Sakura folded her hands demurely in front of her. "My name is Haruno Sakura. I like yaoi manga and manipulating people through genjutsu into acting out my fantasies. I also liked watching Sasuke and Naruto kissing earlier -" She paused and smiled at the two wide-eyed boys. "- it was very hot."

Naruto and Sasuke clutched each other in terror and then realised what they were doing and bolted for opposite sides of the roof. Unfortunately they both chose to run in the direction they were already facing, leading to a second liplock of the day.

Sakura giggled with just enough pitch to be be frightening, while still decorous. Naruto tore himself away from the impromtu kiss and dived over the railing, not caring where he would land. Sasuke, overcome with unfamiliar emotion (what emotion he wasn't sure, so unaccustomed as he was to anything but angst) that he simply fainted.

"My ambition..." Sakura said, turning her jade green eyes towards a suddenly nervous Kakashi. "How well do you get along with Maito Gai, Kakashi-sensei?"

oOo

Sasuke: "My dream... no, call it my ambition... I want to know why the girls all whisper in corners about me and giggle. What am I doing wrong? Why will no one share the joke with me?"

oOo

"I am merely a kage bushin of Uzumaki Naruto, who would like to advise you that he rules, you drool and he has stolen your genin team. If you want them back then you must prove that you are worthy of being our jounin-sensei by finding us."

Kakashi blinked. Well, winked, technically. And then looked over at Sasuke and Sakura.

"Oh, we're kage bushins as well," Sakura said brightly and dropped the henge of Naruto. "I was inserted to replace Sakura when Naruto abducted her at lunch time."

Sasuke nodded and dropped his own henge. "Sasuke was even easier to capture."

"There are a couple of other bushins replacing other members of my class," Naruto bragged. "We should be halfway to Lightning Country by now. I'd like to thank Konoha Ninja Academy for funding the rest of my life by giving me so many illtrained wannabe ninja to sell to Hidden Cloud as samples of their bloodline limits. You have... six hours, to catch me." Then all three of the clones dispelled themselves.

oOo

Sasuke scowled. "I am Sasuke. I like practising how to kill my brother. I dislike barriers to killing my brother. My ambition is to find the one person I must kill in order to obtain absolute mastery of my bloodline limit and then kill my brother... over and over again..."

"Er... pinky?" Kakashi asked a little nervously. Mental note, don't ever be alone with this little freak.

Sakura said nothing.

"I have killed her to try to activate my Sharingan. She failed to aid me with this."

oOo

Kakashi sighed. "Right, I'm Hatake Kakashi. You can call me God. I like students who work together and put the wellbeing of team and village above their personal ambitions. I dislike dumbass loud brats with no sense of stealth, weak fangirls more interested in romance than work and idiot avengers who whore themselves out for power. No need to introduce yourselves, I've been spying on you for a while now. Be at Training Ground Eight tomorrow at dawn. You mission is to convince me that you are what I like, not what I dislike. Failure..." He glared. "Don't fail."

oOo

Kakashi sighed as he saw his new team. He wasn't real happy about this. Hell, the Hokage wasn't real happy about this. Unfortunately events had forced their hands.

"Right," he told the three newly minted genin. "Normally there would be another test, run by me, to check that in addition to having the basic grounding in shinobi skills that the Academy, that you are mentally prepared for your obligations as Konoha ninja. Unfortunately this is not a luxury that we have. If you are not suited to Shinobi work, then we will find out in the field and you will probably die."

The jounin gestured for the three genin to follow him out of the Academy. "We're going to a staging area on the border with Lightning Country where we will be acting as part of the 33rd Strike Force. So, tell me about yourselves. Likes, dislikes, goals. Pinky, you're up first."

Sakura straightened slightly. Even having been on the other end of it, Kakashi found military behavior by a six year old to be creepy. "Hai! Haruno Sakura. I like my family, my friend Ino-chan and studying medical jutsu. I dislike idiots who don't think before they act." She glared at Naruto. "And I'm going to break that bitch Nekomata of Clouds."

"I am aware of your medical jutsu interest," Kakashi told the girl, orphaned in a terror raid by Hidden Cloud's jinchuriki. "If you live long enough then you're going to get a lot of practical experience with them in the next couple of years. Emo, you next."

Dark eyes narrowed slightly, but the Sharingan did not activate. Good, at least he had some control. "Uchiha Sasuke. I like training with my brother. I dislike Hidden Cloud trying to steal our bloodlines. I intend to surpass my brother Itachi."

