A/N: This story has already hit over 100 favorites, and over 150 followers. 30 reviews as well. For a story with only 2 chapters and 3 days of life, that's ridiculous. Thank you all so much for that. Keeps me motivated to upload quick for you guys. Keep on reviewing, keep on reading. I'll do my best to entertain :)

Time for Chapter 3

Enjoy!


Naruto fought the urge to wipe the sweat from his brow as he forced himself to complete his ninety-eighth pushup. One hundred was the goal, as per usual, and the final five were always a struggle. With the targeted number so close at hand, it was difficult to maintain his willpower. He was tired, he was sore, and he was nearly spent. Slowly, painstakingly, the blonde lowered himself down for his ninety-ninth.

"Two more. Come on, two more." he grunted to himself as he struggled to lift his weight. Though it took him a substantial amount of time, Naruto finally straightened his arms under himself, signifying that only one more repetition remained. Taking a deep breath to prepare himself, Naruto brought himself back down toward the floor. Quickly and predictably, he hit a wall on his way back up.

"Push through it. Make it work." he demanded of his body. His arms were shaking, his abdomen ached, and he was out of breath. He hardly possessed the strength to hold himself up anymore. To combat his failing physicality, Naruto searched his mind for motivation. The classics were all there. The glares, the patronizing smirks, the mocking laughter, all of it. Oddly, however, none of it phased him. He remained even and calm, much to his own detriment. As a result, he dropped down toward the floor of his bedroom, only catching himself a mere inch from the floorboards. He was on the verge of failure.

Then, just as he was about to give in and accept the fact the he could not complete the set, a memory from the prior day sent a surge of renewed adrenaline through him.

"At least I managed to touch a bell. You were just a punching bag."

Satsuki's words had at least partially been in jest as an on-brand attempt to rile him up, but they had also been true. During the bell test, Naruto had done little more than absorb punishment from Kakashi. Satsuki hadn't fared much better in a broad sense, but she had indeed grazed one of the bells with her finger tip at one point, and had even forced the Jonin to put his book down once or twice. She had outperformed him, and they both knew it.

"This won't be much of a team effort. I get the feeling I'll be doing most of the heavy lifting."

Over and over again, Satsuki had made it clear that she considered herself above both he and Shikamaru, and unfortunately, she had largely proven herself to be correct in terms of on-field performance. At this thought, Naruto's biceps tightened and rigidly forced his body upward from the floor.

"I'm not your backup. Screw you and your oversized ego." Naruto growled to the Uchiha girl, who was obviously, and somewhat thankfully, not present to witness the blonde's physical struggle. With his hundredth pushup completed at long last, Naruto flopped onto his stomach. Though he had managed to power his way through the exercise, he made a mental note to avoid extreme exertion on days directly following intensive work with his team. They had been granted one final day of rest by Kakashi earlier that morning, as they were set to begin D-Ranked missions the next day.

D-Ranked assignments were apparently incredibly mundane, civil jobs in which genin would be given orders to clean out gutters, find stray cats, or even remove graffiti. In other words, grunt work. Naruto was far from anticipatory of the activities he would be partaking in in the coming weeks, but it was a necessary step. As much as he wished to be beyond the bounds of the village, doing worthwhile work, he was begrudgingly aware that being thrown into the metaphorical deep end right away likely would result in severe repercussions.

The world was a dangerous place, and sending out entirely green genin to do jobs of any weight was entirely unwise. How long the D-Ranked assignments would remain a norm for Team Seven was unknowable at present, but it had the potential to fluctuate widely depending on the cell's performance during said assignments. In terms of difficulty, Naruto was without worry in regards to the missions. Having engaged in his fair share of mischief, he had also experienced the consequences of having to clean and fix things.

What concerned him, and always had about becoming a Ninja, was the fact that he would be forced to somewhat be in the public eye. He had learned to calmly deal with the discrimination long ago, but to be placed right in the brunt of it once again, with his teammates present, no less, would be a daunting test of his self-control and confidence.

'That's how it was always going to be. Suck it up.' he thought to himself as he rose up from the floor and stretched his upper body. He then glanced to his left, where his mirror was hanging over his dresser. During his morning exercise, his shirt had hiked its way up his abdomen, revealing just a few inches of the black markings that had always covered his stomach. Sighing somewhat, Naruto peeled the rest of his shirt from his body and looked himself over.

He had worked himself into solid shape over the years, and in some respects, he was proud of his own self-discipline, but the tattoo on his stomach was a constant reminder that he was different. Each day, almost out of habit, he would check to see if it had somehow disappeared, that perhaps his determination to self-improve had mystically dispelled the curse placed upon him. Unfortunately, that fantasy never came to pass.

