Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto - just my OC and the changes to the story.

A/N: Thank you for reading this story! Please leave comments and constructive criticisms - they motivate me to write more for you to read!

Mayumi smiled lightly as she entered the academy, thinking back to her brother's words. That morning, as she began preparing for her last day at the academy, he said she would succeed and become a truly inspiring kunoichi. He said he was proud, though not in so many words. It would be unbecoming of a Hyuuga to be overtly emotional, after all.

She felt her smile freeze up when she reached the doors to the classroom. Loudness. Constant ruckus. These were supposed to be shinobi, adults by law. They actually received forehead protectors last week. Yet, they were... children. Absolutely immature children. Sighing, she approached the back tables, sliding next to Aburame Shino - the only student here she could tentatively call a friend. At least there was some guarantee of quiet here.

"You look annoyed," Shino commented.

Mayumi frowned, "I had hoped that with our recent graduations, they would feel the need to be a bit more mature, considering they represent Konoha."

"It is not too strange," he commented in that strange speech pattern of his, "Why? Because it would be stranger for them to change in the span of a week."

"Fair. I suppose I just got my hopes up," she sighed.

A nearby screech caught her off guard. Haruno Sakura and Yamanaka Ino were now fighting for the seat next to the very highly overrated Uchiha Sasuke. Why would these girls give up their sense of pride for a boy who clearly doesn't care for them? It was truly pitiful. All things considered, the Uchiha was also pitiful. Her brother had also experienced the force that is fangirls and handled it...poorly; at least, Neji-nii's teammate was more of a Tsunade-hime-obsessed maniac than anything else.

Mayumi sighed, nodding at Shino. She was glad for at least his company. "How is your hive? Prepared for the shinobi life?" Kikaichu were indeed quite fascinating. She wondered if there was a way she could create a jutsu to replicate their chakra-absorbing abilities.

She was glad that she was familiar with reading the Aburame's expressions because his expressions when thinking of his hive were quite lovely. Again, their conversation was interrupted by a screech. An angry crowd of fangirls was beating up Uzumaki. What on earth...? No, she didn't want to deal with this. She sighed again. The Aburame just seemed amused. "Do you think that my pain is funny?" She glared at him.

Shino huffed, "Yes. Why? Your frustration remains constant, no matter how long you have known our classmates."

"It's frustrating that their childishness is a constant." Apparently, Iruka-sensei agreed because not a second after he entered did he scream at them. She showed her vindicated expression to the Shino, who just huffed, especially when Iruka continued, "You guys are ninja now!"

The much better-behaved class brought some peace, at least. Of course, then there were the team selections. How many of these people would be sent to the genin corps? The first six teams had none of the clan-born shinobi. Probably heading to the corps, then. Unfortunate, but clan shinobi had always been better trained than civilian ones. Their life expectancy was higher, at least.

The announcement of Team 7 caught her attention as Iruka-sensei started off the announcement with "Hyuuga Mayumi" and then continued with "Uzumaki Naruto" and oh dear, her future team meetings would be loud. Mayumi had hoped that, considering there was no equivalent of Lee-senpai in her class, her team would be quiet, but no. Instead, she got a teammate who sporadically attended classes, had no subtlety, and boasted big but never backed up his claims. Unfortunate. And then Iruka-sensei had to go and finish their team roster with "Uchiha Sasuke." Why? Why her? What did she do to deserve this? Their team wouldn't function. They could never be a team. She stiffened at the glares of all of her latter teammate's fangirls. And then, she glared back because she wouldn't be intimidated by those failures for kunoichi.

"Why does someone as great as me have to work with that bastard and the weirdo?!" her orange-jumpsuited teammate called out. Fangirls chorused pointing at her. Weirdo? Well, see if she was going to help him now. Oh, no. She had to help him, didn't she? They were teammates now. Why? Shino appeared to be smirking, the smug bastard.

"Quiet! Naruto, you were the dead last in your class, so you're being balanced with the top rookie. And then Mayumi was the top kunoichi and the best at the written exams, so they can both help you out." Best at written exams? Well, that was something to be proud of, at least.

But what about her taijutsu? She and Uchiha had never sparred, so how could they determine taijutsu? She'd give Uchiha ninjutsu - she had better chakra control, but the Hyuuga were never ninjutsu people. But taijutsu? Genjutsu – where her chakra control reigned supreme? Bukijutsu – with Tenten-senpai's help? How on earth was he the top rookie and not her? Clear favoritism for the last Uchiha...

