DISCLAIMER: I do not own Naruto, Kishimoto does. I don't own Hikari Aino.

A/C: Constructive criticism is warmly welcomed and appreciated, as well as readers' suggestions/ideas. (Particularly when it comes to Lemons – I really suck at those! :S) Flames and mean comments are not welcome – saying 'no offence' means squat. If you don't like what you're reading don't leave a comment!

I'LL MAKE A 'TEAM' OUT OF YOU!

(Be a Man) You must be swift as the coursing river.
(Be a Man) With all the force of a great typhoon.
(Be a Man) With all the strength of a raging fire.
Mysterious as the dark side of the moon.

Hmmm...I wonder why Kakashi-sensai told us not to eat breakfast before coming down this morning?

Was this so called test that intense that we would, as he claimed, throw up?

Still blinking sleep from my eyes and yawning deeply, I headed straight for the designated training area Kakashi-sensai had asked us to meet him at. I was the first one there, surprisingly.

I sat underneath a tree, leaning back with my hands behind my head. Although, I didn't have to wait for very long as Sasuke turned up ten seconds later with Sakura hanging off his arm as usual and running her mouth off about something important to her in his ear, while he glared at the ground.

Sakura took one look at me watching them coming over to where I was sitting and threw me a filthy look, probably sulking because she wanted Naruto and I to be late so she could have quality time with the Uchiha, who looked like he was barely controlling himself and unfortunately did not kill Sakura where she stood and spared us her annoying presence.

I ignored the spiteful girl mostly because I was trying figure out why I hated my body so much, but also because she was a waste of space and was acting incredibly immature. I was always my harshest critic - despite how much my mom keeps telling me to 'stop being ridiculous, I looked fine' and 'you're still developing, you goose. Give your body a chance to change before making a decision.' So, to my dismay, I decided comparing myself to Sakura.

The only characteristics that we both shared was that we both seriously lacked in the chest department, despite the fact that we were both twelve years old (although Sakura is several months older than I am). But I must be getting them because I only just recently started 'surfing the crimson wave' for the first time - which prompted Mom to give me a rather mortifying and awkward conversation about 'the birds and the bees' and the 'exciting world of womanhood'. Both related to something called 'puberty'.

I shuddered - wishing I could block all this from my memory.

I am petite and skinny with pale, peach coloured skin. I have shoulder-length jet black hair that framed a heart shaped face and featured light brown eyes. According to Mom, I have the beginnings of an hour glass figure - and because of Mom's lecture, I have become increasingly aware of the attention I've been receiving from boys because of my figure.

Great, just what I needed.
To be ogled at by a bunch of walking hormonal time bombs.

Sakura is also petite and also developing an hourglass figure as well. She has long bubblegum pink hair that reaches her small of her back and sharp green eyes. Apparently, she's growing out her hair because she heard that Sasuke liked girls with long hair. Her face is round, producing an unusually large forehead that she seems ashamed of, and has pale skin like me.

Unlike me, however, boys tend to avoid her like the plague - but I can see why though. She has a really bad temper and tends to thump people when she's pissed - Naruto being one of them.

Ten minutes later, Naruto showed up, red faced and out of breath. Sakura was all over him like a rash for his 'tardiness'.

"You're late, Naruto. As usual." Sakura sniped.

"I'm sorry, I really tried to be early." Naruto apologised sincerely, and I scowled at her for her rudeness. This was nothing I wanted to deal with this early in the morning. I'm not a morning person, never have been and never will.

An hour later, we were still waiting.

"Okay, this is beyond ridiculous." I growled, yawning again and stretching out my tired muscles.

"I concur." Sasuke agreed from where he was sitting next to me. Not too faraway, Naruto was lying on his stomach in the grass with his legs dangling in the air and chewing on a piece of grass weed, and Sakura was sitting at Sasuke's feet, daydreaming.

"Aw, man! Where the heck is he?" Naruto whined, pulling the grass weed out of his mouth, tossing it away and sitting up. Just then Kakashi-sensai appeared, looking sheepish.

If looks could kill, our sensai would be a pile of ashes on the ground in front of us.

"You're late." Sasuke stated in monotone as he stood up from his perch and gave him his full attention.

"Yeah, sorry about that, kids. A black cat crossed my path and I had to seek an alternative route here..."

"LIAR!"

Kakashi sweat-dropped before getting serious and getting down to our so called test.

Our lazy teacher led us over to where four stumps stood by idly. On the ground in front of the stumps were three bentos.

"FOOD!" Naruto loudly announced, then frowned as he counted the boxes.

"Hang on, there's only three bentos here. There are four of us."

He said pointing us out in turn.

