"- Team seven will consist of…Uchiha Sasuke,"
A raven-haired boy in the back of the room scowled for an instant before grunting to show that he had heard.
"…Haruno Sakura,"
"YESSSS!" The young pink haired girl sitting adjacent to Sasuke leapt up in celebration. "True love TRIUMPHS!"
At the third name, the sensei paused, running his hand through his auburn hair as a nervous gesture. His name was Iruka, and he had taken over near the beginning of the year, after the older professor decided to move on. Through the reading of the gennin teams, he had only paused at this one time, slightly surprised at the name assigned.
"…and the third member of team seven is…Uzumaki Naruto. Please await your new jounin sensei, Kakashi Hatake. He should arrive soon with the others."
A slightly older Naruto looked up in acknowledgement of his name. He had changed. His unruly blond hair had grown in the last year, but his eyes were burdened, carrying the look of a dog kicked once too often.
Naruto gave an indifferent gaze in the direction of a huffy Sasuke and a cheering Sakura, neither of which had heard the name of their third teammate. He gave a shrug before turning back to his desk. They would learn soon enough.
Iruka gave a sympathetic glance at Naruto before continuing the naming of the teams.
Soon, everyone had been assigned a jounin sensei. Teams were picked up quickly, until the only team left became team seven….
…and most of the members were getting restless. Sakura sat next to a squirming Sasuke, clearly showing her agitation by chatting loudly with the boy.
Sasuke remained stoic, but by the steady twitch in his eye, he too began to show a slight irritation. Whether it was because of the tardiness of their sensei or because he was quickly becoming tired of being talked to without consent remained to be confirmed.
Naruto remained to be the only one showing no outward form of annoyance at the time. He stood facing the back wall, watching the world go by in a steady, unblinking gaze. It was almost as if he was dreaming, completely unaware of the world around him…
Sakura finally broke away from the twitching Sasuke and sighed in annoyance. "Where is he?" When would their sensei get here?
"Sakura…" began Sasuke, "you need to calm down. Our sensei will get here eventually. All we can do now is wait."
"Of course Sasuke! But…" she paused a moment, "what about Naruto?"
Sasuke gave a look at the blond boy, who continued to stare in a rather disturbing way at the passing world. Sasuke nodded at the girl's worries. Lately Naruto did seem a bit…unstable. Not violent, but quiet in a seemingly silent rage. He was a shell, not really functioning in anything but training. He was the first to arrive in the mornings, and the last to leave the class in the evenings. Some students even doubted he did leave…
Finally the classroom door opened. A silver haired man in a jounin flack jacket stepped in, a forehead protector over his left eye.
"Good afternoon, I am your jounin sensei."
"You're late."
Both gennin swung around to stare openly at Naruto, who still hadn't stopped looking out the window. The jounin scratched the back of his head nervously.
"Ah, sorry, but there was this little old lady who looked…like she…needed…" Kakashi watched at the effect his words were having on the boy. It was as if every letter, every sound in his excuse was slowly pounding at him, making him look even more pitiful. Is this boy really ready to be a shinobi?
He examined the other two, but they also had expressions similar to his own. So the boy was a mystery to all of them… "All right, all of you move to the roof. I'll meet you there." With a flash of smoke, the jounin was gone.
Sakura started when Naruto suddenly turned and slowly walked out of the classroom, soon to be followed by Sasuke. The pink haired girl hurried to catch up.
The three gennin of team seven arrived at the rooftop to find Kakashi sitting on the far side waiting for them, his silvery hair whipping around in the breeze. The dark mask he wore to cover his lower face twitched in what could be taken for a smile.
Naruto arrived first, pausing as he swung the door open without a sound, even though from the looks of things the door was old and rusted. As he padded over to Kakashi, however, the jounin shook his head and directed him to a small flight of steps with a tilt to his head. Without missing a beat, Naruto turned away and sat languidly on the bottom step.
Sasuke arrived next, followed closely by an excited Sakura, and he too was directed to the steps with a simple tilt to their sensei's head. Sakura followed him there without a thought and sat next to him on the third step.
Kakashi's mask twitched again as his eyes sparkled. "Now that we're all here, why don't you introduce yourselves? You know, names, hobbies, dreams of the future, specialties, that sort of thing."
"Okay, but sensei," Sakura started, "why don't you go first to-"
"Naruto Uzumaki," the quiet gennin started suddenly, "I don't have any hobbies…dreams of the future…?" he paused. "None."
Kakashi continued to stare at the blond shinobi. When it became obvious that he was done Kakashi prompted, "Any specialties? Favorite taijutsu styles or jutsu?"