Iruka-sensei continued, leaving Mayumi to her bitterness. Ignorant Uzumaki and arrogant Uchiha. She was doomed.

Team 8 was Shino's turn to suffer. Haha, left with Inuzuka. Hinata... her relationship with her cousin was complicated. The seal on her forehead throbbed. At least, she was tamer than any of the fan girls. Good for Shino.

Team 9 was another one she could see going to the corps - though those particular civilian-borns were quite good at academics. Perhaps administrative ninja? Team 10 had this year's Ino-Shika-Cho team, unsurprisingly.

And then they headed for lunch. Mayumi nodded to Shino and left to try to make a manageable team relationship. She approached their table. "Uzumaki-san, Uchiha-san, perhaps either of you would care to sit together for lunch? For team-building, of course."

The Uchiha grunted, "I have no use for weaklings," and walked away. Weaklings? By the Sage, if only the girls were allowed to spar with boys in class, she would have laid the Uchiha flat on his back. Weaklings? She blankly stared at him. Weaklings?... Uchiha would pay for this.

Uzumaki, it appeared, was equally outraged. "Take that back, you bastard! Hey, are you listening to me?"

"It appears he has no time for us weaklings... He will regret it," Mayumi uttered.

"...wow, you're kinda scary aren't you," Uzumaki said.

Mayumi raised her eyebrow. He nervously chuckled. "Uh, well... wait, you wanted to eat lunch with me? Really?" Was it that hard to believe? Admittedly, he did not appear to have many close friends, but surely it wasn't as bad as that. He had skipped classes with Inuzuka, Akimichi, and Nara, after all.

"Well, we are to be teammates, after all. It is an essential aspect of Konoha's ideals that teammates rely on each other and work together well. To ensure maximum efficiency, according to these ideals, would be to ensure amicable relationships between all teammates... Although Uchiha obviously doesn't care."

Uzumaki laughed at that. "Ha, that's right. You know, you're really weird." Thank you, Uzumaki, for your blunt opinion. "Every other girl in the class likes Sasuke, but you actually don't like him!"

Except for her cousin. Uzumaki was really obvious when it came to Hinata's ludicrous infatuation with him. Though, she supposed there might be some benefits to it - Hinata had improved her stealth training by observing him. In reply to Uzumaki's comment, Mayumi scoffed, "Unfortunately. We could do with a few more sensible kunoichi. They're all wasting their potential for a brooding, antisocial child."

Uzumaki laughed even more at that description, but asked, "Wasting their potential?"

"They spend so much time dedicated to him, annoying both him and everyone else, and neglect their own training in the process. They starve themselves by dieting and then end up much physically weaker, and that could cost them their lives, which are already at risk because they haven't been training. On top of that, they threaten not only their own lives but those of their future teammates. They disgrace the title kunoichi and harm Konoha's reputation."

"Oh," Uzumaki said, looking surprised.

"Either way," Mayumi continued, "we should head for lunch. As passionate as I am about this topic, we can't meet our jounin-sensei with rumbling stomachs."

"Oh, yeah. Do you want to head for ramen, then?" His obsession with the food was renowned, so Mayumi was not at all surprised. Perhaps she could indulge him this once.

"I would not mind. I have never had any, so I suppose that it would be an interesting experience."

"You've never had ramen! Now you've gotta try some!"

Ichiraku ramen was not as impressive as she had expected, given her new... teammate's... obsession with the food. But it was pleasant. The owner of the restaurant looked rather surprised to see her there but looked at her in gratitude...

What was going on here? First, Uzumaki was surprised that she was willing to eat with him. Now, the owner of the restaurant was thankful that she was eating with Uzumaki. What was going on here? Uzumaki was just an annoying kid, right? Why did everyone ignore him or become overly hostile toward him? There was something suspicious here, and Mayumi did not know whether she should investigate. Secrets were meant to stay secrets sometimes. Was this one of those times?

For now, though, it appeared that Uzumaki wasn't as annoying as she had expected. He hadn't shouted that he was going to be Hokage – although it's possible it was because he was occupied with his bowls of ramen. Tolerable prospect for a teammate, then.

They had been waiting for three hours. Three hours! All for a sensei who apparently didn't care about them. What's more, she was stuck with two immature, annoying children! Was this a test of her patience? It better be. She was one step away from slamming both of them into the floor.