"Thank you for pointing that out, Naruto. Now, let's get started."

Kakashi placed a clock on one of the stumps.

"Here we go. That clock is set for noon. Now your assignment is fairly straight forward-"

He produced three bells from out of nowhere.

"-You just need to take these bells off me, in any way you can. That's all there is to it."

Sasuke, Sakura and I nodded. Naruto looked confused.

"If you cannot do it before noon-"

He continued.

"-You will go without lunch."

Naruto gasped in horror.

"And you'll be tied to these posts while I eat my lunch in front of you." He grinned devilishly. I sagged a bit.

Makes sense – albeit cruel and unusual. But still, I get why he said we couldn't eat breakfast before hand. He made it harder on us...

Sakura pointed out an obvious flaw in this assignment.

"Hang on a minute. There's four of us. How come there are only three bells?"

Kakashi smiled.

"Well, that way at least one of you will end up being tied to the post and ultimately disqualified for failing to complete the mission. That person will be sent back to the Academy."

Well that sucks...

"Or better yet... you may flunk out anyway."

All four of us bristled at the remark.

"You may use any weapon in order to take the bells from me."

I silently unzipped my weapons pouch and buried my hand inside it, feeling the cold, folded metal of a kunai with my fingers.

"Fair warning, if you're not prepared to kill me to obtain the bells – you won't get them."

Sakura looked worried.

"But Kakashi-sensai, those weapons are too dangerous!"

I threw her a scandalised look.

"That's the idea." I heard Sasuke mutter under his breath. I looked over at him and giggled. He winked back and I nearly dropped my kunai from shock. Sasuke Uchiha, Konoha's most eligible, albeit cold, distant and broody as hell bachelor (at age twelve) just winked at me. Granted, we are best friends, but he had never done that before.

What changed?

"Yeah, especially since you didn't even dodge the eraser yesterday." Naruto guffawed.

Naruto's rude comment brought me back down to Earth and I glared at him. Kakashi raised an unamused eyebrow at my other best friend.

"Class clowns are usually the weakest links. You can safely ignore them, low scores, losers." Kakashi retorted.

Naruto glared at him and growled. Kakashi ignored him and turned to the rest of us.

"When I say start, you may begin."

Naruto obviously not hearing Kakashi's instructions correctly, instantly changed at Kakashi with a kunai in his hand before Kakashi could even speak. Immediately, Kakashi turned the kunai to face the back of Naruto's head, causing him to gulp.

"Wow." I murmured as Sasuke, Sakura and I stared at our teacher's impressive move.

Kakashi lowered his mouth to Naruto's ear.

"Don't be so hasty. I didn't even say 'start' yet."

The rest of us took a step back. However, he took us all aback when he grinned.

"But because you came at me with the intention of eliminating me-"

He stared at the rest of us,

"-I'm actually starting to like you, guys."

Good to know... I thought apprehensively.

"Ready? Start!"

Instantly, Sasuke, Sakura and I sprang into action as Kakashi called out to us instructions.

"Ninjas must know how to hide quickly and effectively."

Immediately, Sasuke jumped into a tree, Sakura under a bush and I hid behind a large rock nearby. Naruto however, trying to prove himself, decided to face Kakashi head on.

"No, Naruto..." I groaned, but I knew I couldn't do anything. This was my test as well.

I watched as Naruto challenged Kakashi who just stared at him quizzically.

"You know, compared to your other teammates, you're an extremely weird kid." Kakashi mused conversationally.

"Oh yeah? Well the only weird thing I can see here is your haircut." Naruto retorted lamely.

I face palmed and then reacted in horror when Kakashi reached behind him, grabbing something.

Oh shit! He's gonna attack Naruto!

"Shinobi battle techniques. Part 1: Taijutsu. The physical part."

Taijutsu? But that was hand-to-hand combat? What was going on here? If he was going to be using Taijutsu, why was he reaching for a weapon? But my frantic musings were answered when instead of a weapon, Kakashi pulled out one of his stupid books.

What the? He really IS not taking this very seriously...

"Say what?" Naruto exclaimed.

Kakashi surveyed him above his book.

"Well? What are you waiting for, make your first move?"

Naruto hesitated.

"But, why are you reading that book?"

"Why? To find out what happens next, of course." Kakashi replied like it was obvious, as he opened the book and started reading it cover to cover.

"Don't let it bother you. With the weak attacks you're throwing me, I'd be able to block them anyway. So it really doesn't matter if I'm reading or not."

Naruto snarled angrily at the insult and advanced on him with a raised fist.

"ARRGH! I'm gonna crush you!"