Naruto answered without hesitation. "I like the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu."
Sakura stared while Kakashi blinked. Sasuke remained indifferent to the announcement.
"Sensei, what is the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu? Is it like a regular bunshin?"
"Ah," Kakashi started, "I believe that it would generally be better to ask the user of the jutsu about it than me. I've never seen it."
"How about it, Naruto?" Sakura asked sweetly. "What's a Kage Bunshin?"
Naruto turned his head slowly to look at the curious Sakura. She fidgeted under his unblinking gaze, already regretting asking the question. But, just as she was about to retract it, Naruto answered slowly.
"I…don't know."
With his expressionless face and serious monotone, the others felt like falling on their faces.
"Ne, Naruto," began Kakashi, scratching the back of his head, "how can you have that a favorite jutsu, and not even know what it is? I take it you can't perform it either?"
Naruto turned his gaze back to his sensei before rising slowly and forming a cross with the index and middle fingers on each hand. He tensed slightly, releasing a wave of charka. With puff of smoke, an exact clone of Naruto stood behind him, back to back.
The two Naruto leaned against each other, giving the same stare to both sides of the roof. Sakura shivered involuntarily at the slightly depressing, and all together awe-striking scene. While normal bunshin vanished the moment they touched, this one was leaning back against the real Naruto…in fact the technique was so flawless, she lost track of the real Naruto.
"All right Naruto, we still have the other two to go. Release the jutsu."
Then, with a puff of smoke, both Naruto vanished. Kakashi blinked. He hadn't noticed a switch…but then again he hadn't been looking very hard. He gave a quick glace to the top of the low stair flight. He wasn't surprised to see the boy slowly descend and sit back down on the bottom step, as if nothing had happened.
"All right, you with the black hair. You're next."
"My name is Sasuke Uchiha," he started slowly, "I don't really have any hobbies or dreams," he spat the word out like a bar of soap. "I do have, however, an ambition…to kill a certain man… and as for my favorite jutsu," Sasuke smirked, "only a fool would willingly give out their strengths."
Naruto frowned, but didn't say anything. Sakura, on the other hand, was inwardly cheering on her crush.
"Hmm," Kakashi pondered to himself, "an avenger? Confident one at that…Fine." He spoke a little louder. "Your turn, pinkie."
Pinkie! Is this guy for real? "My name," she huffed, "is Sakura Haruno. I like to read, especially about history and charka. As for my dream of the future…" She glanced fugitively at Sasuke before squealing and blushing.
"Yes, yes," Kakashi sighed, "Now what about your specialties? Have you got your eye on any particular aspect of the shinobi life?" He said it almost hopefully, praying that she was serious about wanting to be one and didn't go through the academy just to get in close with a boy.
"Well…I agree with Sasuke-kun. We shouldn't be giving out our secrets…right?"
Kakashi sighed again. "Fine, tomorrow I should be able to find out anyways…"
"What does tomorrow have to do with that, sensei?"
Kakashi flipped his hand to Sakura with a smile. "Oh, tomorrow we're going to do some survival training."
"But sensei, didn't we already go through that at the academy?"
Kakashi shook his head. "No, this time you're fighting for the survival of your shinobi career."
"WHAT!"
"Show up at the number seven training grounds tomorrow morning. Oh, and don't eat any breakfast, because if you do," Kakashi became dead serious, "you'll puke it right back up." With that, Kakashi turned to leave, but he was quickly called back.
"Hey," yelled Sasuke, "you never told us about yourself."
"Ah, of course. My name is Kakashi Hatake. Dreams for the future…? I guess I have a lot of hobbies. And of course, I won't give my specialty away either." He seemed to be taunting the gennin by refusing to give away any information about himself.
"So basically," thought both Sasuke and Sakura, "all we learned was…his name." Naruto, on the other hand, had learned plenty, and willingly voiced it.
"You have no real dreams of the future, so either you live in the past or the present," he stated quietly, startling his gennin teammates. "You refuse to give your hobbies, so you're either embarrassed about them or they take a personal point in your life, maybe both. You didn't want to give out your specialty, so you either don't have one or…" he pause for a moment, then rose and headed for the door before continuing. "Or you often feel the need to act immature, for your own reasons, of course. Maybe a missed childhood?"
Kakashi gazed at the back of the blonde's head. "How-?"
"Because," Naruto flattened out as he stood facing away from them in the doorway back into the academy, the wind playing with his hair, "because I feel the same way."
With that, Naruto vanished.
"…that kid is weird…"
Both Sakura and Sasuke felt a little exasperated at the jounin for such a blunt comment, but couldn't help but agree. Sakura, however, felt it pertinent to point something out to Kakashi.