'Why do I even keep hoping for it? The tattoo isn't even the problem.' he pondered. A quiet laugh then escaped him as he came across an odd bit of ironic humor. The old maxim of what lay within mattering more than what lay exposed had always been meant in a positive light. It was a confidence-building philosophy, a beacon of confidence for many, be it consciously or unconsciously. For Naruto, it was entirely inverted. What lay within him was the source of his condemnation, the base of his pain. The tattoo was superficial and meaningless, but its design was fairly interesting, if not outright appealing.

'I wonder if...I can learn a jutsu to hide it.' he wondered within his mind. The thought itself was only semi-serious, but the notion of removing the tattoo from view was certainly appealing. To not be reminded of his status day in and day out would be a great relief in many ways. The blonde then exited his bedroom and glanced over at his kitchen.

'I should eat.' he thought to himself. He briskly made his way into the kitchen and searched his cupboards, finding the predictably mundane options of cup ramen or canned meat. A brief weighing of the options, he sided with the cup ramen due to trusting it more to not be rotten.

'Ramen it is. That makes a whole week in a row.'


"You came a bit closer this time. Keep getting better and you might have me by the time I retire."

"Don't patronize me."

A nonchalant laugh echoed through the Nara household as the clock struck noon. Shikamaru, for the thousandth time, had been summarily defeated in a game of Shogi by his father, Shikaku. It was practically a tradition. Shikamaru would pose a pointless challenge, Shikaku would accept, and within the following hour, the younger of the Nara men would hang his head in frustration as his more seasoned father claimed a routine victory.

"You should write a book on this crap. I've never seen you even come close to losing. Not even grandfather could touch you." Shikamaru said only semi-sarcastically. His father began to put away the pieces of the game and shook his head.

"Writing a book would take more time than I'm ever going to have. As for my old man, most of that was him going senile. Even he'd tell you that much." he replied. Once the Shogi board and pieces were fully cleaned up and put away, Shikaku eyed his son and relaxed his posture a bit.

"You haven't said much about your team. What're they like?" he asked. Shikamaru sighed and uncrossed his legs to make himself more comfortable.

"Not sure, really. Naruto is about as far from calming as I could've ended up with, and Satsuki is pretty much what you'd expect at this point." he explained vaguely. The head of the Nara clan stroked his goatee.

"They really put her in with Naruto, huh? I'm tempted to call that a bad call, honestly." he said thoughtfully. Shikamaru snorted and cracked his stiff neck.

"Don't even hesitate. They just about tore each other's throats out yesterday. Naruto won't shut up, and he irritates her enough that she always goes after him. Oil and water, the lot of them." he said. Shikaku drummed his fingers on the matted floor.

"That might be the whole point. Naruto isn't as energetic as he used to be, from what you've told me, but he's still got a mouth on him, even if he usually means well. Parent-teacher conferences told me all I need to know about how that girl's viewed." he said, drawing a raised eyebrow from his son.

"What do you mean?" he pressed skeptically. Shikaku cracked a humorous smile and shook his head tiredly.

"I only saw it twice, but more than once is enough to prove a pattern exists. They stare at her. Boys and girls alike. Boys, because they'd kill to help her start up that clan again, and girls because they're dying to know how exactly she does it. Classic teenage drama." he explained. Shikamaru shrugged and began fiddling with a Shogi piece they had missed.

"She is pretty hot. Sucks that she's about as likeable as an angry drunk. Kiba had it bad for her last year. Didn't end well, but I guess it proves your point. I still don't quite get how Naruto factors into any of that, though." he said in response. Shikaku tapped his forehead.

"Use your brain, kid. Of all the hormonal messes in your class, you and Naruto probably fawned over her the least, right? Can you imagine how terribly your team would operate if either one of you were attracted to her? It would be a nightmare." he extrapolated. Shikamaru then let out a genuine laugh at the notion.

"Man, what does that tell you about this year's crop? If you're even half right, they really put together a team solely based on who was least likely to get turned on by their own teammates. What a joke." he said through his laughter. Shikaku scratched the back of his head and rose up to his feet slowly.

"I didn't mean it quite like that, but that's one way of putting it. All of that aside, do you think you'll all function?" he asked. Shikamaru stood to meet him and nodded.

"Yeah. we'll be fine. Naruto's a little dumb, and Satsuki's a little mean, but hey, I think we work alright." he said honeslty. His father nodded and gestured for him to follow him, to which Shikamaru obliged. Surprisingly, he was not led to the kitchen as he had expected, but out into their backyard, which bordered the forest for which the village was famous.

"Are you making me go on a walk with you again?" he asked boredly. Shikaku responded by doing something he rarely did, which was to untie his forehead protector from his bicep, and refasten it on his head. At the sight, Shikamaru made a silent, educated guess as to what he would be doing for the next several hours.