Uh huh. The younger of the two Uchiha prodigies of this generation and some said the stronger of the two. Definitely future elite material, Kakashi thought and a little part of his soul died at the thought of what he'd be putting them through in the future. "You," he ordered, looking at the final member of Team Seven.

"I'm Uzumaki Naruto," the blond terror said defiantly. "I like Hinata-chan and I'm not going to let anyone hurt her. I despise cowards who want peace at any price as long as someone else has to pay it. I'm going to finish this war that I started."

Kakashi nodded. "Well if you run into any high-ranking ninja of other villages, Uzumaki, try to take them alive this time. We don't need another war."

oOo

Kakashi's one visible eye twitched as he looked at his 'team'.

"Bored..." Naruto sighed, lying on one of the desks in the classroom, legs dangling off one end. "Bored, bored, bored..." His head lolled back on the desk and the next thing out of his mouth was a snore.

Sakura, on the other hand, was completely ignoring everyone else and had evidently used her hours in the classroom to use chalk and blackboard to work out some sort of complex chakra-balancing equation. Kakashi wasn't sure what it was, but judging by the fact that she'd run out of blackboard and was now more than halfway round the room's walls it wasn't random doodling.

The third member of the team was... uh, there didn't seem to be a third member of the team. Kakashi zeroed in on one of the desks, on which lay a Konoha forehead protector and a standard kunai-holster, both weighing down a small scroll. Leaving the two genin alone for the moment he walked over and opened the scroll.

Dear jounin-sensei.

I have reconsidered my goals in life and decided not to enter the service of Konoha as a shinobi. After some consideration I have decided to live a life of quiet contemplation in a remote monastery.

Please ask the Hokage to liquidate all remaining wealth of the Uchiha Clan and donate the proceeds to the Widows and Orphans Fund.

respectfully,

Uchiha Sasuke.

P.S. Please tell Itachi that I forgive him.

Kakashi sighed. "Funny prank, Uzumaki. Now where's the Uchiha really gone?"

Naruto didn't wake, but Sakura replied in an absent voice: "It's no prank, jounin-san. Sasuke decided he had a religious calling."

"And he forgave his brother? That doesn't sound like him, judging from his psychological profile?"

"He decided that it was the greatest insult that he could offer to the man," Sakura said in the same absent voice.

It only took Kakashi a moment to consider the likely reaction of the S-ranked Missing-Nin to hearing that he had been forgiven and that his little brother had decided to become a monk. Then this was swiftly overtaken as he imagined the reactions of certain people within the village to the news. "Well shit."

oOo

"Where are the other two?" Kakashi asked as he leant on the door to the classroom. It was the pinkette and the kyuubi-vessel that was missing, maybe they were having private time, like Kei and the mysterious masked shinobi had in chapter 17 of Icha Icha Paradise. The jounin's cheeks colored slightly, but his mask hid the expression.

"They're doing stuff," Sasuke said, still working on inking out an intricate design on a large sheet of paper.

"Stuff?"

"Important stuff."

Kakashi considered that. Well if it was important stuff... Wait, he was the teacher right? He was important. They should wait for him! "What sort of important stuff?" he asked. This teaching stuff was hard. And he couldn't fail them at the bell test until tomorrow at the earliest!

Sasuke sighed. "You're going to nag me about this, aren't you?" he asked rhetorically.

"...maybe?"

"Okay, give me a minute." Sasuke finished inking out the rest of the what was now evidently some sort of summoning seal and then left it to dry while he started carefully washing the ink out of the brush, glancing up at the clock on the wall. "Well, by now Naruto should have assassinated Danzo and be most of the way through briefing the ROOT members on their transition to forming the new ANBU Demolition Corps."

"The ANBU don't have a Demolition Corps," Kakashi said, starting to list the rather large number of things that were just plain wrong with what the genin was saying.

"They do now. Apparently, when he's Hokage, Naruto likes the idea of being able to convert any Hidden Villages that attack Konoha into the Village Hidden in the Crater of Smoking Glass. Don't expect to see him for our first couple of missions... well, you'll see him but it will be a ROOT agent in disguise as him. Hopefully not the one with the penis-fixation."

Kakashi blinked "This is some sort of joke, right?"

"I wish. Bloody pervert. Sakura will be doing..." He frowned. "Hmm, depends on her mood. Hinata probably."

"Hinata?" asked Kakashi, completely lost.