But no matter how many times Naruto tried to lay a hand on Kakashi, his move was blocked effortlessly with one hand – thus completely frustrating Naruto and making his blows sloppy. Finally, Kakashi poofed behind Naruto and Sasuke, Sakura and I realised Kakashi was up to something.

"Don't let your enemy get behind you all the time." Kakashi instructed us and made the hand sign for tiger.

Three gasps were heard – this was not good.

"Naruto! Get out of there quickly! He's going to destroy you!" Sakura warned Naruto, but also managing to give away her hiding place to Kakashi.

He smirked.

"Too late."

Kakashi aimed his fingers for... Naruto's butt? Naruto's panicked expression changed to one of discomfort.

Okay...What was Kakashi-sensai doing?

"ONE THOUSAND YEARS OF DEATH!" Kakashi bellowed and flung Naruto into a nearby pond.

Sakura emerged from her hiding place, frowning in confusion.

"But he didn't make any hand sign. He just poked Naruto in the butt."

I heard Sasuke scoffing unimpressed.

"They're idiots."

We watched as Kakashi resumed reading his stupid book. Then dodged a couple of shurikens that whizzed past his head and embedded themselves in a nearby tree. Kakashi looked back in the direction where the shurikens had come from.

"Now what are you doing?"

Naruto was coming back out of the pond, sopping wet and looking pissed off. We watched as Naruto produced shadow clones and made another attempt at getting a bell off Kakashi, but each time – his plans were diverted. While Kakashi was distracted with Naruto, Sasuke saw his chance and launched his own brand of attacks at Kakashi – taking a direct hit.

We watched in horror as Kakashi thudded to the ground and didn't move. I jumped out from behind the rock and sprinted over to Kakashi's unmoving body.

"What did you do, Sasuke?" I asked in a frightened, hushed voice - fearing that Sasuke might've accidentally killed our sensai.

Sasuke hesitated briefly, thinking he might've seriously hurt our teacher. Then a dissatisfied grimace blossomed on his face.

"Nothing. Look..."

I looked back down and saw to my horror that instead of Kakashi's body, there was a large log with Sasuke's shurikens embedded in them.

Substitution Jutsu! I'm exposed!

I felt fear creeping up my spine and I started looking around almost paranoid-like just as Sasuke also darted out into complete view – apparently oblivious to being exposed himself.

"So, he's not dead?"

I shook my head.

Suddenly, a couple of kunai flew at us that we had to cartwheel away from and narrowly avoided, and I felt Sasuke immediately seize my wrist and we jumped into the 'safety' of the trees, where Sasuke pushed me up against the trunk and shielded my body with his, apparently oblivious to the intimacy of his actions, while I flushed red and tried hard not to bring attention to myself.

"Crap! He did that deliberately. Now he knows where I'm hiding. I gotta move fast!"

Sasuke seemed to be talking to himself. I poked him in the shoulder.

"Uh, Sasuke? You can let me go now."

I felt extremely uncomfortable with Sasuke leaning up against me in his efforts to protect me from Kakashi. Especially when I knew (and felt really irritated about) that there was a strong chance that I was about to pummelled to within an inch of my life by a highly possessive Uchiha fangirl for even daring to touch her beloved 'Sasuke-kun'.

Sasuke gave a impatient sigh and moved away from me...

Thank you...

Then spun round and kissed me full on the lips! I froze, shocked, as I looked at Sasuke wide-eyed at the unexpected move.

"I was not going to let you get caught for my idiotic move." He smirked, clearly enjoying the stunned expression on my face.

Then he zipped off to another hiding place to scope out his next move to obtain one of Kakashi's bells. I could my cheeks burning and I raised a shaky hand to my lips.

He...he...he stole my first kiss!

I stared off in the direction, Sasuke had taken and a huge smile spread across my face. Sasuke's impromptu kiss was surprisingly sweet and gentle, but I was distracted from my thoughts long enough to avoid a couple of Shuriken and sprinted off towards a different hiding place to also figure out my next move and avoid Kakashi at all costs until I was ready for my next attempt.

What's going on? What did I do to deserve this from Sasuke?

First the Ring, now this kiss. I cringed in horror, the fan girls were going to have a field day if they learnt about this. And I was going to become a murder victim.

I heard rather than saw Sakura shriek loud enough for the entire village to hear in the distance. I winced, but felt unsympathetic. It definitely sounded like she had been caught by Kakashi, probably trying to find and save Sasuke if I knew her. I suddenly sensed a strong chakra source just beyond me and I recognised it as my teacher, who seemed to be picking us off one by one.

Seeing my chance, I charged off towards the source, tugging free a couple of kunai and shuriken simultaneously and perched myself underneath a nearby bush, just as Sasuke came into view, obviously having sensed that same chakra source as I did. I immediately blushed - but forced myself to focus on the task.