Was this how Neji-nii felt? She could understand that Lee-senpai was annoying, but at least he had Tenten-Senpai. Mayumi, on the other hand, had to deal with both of them annoying each other. When Uzumaki suggested pranking their sensei, Mayumi freely agreed that he deserved it. Not that she would say it out loud; this could still be a test, of patience, respecting authority, or what have you.

Surprisingly, Uzumaki had succeeded in pranking the man, but left their sensei with a bad impression that he'd summed up as 'I hate you guys.' Mayumi could not believe – that a jounin would fall for such a crude trap, especially when said jounin was Hatake Kakashi. As in, Gai-sensei's eternal rival. As in, youngest to graduate from the Academy. As in, the ninja who had mastered over a thousand jutsus. This was an opportunity of a lifetime, and Uzumaki might have just shot it into pieces. She would kill him - never mind that she had agreed with it in her mind and made no effort to stop him.

She quickly made her way up the stairs, punctual as shinobi need to be – except when they're jounin on the level of Hatake Kakashi.

"Well, I suppose we should start by introducing ourselves," the man began with an irritating eye-smile.

"Would you be able to show us how to do it first?" Mayumi asked, to find out what exactly he wants from them. He then showed them the bare basics and revealed basically nothing more than his name. Perhaps that was a test as well, to learn as much about him as possible, some sort of recon training.

Uzumaki then proceeded to very loudly introduce himself, his love of ramen (though that was already quite obvious), and his dream to be Hokage – to be respected. Mayumi thought back to her earlier suspicions. Clearly, much of the village did not respect him. What was concerning was how much people who had not even met him disliked him. This clearly had a big impact on her teammate, and Mayumi hated being left out of the loop by someone she was meant to trust. Perhaps she could investigate whether it was safe to find out or not.

Mayumi introduced herself next; although she was keen on revealing as little of herself as possible as her sensei had done, she needed to introduce herself fully to her team. "My name is Hyuuga Mayumi. I enjoy practicing taijutsu with my brother, as well as the koto. I deeply enjoy music as it is a calming art. I suppose I dislike ignorance, incessant noise, and people who refuse to work or put in the effort to better themselves. My hobbies include, as previously mentioned, practicing taijutsu with my brother and the koto. My dreams for the future..."

Mayumi thought of the little fuuinjutsu book in the library that she had enjoyed browsing when she was a child. When she had practiced some at home, Uncle Hiashi had been most furious. A branch member, dabbling in fuuinjutsu! Her head throbbed in remembrance of that searing pain. She looked at her sensei. She did not wish to tell that blabbermouth Uzumaki, the disdainful Uchiha, this jounin that she did not know near well enough to trust him to not tell her uncle, to reveal that her true dream was to free her oppressed kin, to allow her brother a life without hatred, where he could succeed to his full potential.

She moved on. "My dreams for the future are to represent the Hyuuga well as a competent kunoichi and set an example for kunoichi nowadays to seriously prepare instead of occupying themselves solely and obsessively with romantic flights of fancy." That was also the truth; it should suffice.

She received a raised eyebrow from her sensei, but he moved on quickly. Mayumi wondered what he thought of her; she needed the man to take her seriously to reap the most out of such a prodigious teacher.

And then Uchiha... for all her dislike of the boy personally, Mayumi understood why he was the way he was. If her brother had killed everyone else in the clan – well, admittedly if it were her brother, she would likely join him, if only to protect him as best she could. But, if someone close to her had killed the rest of her close family, she would have definitely become the broody child he was. Still, it was sad that his hatred appeared to be his sole motivation.

With that in mind, Mayumi needed to find the best way to form a cohesive environment with all the people involved. Sensei had planned a survival test for them; they needed to be as prepared as possible.

Hyuuga Mayumi struggled to keep the irritation off her face. Here she was trapped early in the morning with two nuisances who were keen on ruining any form of meditation she tried to do. She was even feeling a growing irritation at Hatake-sensei, who made them come here so early and left them alone. Once was fine, but coming so tardy twice.

She took a deep breath again and tried to meditate again. Key word being tried.

"Mayumi-chan, what are you doing?"

Here was that overly familiar boy. She would try, try so hard, but here he was disturbing her in what was meant to be a moment of peace. She took a breath.

"Uzumaki-san, I am meditating."

"Huh. Why're you meditating?"

She should not lose her temper. "It is meant to help increase my mental chakra."

"Catra?" He asked.

For a second, Mayumi thought Uzumaki was joking. From the side of her eyes, she could see Uchiha look equally as confused. How... How had he even managed to graduate from the academy without knowing what chakra was?

