someday you'll be taller than that ole geezer" Sasuke whispered to the blonde sensing he was upset.
Only feeling slightly better Naruto crossed his arms and stayed in his place between his teammates until Kakashi dismissed them to go pack for their first mission outside the village "Man what a let down that was" Naruto scowled once they were out of hearing of their sensei.
This earned him a pat on the shoulder from Sakura as they hurried towards their shared apartment "Perhaps but there's no complaining about it now" Sakura reminded, fitting the key into the lock and pulsing chakra into the door to unseal it and unlock it.
Once the door was open the three of them piled in quickly before heading for their separate rooms though Sakura had an extra step to perform soon she was ensconced in her bedroom to pack for her mission.
The first thing that got thrown into her backpack were neatly folded clothes as she stripped out of her current outfit, what she put on in its place was a dark green qipao shirt, a clean pair of black spandex thigh shorts and a black over skirt that tied at the sides.
Her dirty clothes were tossed in the hamper before she dropped to the floor and grabbed the bedroll from out from underneath her bed, it was tied to the lapels of her pack since it wouldn't fit in her backpack.
And with that she was finished with things in the bedroom, the bathroom was next as she grabbed some of her medical supplies out of the cabinet, three rolls of bandages, two petri dishes of ointment, her sewing kit and the bottle of pills for common poisons.
From the storage closet out in the hall she pulled out an extra whetstone, a roll of ninja wire and a pack of mint condition throwing needles, along with a pack of exploding tags just for extra precautions, by the time she was done adding those to her pack.
Sasuke had emerged from his bedroom "You got the medical supplies already…good, never can be to careful after all" the raven asked, pleased when she nodded as he picked out a pack of mint condition kunai from the storage closet and the pack of genjutsu tags.
Last to appear was Naruto "Guess we aught to head for the gates then if we're ready" the blonde sighed, making sure to nab a pack of shuriken and a whetstone cause he was bad at maintaining his weapons.
"Right, lets go" the rosette nodded, leading the way from the apartment, before they left completely however she added an extra seal to the door that made it look like their apartment simply didn't exist but it was really hidden by a camouflage jutsu.
Neither Sasuke or Naruto commented on her actions because they understood why she would do such a thing but with that they were on their way to the village gates "Oi aren't you Hatake's genin" and immediately they were approached by another Jonin.
A woman with purple hair and soft brown eyes who wore much more revealing clothing than Sakura ever had "Correct, Kakashi is our sensei" Sasuke grimaced, avoiding looking at the woman to much for fear of saying something that would get him in trouble.
In response the woman rolled her eyes "Don't get smart with me brat or I'll tie you up with my snakes, the names Anko Mitarashi, so where are you going" Anko glowered at the little punk who dared to give her lip.
"Land of Waves, Anko-sensei, we're escorting a bridge builder back to his home and we'll be protecting him while he finishes his bridge" Sakura explained, getting the feeling this woman wasn't someone they wanted to piss off.
Anko lifted a violet brow before grinning widely "Pinky you have class and just because I like you and kunoichi have to stick together I'm going to give you this little guy, he's highly venomous" Anko declared after a moment.
Placing a curled up black mamba into Sakura's outstretched hand "Now don't worry about him striking you or anything, he's pretty good at following commands since I've been training him, just take good care of him is all I ask and he'll be yours for life I swear" Anko informed.
When Sakura stared at the snake in her hand "Anko you better not be corrupting my genin" Kakashi appeared on scene not a second to soon with the mission client, upon seeing the snake though Tazuna flipped out.
Almost getting himself bit by the black mamba until Sakura reeled back as quickly as possible "Tazuna-san calm yourself" the rosette scowled, running a soothing hand down the length of the snake in her hands.
Until it/he decided to slither up her arm and curl around her neck like a choker, a highly dangerous choker that is anyway "Hatake if you ever accuse me of corrupting your genin again I'll tie you up with my snakes" Anko snarled.
"What do you call that then" Kakashi glared, pointing to the snake wrapped around his kunoichi's neck, to him though it didn't look as if Sakura really minded as she stroked the snake absentmindedly to keep it calm.
Anko scoffed "Extra protection Hatake, he's fully trained, all she has to do is take good care of him, name him to if she wants" the violet haired woman snapped before turning on her heels and stalking off leaving them alone.
Kakashi glowered after her but then turned his attention on Sakura who shrugged sheepishly, "If you think about it though Kakashi-sensei, he could come in handy" his blonde haired student commented, keeping his hands to himself.
Because he didn't want to get bit despite Anko's assurances "So….what are you going to name him" his raven haired student asked Sakura once the five of them had signed out and started down the path in the direction of the Land of Waves.
"Chishi-kun, because he's extremely lethal, so yeah, not very impressive I guess but it's all I can come up with on short notice" Sakura announced, though it seemed that her teammates were quite accepting of the random name she'd decided on.
As Naruto reached out and gently stroked a finger down Chishi's scales "Your not really going to keep that thing are you" Tazuna asked as far away from the girl as he could get so that he wasn't anywhere near the venomous creature around her neck.
That nobody else seemed bothered about if Sasuke taking the snake was any indication and Chishi was perfectly behaved for the Uchiha "Of course she is, Anko doesn't just give away her snakes to anybody after all" Kakashi frowned.
Still wondering at the interrogators actions "And he's not just Sakura's responsibility but Naruto and I's as well" Sasuke informed as he wrapped Chishi around Sakura's neck again, Naruto nodding all the while in agreement.
With that the group descended into silence as they trekked along the path towards their destination, keeping a wary eye out for trouble because one could never be to careful, not a one of them aware of the trouble they'd all soon be in or the tragedy that was about to befell them.
Meanwhile in Jashin's realm, he could tell, it wouldn't be much longer and soon he'd meet his daughter face to face "And the revenge on that pathetic Orochimaru will begin" Jashin chuckled darkly as he rubbed his hands together in anticipation.