"I'm nothing like Naruto, Sakura or even Hikari…" he told himself, clearly unaware of my chakra pulsing like a heartbeat nearby.

I flinched at his words, then instantly felt resentful - he gives me a kiss and then insults me. I'll show him, he's not the only one trying to find out the truth. A hand wrapped itself around my ankle and snatched me out from under the bush without warning.

"WOAH!" I hollered, finding myself staring at Kakashi's smirking face upside down.

My teacher was looking incredibly smug.

"Never let your guard down for even a second, Hikari" Kakashi scolded me.

I growled in embarrassment and kicked out at Kakashi who released my ankle immediately and I used the ground as a launching point to flip back out of range of my teacher and propelled myself at him. Kakashi tricked me again and sent me flying towards Sasuke and landed hard on my back at his feet. I cussed under my breath and looked up getting a faceful of a smirking Sasuke.

I scowled angrily at him and saw him extending a hand to pull me to my feet. I ignored it and rolled to my side, springing lightly to my feet put distance between us - causing Sasuke to blink at me in confusion. I turned away from him, breathing heavily and feeling hurt by his previous words.

"What are you waiting for Sasuke? Aren't you gonna prove that you're better than us?" I spat with some hostility. Sasuke's face twisted in shock when he realised that I had overheard his inner monologue.

"Yes, Sasuke. Say that after you've taken one of these bells from me." Taunted Kakashi who appeared out of nowhere behind us.

Both Sasuke and I jumped back from him and turned to face our target, which was dangling in view from Kakashi's pants pocket. Sasuke growled and grabbed a handful of weapons and threw them at Kakashi, who easily dodged them.

"You should know, Sasuke, that there's no point in using normal attacks."

There was a snap and Kakashi narrowly avoided being swept up in one of Sasuke's rope traps.

"A trap?"

Nope. A distraction.

As Kakashi pondered why nothing had happened, I watched as Sasuke charged at Kakashi with a kick.

Blocked.

Sasuke swung a punch which was caught in Kakashi's hand. Our teacher looked thoroughly put out. Sasuke went for another kick but found his leg caught again. A light breeze blew in fanning my hair forward and lightly jostling the bells that tinkled.

Gotcha!

At the same time, both Sasuke and I lunged and groped for a bell each. But Kakashi reacted, releasing Sasuke and backhanded me sending me flying through the air back into the clearing with the four stumps. I landed with an 'ooof!" and gasping for breath, I looked up and saw that Naruto had been caught in one of Kakashi's rope traps himself.

Beside him, there was another rope that had been cut and I realised with a chuckle that Naruto had been caught TWICE by the same trap.

"How's it hanging?"

Naruto scowled at me and poked out his tongue, obviously not amused by my joke. Both our heads suddenly snapped towards where I had emerged as we sensed an immense chakra source flare up.

Sasuke?

Suddenly, the ground beneath my feet shook and I stared in the direction of the two massive chakra sources.

Woah... was that... KAKASHI?

I heard something thud to the ground behind me and spit out a curse. Naruto had obviously gotten himself free. I was still distracted by what was happening in the distance, when I suddenly heard the sound of sneaky chuckling. I broke away from where I was staring and looked over to see Naruto hovering over the bentos.

"What are you doing?" I asked my friend sternly.

Naruto looked up at me barely even flinching at the warning tone in my voice.

"Well, don't you remember what Kakashi said?"

I frowned at him.

"He said that if we don't get a bell, then we don't get lunch, but if we eat our lunch now there's nothing he can do."

He gave me a scheming grin which deepened my frown.

"That's not a good idea, Naruto." I warned him.

But Naruto ignored me, seeming to believe that his plan was a good one and picked up a bento.

"It's chow time!" He announced.

But a cold voice suddenly crept up from behind us.

"Hi there."

I nearly jumped out of my skin and turned to see Kakashi glaring down at the now sheepish and guilty looking Naruto. Behind our teacher stood a thoroughly unimpressed Sakura who was glaring heatedly at Naruto, and a resentful, angry looking Sasuke who was staring at me with some concern. He clearly was still reeling from what I had said back there in the trees.

I looked away from him, trying to fight back the angry tears welling up in my eyes.

"I-I was just joking, Sensai." Naruto tried to weasel his way out of trouble as usual.

I rolled my eyes, shaking my head in exasperation. This day was not turning out well - at this rate, we were all going to be repeating another year at the Academy. My pride was stunned at the dreaded thought.

"Nice try." Kakashi responded and the four of us jumped when the alarm suddenly went off.

Noon.