"Chakra. It's called chakra. Do you not know what chakra is?" Mayumi struggled to keep the incredulity outside of her voice.

"No, I, uh, totally know what chakra is. I'm a master of it. I was just, uh, testing that you knew what it was," he lied. He very clearly lied.

Mayumi wanted desperately to go back to meditation, but it clearly looked like Uchiha wasn't going to say anything, and they were teammates, and ugh. "I'm sure. Well, just to recap, chakra is energy, mental and physical, inside every living being. We ninja use it to channel into our techniques. When I was meditating, I was increasing my mental chakra, which is used in genjutsu and complements some iryoninjutsu. I mainly increase my mental chakra so that it balances out with my physical chakra, which as a Hyuuga is what I spend most of my time training in. The benefits of a balanced chakra are more versatile chakra usage, generally increasing chakra reserves, and a boost to chakra control. Chakra control reduces how much you waste in your techniques and enable you to last longer in a battle."

"I... what?" Uzumaki asked. How did he not get it? Well, she wasn't going to repeat it. "Chakra is energy, I got that, but mental and spiritual? Chakra control?" Ah, well that wasn't anything they went over very much in the academy - she could give him a pass.

"We can have our sensei go over it more in detail – we weren't quite that detailed in the academy," she said, just to avoid the work. "Until he does, I hope you don't mind if I return to my meditation." She took a deep breath and then concentrated on her mindscape. The Yamanaka had greatly advanced the understanding of mental energy, and even if she had to deal with the Yamanaka heir in class, it was a great boost to Konoha itself.

Breathing in and breathing out, she slipped deeper into herself. Meditation was hard. Keeping constant breath cycles wasn't too difficult, but increasing mental strain, and contemplating her own existence was always difficult. Her brother, on the rare occasions he meditated – which was all kinds of stupid stubbornness that she had been working with him to fix – would meditate on his "destiny". Most of the other Hyuugas would meditate on inner peace and harmony - oftentimes necessary to maintain sanity in the life of a ninja. She herself thought about her own life. What did she want to do? What kind of shinobi, what kind of person did she want to be?

She was jostled out of her meditative state, yet again, by Uzumaki yelling again. She barely restrained herself from yelling at him when she looked up at who he was yelling at. Hatake Kakashi... she wondered if it was worth having him as a teacher when he was so intolerably undisciplined. How could such a man be one of the youngest to become a shinobi on record? Guess war made everyone desperate.

No. She shouldn't underestimate him. There must have been a reason Gai-sensei still called the man his rival. Even if he came up with the worst excuses for being late. So undisciplined - what sort of an example was he going to be?

…that was fast. The way he had crept behind Uzumaki at a speed that she had only seen from Gai-sensei, that was… this is Hatake Kakashi, after all. Admittedly, she might have been slightly distracted by the idea that only two of them would pass and graduate. Was that… was that possible? Well, considering this was Hatake Kakashi, it was entirely possible that the Hokage allowed him this strange accommodation for the chance of having him pass on his teachings.

But who should she work with? The Uchiha looked like a better choice on paper, but his attitude rubbed her all the wrong ways, but Uzumaki was entirely ignorant and had a higher chance of getting her killed. But at least the latter would try to work with her and work on learning. By the Sage, it was an impossible choice!

In the meantime, she still had to work out a way to get the bells. She herself had absolutely no idea how she could even begin to take the bells, but surely they weren't meant to succeed in doing so. They were genin! She took the time to consider it. Perhaps they were meant to showcase their skills and attempt to take the bell? Or were they supposed to exhibit their critical thinking skills and retreat, hide from the jounin?

Activating her byakugan, Mayumi tried to assess the situation from her hiding spot. Where were her rivals - well, they were competing for the same spot - now? She watched Uzumaki, in his hideously orange outfit, attack with - were those shadow clones? How in the Sage's name did the dead-last manage to learn shadow clones? She had observed that his chakra capacity was nothing to scoff at, but, really? Him?

Oh, no. He was still dumb. He ended up fighting with himself, and ended up… just stuck? Vacant-eyed? Perhaps he was under a genjutsu? Well, then, she'd wait a while and consider whether it would be better for her to free him from that.

Uchiha used the opportunity to show off his fire jutsu - was that actually what they were supposed to do? Show off? She'd keep observing for a little while longer. Then, she struggled to stifle her laughs because the Uchiha was stuck in the ground. Served him right!

"I don't know why you're so amused, Mayumi-chan," a sneaky, hypocritically amused voice whispered, from right behind her.