"Since you're about to be out in the real world for the first time, I think it'd be good if I actually forced you to work on your ancillary skill sets. Your scores in Taijutsu and endurance were horrible this year and every year before it. We're going to change that." he explained, assuming a stance as he spoke. The younger Nara raised an eyebrow and mimicked him.

"Since when are you good at either of those things?" he shot back. Shikaku smirked and took a step forward to engage.

"I'm decent at best, average at worst. You're mediocre at best, and useless at worst. I can still teach you a thing or two." he said. Shikamaru sighed and strode to meet him.

'Of course, you choose the day I'm already sore to suddenly want to be young again.'


Showers had always been an excellent reliever of stress. Hot water was a more effective therapist than any licensed official could ever hope to be. It was due to these truths that Satsuki had developed the habit of remaining in the shower for an upwards of thirty minutes at a time. There were few other places in which she felt more comfortable than under her shower head, hot water dousing her skin. The present day in particular called for a long appointment, as her body was tremendously sore from the prior morning.

Kakashi Hatake was an exceptionally skilled combatant. He was blazing fast in a way that starkly contrasted his slow and easy intonations, he was rigidly strong, and he was a ruthless taker of openings. He had been holding back considerably during the bell test, but he had still made sure to send a strong message: He was their superior, and Team Seven had a tremendous amount of growing to do. As a result of his harsh enforcement, both she and Naruto had absorbed a fairly substantial amount of damage.

Naruto's jaw and lower leg had been badly bruised, and Satsuki's rib cage was black and blue. Beyond the actual minor injuries she had sustained, her body was incredibly sore from the exertion, and her lungs still burned when she breathed. In one way, it was fortunate that D-Ranked assignments were all the cell was permitted to perform for the foreseeable future. It would allow them a bit of time to recover.

'They'll probably have us raking leaves or drying windows. It stormed this week.' she thought to herself as she slowly turned the pressure gage of her shower down to shut it off. Once the water quit flowing from the shower head, Satsuki rolled her sore shoulder and carefully made her way out of the stall and out into the main bathroom. As she stepped into the main area of her bathroom, she cast her eyes down to the floor as she always did.

She had long avoided viewing her own reflection, only ever doing so to manage her hair, be it when she cut it, or when she loosely fixed it in the morning. It had ceased being a temptation to look upon her reflection for any other reason, but today was different. As of two days prior, she had changed. She was a genin, a Kunoichi of Konohagakure. In a sense, it was a step toward adulthood, a link in her transition from mere girl to grown woman.

'Just this once. I'll only look for a few seconds.' she vowed to herself, slowly turning her gaze upward as she submitted to her uncommon desire to view herself. What she saw was fairly close to what she had expected, but a fair bit had changed since her fourteenth birthday, which had been the last time she'd taken a long, hard look at herself.

'Well, I guess they only really started staring at the start of this year.' she mused to herself, a touch of pride working its way into her psyche. The longer she evaluated her appearance, however, the more she came to a singular conclusion.

She very much resembled Mikoto Uchiha, her late mother.

Her face was a touch less rounded, and her figure was still younger in a number of ways, but the genetics of her mother were increasingly showing through in Satsuki's appearance. Their eyes were nearly identical, their lips were shaped the same, and their cheekbones were strikingly similar. As many daughters did, Satsuki had viewed her mother as the most beautiful woman on the planet. The gold standard of what she had hoped to become.

To see herself slowly become more similar to Mikoto brought Satsuki a brief spark of vindicating joy. That happiness quickly gave way to something else. As she looked upon her reflection, the pleasant face of her mother in her mind's eye was replaced by an image she had forcefully repressed to the deepest depths of her psyche.

"To test the limits...of my own ability."

Eight words, two bodies, a single massacre. The imagery only lasted a brief moment, but it was enough to cause the girl to tear her eyes away from the mirror and grip her own face tightly.

"No more mirrors." she muttered to herself as her nails dug into her cheek and temple. Eventually, she calmed enough to move once again. With her autonomy regained, Satsuki put on the clothes she had set out for herself ahead of time on the bathroom counter, having dried naturally to the point of not requiring a towel. Once she was fully dressed, she exited her bathroom and leaned back against the wall of the hallway.

Choosing to set her mind to other, more standard things, Satsuki reached behind herself and felt her lower back, where her dark hair just barely extended to.

'I need to cut it soon. This is as long as I've ever let it get.' she decided. She then quickly realized that cutting her hair would require the aid of a mirror, at which point she shook her head and began a walk toward her porch at the end of the corridor.

'I'll do it next week.'


A/N: Not a ton actually happening in this chapter, but I thought it'd be good to show them all in their own element. Next chapter will have them all together again. You'll get your Naruto and Satsuki interactions, don't you worry.

Tell me what you thought of this chapter :)

See you next chapter! Read and Review!