"Do you remember how Kei used an implausible henge into a guy to seduce her rival Yomi?"

Kakashi frowned. "That's not in any edition of Icha Icha Paradise!" he declared with the confidence of an expert on the subject.

"Chapter Seven, Volume Twelve," Sasuke reminded him.

"Volume Twelve isn't out until next month," Kakashi protested. Then his eye narrowed. "Is it?"

Sasuke blinked. "It's not? Oh... yeah, you're right. I - uh - got a look at the printer's set."

"Whoa!" Kakashi was seriously impressed. Jiraiya's printers took their confidentiality seriously. Kunoichi had been... well not maimed, but seriously embarassed trying to get in to sabotage production. Even male shinobi would have trouble getting in.

"Want a look?" Sasuke asked slyly.

"You got a copy!" No wonder everyone said that the last Uchiha was a genius! Kakashi was on the verge of tears.

"No, but -" Sasuke activated his Sharingan. "- I have a perfect memory and I'm an expert artist. I think I could copy out a single chapter from memory in a half hour or so."

"What are you waiting for!?"

"There's something I need to do," Sasuke said, examining the ink on his seal. "Looks dry enough. Okay, I'll just be a minute and I'll get going with drawing it."

He laid out the seal on the ground, touched one toe to the seal and fed it a chakra charge. There was a puff of smoke and Sasuke thrust a kunai confidently into the smoke.

With a gasp, Uchiha Itachi fell backwards out of the smoke, his throat grinning open from one corner of his jaw to the other. He gasped, trying to say something, but failed, light fading swiftly from his eyes as his blood spread out on the floor. Sasuke ignored his brother, pulling the seal out from under Itachi's feet before blood could stain the paper. "Right," he said, flipping the paper over and then reaching for his brush. "Chapter Seven..."

oOo

"Let's see... my name is Haruno Sakura and I'm, uh, twelve. I like..." The girl frowned and then shrugged. "You know, screw it. I liked the look on your face when I killed Uchiha Itachi, the look on your face when I was named as the Rokudaime Hokage and the look on your face when I promised that I would be just as considerate of your son as his sensei as you were as my jounin-sensei."

"I didn't like the photos you sent me of you being anally penetrated by Orochimaru; the hate mail all your fangirls sent me because you kept chasing me for a date; and you subscribing me for a lifetime membership of the Icha Icha fanclub because 'I have to loosen up some'."

"Dreams and ambtions..." she scratched her head. "You know, I'm not sure that there's anything that I haven't done already... I suppose I'm looking for something new to do. Crimes of against nature, legendary heroic deeds... any suggestions?"

oOo

Naruto turned a dead, empty stare upon Kakashi.

"We are the Uzumaki Collective. We like genjutsu, pranks and generally messing with people's heads. Our dislikes are too many to discuss at this time. Our ambition is to replace everyone in the world with a Naruto. Without anyone noticing."

"Che, shut up dobe," Sasuke grumbled. "He's been going on like this all day," he added to Kakashi.

"Without," Naruto repeated expressionlessly. "Anyone noticing."

For an instant Kakashi could have sworn that someone was using a genjutsu on him, but it was probably just boredom at the totally predictable and utterly forgettable ambitions of Naruto. Ramen had been mentioned, he thought.

oOo

Team Seven's sensei sat carefully down on the bench and gestured for the three twelve year olds to line up in front of him.

"Now then. I've met you all before, of course," he said kindly. "However, if we're going to work together now then it's worth getting to know each other properly. So, why don't we all ask one question for someone else on the team to answer." He beamed amiably at them. "Sakura, you can go first."

She hesitated and then asked him: "Hokage-sama, why are you our sensei?"

The Professor chuckled. "It may surprise you to know that I was a jounin-sensei myself, long ago. I had three proud students, all of whom became the greatest of ninja, legends in their own lifetimes. I have to say, that I see elements of them in the three of you and felt it was only right that I be your teacher as well. Besides, this lets me stick Kakashi doing the paperwork for a year or two. That'll teach him to accept missions without reading them."

"Who were your students?" Naruto asked. "What happened to them?"

Sarutobi Hiruzen smiled thinly. "I think that that is two questions, Naruto. However, information is life for a shinobi so I will answer you. They became a drunken coward, a feckless lecher and the vilest traitor in the history of Konoha. They were the team so famous that they were known only as the Three Ninja. And I will ensure that you do not make the same mistakes that they did. By force if need be."

oOo