Mayumi immediately jabbed behind her with her elbows.

"Maa, Mayumi-chan, one would think you wanted to hurt me?" her inscrutable, bastard of a future sensei teased.

Mayumi kept her stoic face. "You told us to come at you with an intent to kill."

"I did say that didn't I?" he replied, almost taunting as he avoided her next couple of punches. "Well, it's good to see you listening so well!"

Mayumi continued holding along quite well, though it was easy to see he was dodging with little effort, if any at all. "Well," he broke the silence, "is that really all that the top kunoichi knows? You're not really creating an example for future kunoichis the way you are right now, are you?"

She felt the inexplicable urge to kill the man. Actually, no, it was quite explainable - the man was such a child, he just instilled in people an urge to kill him. That simple. She would not give in. She would not respond to his taunts. Mayumi was a mature kunoichi.

"Hmmm… it would have been so much fun to see you angry, but you're actually quite competent. That just makes it more disappointing." What did that mean? Did he want her to show her talent with bukijutsu or genjutsu? What did he want from her? Why was he disappointed? Ugh, she hated that she cared so much about his opinion.

"Well, then. Ninja lesson number three:" he said, smiling, "taijutsu." And then, his speed increased dramatically. Mayumi hurriedly tried to keep up - thanking Lee-senpai for all his help, despite his annoying green jumpsuit and bushy eyebrows, for the opportunity to even slightly startle Hatake-sensei, considering the slight widening of his eyes. Would that be enough to impress him so that he'd keep her on as an apprentice? Mayumi hoped so.

The last thing she saw was an empty field before her vision faded to black.

When she woke up again, it was to Uzumaki tied to a post, Uchiha joining him in glaring at Hatake-sensei. Mayumi looked at him as well, a bit nervous.

"Glad to see you're up, Mayumi-chan! You can all learn about your fate together!" Hatake-sensei said, cheerfully.

Mayumi did not trust it. Especially considering the last time she saw him so happy, he had knocked her out faster than she could see.

"See, none of you will be going back to the academy," he declared. Mayumi waited for the other shoe to drop, even as Uzumaki cheered. "because none of you are worthy of becoming ninja at all!"

Her heart dropped to her stomach. What? Just… just, what? What would Hiashi-oji-sama say? Oh, Sage, what about Neji-nii? She couldn't go back to the compound like this! She'd be a civilian member in the branch house. That… that was sentencing herself to a life of suffering! And Neji-nii would be so disappointed, and he had helped raise her, so he would be under scrutiny now, and she couldn't be what finally dragged him down!

"You see, none of you got the whole point of the test." Hatake - Hatake-san said, jolting her out of her misery. What point of the test? She tried hiding, and she tried fighting. What was she supposed to do?! "Teamwork!"

What? But there were only-

"Two bells," Uchiha blurted out. Mayumi hated to be in agreement with him over anything, but yes, there were only two bells. How could he have expected them to work together?

"Shinobi have to look underneath the underneath, which none of you managed. The point of this was to get you to realize that none of you could have gotten the two bells without working together, but you all failed to do so. If only the three of you worked together, you might have had a chance. But you didn't. The test is over."

That's what it was supposed to be? But he could have been testing them on so many other things; how did he expect them to find out? Simultaneously sprouted Yamanaka mind-reading jutsu?

"Naruto!" he called out to the Uzumaki, "You were so ready to fight me, you came in with no plan and you didn't even think to help Sasuke when you saw him, now, did you? When you saw your teammate in the ground, you refused to help."

Uzumaki looked down in shame. But if Uzumaki was at fault for not helping… she was even more so, wasn't she? But how could she have known?

"And Sasuke! You thought you didn't need any help, that your teammates weren't worth your time. You were so arrogant that you came and challenged me. But you are not enough alone. You need to work with others!" At least, she wasn't arrogant, but she couldn't muster the usual pride in doing something better than the Uchiha. Not with Hatake-san's eyes focused on her next.

"And Mayumi. You saw everything. You saw Naruto under the genjutsu and watched Sasuke fall to my ninjutsu. And then you smiled at it." Her face burned in shame. This… she… it was funny, yes, but she had been thinking about breaking Uzumaki out of the genjutsu. She hadn't even had the time to contemplate helping the Uchiha!

But, as she looked at Hatake-san's serious eyes, she knew that at most these were excuses. Konoha ninja protected each other, helped each other. This was what made Konoha strong. Mayumi knew that. She knew that very well, and she had allowed her distaste for her allies to get in the way of that ideal. Mayumi was wrong, and she had to admit that.

Mayumi couldn't bear to look at Uchiha or Uzumaki. She was there and she didn't help them; that was her fault. Now their chances were ruined.

"You are all clearly children; you're not ready to be ninja if you can't work together," he said. "There'll be times during missions where you'll have to make a decision between the mission and your team. For example," he grabbed Uchiha and bent him into the ground, faster than any of them could react. "Mayumi," she started at her name, "kill Naruto or Sasuke dies." That… was scary. She couldn't weigh the lives of her teammates like that! But, that was the point he was trying to make, wasn't it? That they should work together to not allow situations like these to come.

"You'll have to make decisions like these when you're out on missions. This is the life of a ninja."

He let go of Uchiha and walked backward to- oh, to the Memorial Stone. Many Hyuuga were on there, for their loyal service during the war. Of course, Uzumaki would be so ignorant as to think it was an accomplishment! Although, she had to be less annoyed at them. She had to look at this as something to work on so that he grew more sensitive.

Hatake-sensei took care of that. He had said, "My closest friends are on that stone." Of course, for someone who had fought in a war at such a young age, he must have lost many people.

"Now, I'll give you all one more chance after lunch. Mayumi, Sasuke, do not feed Naruto - that's his punishment for attempting to eat earlier. Once it's over, you'll work together to try to grab my bells, alright? However, I will make it harder on you, so be prepared," he stated and then left.

What? They were being given a second chance? That… that was strange, but she was not going to question it. Anything, any chance at not disappointing Neji-nii, was all she needed. And maybe, it would be a chance to prove, both to her and her teammates, that they were worthy ninja.

She grabbed the bento, eager to fill her stomach. Hearing Uzumaki's stomach growl, though, she felt her hands falter. She turned to look at him - he was trying not to look too greedy, but it was clear the hunger was very much taking over him. She thought for a second, and then nodded. She lifted her chopsticks and offered him a roll.

When he looked at her, confused, she explained, "Hatake-san was right - it was my fault that I did not help either of you when it was within my abilities to do so. Please, take this as my apology to you, Uzumaki-san. Uchiha-san, I shall find a way to pay you back at a later point in time."

Uzumaki looked a bit flabbergasted, but his stomach drove him to accept the roll and the next.

Uchiha scoffed. "Don't think you're so great that you could have fixed everything." Mayumi had to resist the urge to snort at the hypocrisy. Uchiha offered one of his own rolls to Uzumaki. Now both Uzumaki and Mayumi looked confusedly at him. He rolled his eyes. "We're going to all need to be fed. Don't give him all of your lunch, Hyuuga. We'll all need to fight him with our full potential." Oh. Perhaps he could be rational.

Mayumi smiled slightly. "Perhaps we can discuss our strategy for the next round."

Her teammates nodded, but before they could start planning, Hatake arrived in a flash. Were… were they going to lose their chance, after all? She gulped.

"You three… what do you have to say for yourselves?" he asked.

Before Mayumi could even begin to formulate her answer, Uzumaki replied, "We… we just did what you told us to do!"

What? Oh, "We're working together as a team!"

Uchiha added, "We'd need to be strong enough to work together, not with one of us distracted by hunger."

"Hmm…" Hatake-san replied. "Are you sure you want to stick with that?" Wait, was there a chance that was the right course of action? She nodded, and through the corner of her eyes, she could see Uchiha and Uzumaki nod too.

"You three," he growled out ominously. He summoned thunder with a lightning jutsu, which, even in her terrified state, she could register as being excessively dramatic. "Pass!" he then changed his tone entirely. Thank goodness!

"You looked underneath the underneath where no one else has before. You fed your teammate when I told you not to! You showed dedication to teamwork. You three, you should know this: those who break the rules are trash, but those who abandon their comrades are worse than trash." Oh. That was not a bad sentiment.

Clearly, Uzumaki agreed, considering his whispered, "So cool."

Hatake-san - no, Hatake-sensei, looked smug - he was ridiculously expressive through that mask of his, which she should have expected from Gai-sensei's rival - as he told them to meet up tomorrow at 7. The question was, would he arrive on time? She didn't know. If not, she could at least practice her katas.

"Alright, then. I'll see you both tomorrow," Mayumi smiled. She got a snort and a smile in return. Ah, she should probably untie Uzumaki. Waving off his thanks, Mayumi looked forward to telling Neji-nii of her success. She was now, officially a genin of Konoha.