"He wasn't always like this."
"…who?"
This time both Sakura and Sasuke did sweat drop. Was this guy for real?
"I was talking about Naruto, remember?"
"Hmm…"
"He wasn't always like this, he used to be so happy…" Sakura grinned slightly in remembrance. "He and Seiji were always getting in trouble during class, goofing off, pranking kids…but they were always laughing."
Kakashi's eye widened slightly, almost a simple twitch. Wasn't Seiji the kid who-?
Sakura continued with her story, interrupting Kakashi's train of thought. "They passed their classes, but just barely. They never really took anything seriously during those days, but near the middle of the year, just after mid exams, Seiji vanished. Just like that. Naruto seemed heartbroken…
Life went on, but Naruto just seemed to break away from the reality of things…" Sasuke nodded at the sentiment.
Kakashi was curious though. "Break away how?" He put down the curiosity to needing to know more about his team, although something at the back of his mind told him that wasn't true. The story was getting awfully familiar…
Sasuke finally decided to break in. "Look, we really don't know what happened, not that I care, but Naruto suddenly became a lot more serious. His studies improved from abysmal to passing in a short time, almost like he had it in him the whole time, he just needed a taste of reality to set him straight-"
"But his best friend just ran away!" Sakura blurted, glancing at Sasuke to see if she had offended him. "Just plain vanished! A few of us questioned Iruka-sensei," Sasuke snorted, "but he just told us to ask Naruto. And Naruto wouldn't tell us…"
"Of course he wouldn't," Kakashi pondered to himself, "it was kinda hard…" He paused at the look in Sakura's eyes.
"AH! Kakashi-sensei, you know what happened to Seiji, don't you?"
"Ne," Kakashi began to sweat, "why don't you ask Naruto?" With that, the silver haired jounin summoned a smoke screen and disappeared.
Sakura began to tremble, her pink hair obscuring her eyes from sight. Sasuke immediately winced, backing away quickly and covering his ears in anticipation…
"DAMN IT, KAKASHI!"
------------------
"Naruto!"
The blond gennin paused in his walk back to his apartment, turning to see whoever had called out his name. He sighed as he recognized his auburn haired former sensei. At least it wasn't an angry villager…
"What do you want, Iruka-sensei?"
"Why Naruto," Iruka chuckled, "if I didn't know any better, I would say you didn't want me around…"
"I don't," Naruto mumbled, not loud enough for Iruka to hear.
"So…" Iruka drew out, his tone becoming more serious, "what do you think of your new teammates?"
"It's Sasuke and Sakura, Iruka, what do you want me to think?"
"Well then what about your sensei?"
Naruto hesitated. "He's…different, yet familiar. I think…he may be worth it."
"Naruto!" Iruka declared, beaming, "I never thought I would hear you say that again."
"Stuff it, Iruka, or I might just take my opinion of you back."
Iruka grinned. Despite the threat, he knew that Naruto wouldn't take back his word. The boy had promised, and if there was anything he had learned about the blond gennin, it was that he never went back on a word. "So what are you doing tomorrow? Whatever it is, don't take it lightly. Kakashi hasn't allowed one team under his tutelage to pass."
For the first time in a while, Naruto grinned. Not a happy cheerful grin like what Iruka had heard about, but more of a sadistic grin, betraying what the boy had been thinking for a while. "Oh, don't worry. Kakashi doesn't know the meaning of confusion just yet…"
Then, using the peculiar threat almost like a goodbye, Naruto turned and continued on the way to his apartment, signaling obviously for Iruka not to follow.
The next morning, Sakura arrived to find Naruto had arrived ahead of her. Not that it really surprised her, but she had arrived at seven in the morning, (Damn Kakashi-sensei forgot to tell us when to meet!) and it looked like Naruto had been sitting there for hours.
What he was wearing also surprised her, a simple thinly fabricated tunic. A large pack lay on the ground beside him. Naruto himself was staring absently again, this time at the newly rising sun. Then Sakura did something that surprised both of them.
She lowered herself down onto the ground beside him and looked up at the sunrise as well. She felt the boy jump slightly at her close proximity, then to glance at her every now and then. She giggled at his awkwardness. He was almost beginning to resemble the way he acted before midterms.
She quickly stopped giggling, however, the moment Sasuke arrived. As quickly as she could, she rose and rushed over to him and began another long tirade about the beauty of the sunrise, and if he would like to watch it with her.
Sasuke grunted in what could be considered a yes, and Sakura quickly dragged him off to the other side of the grounds so they could be alone. Naruto sighed. With a couple of quick seals, he made a shadow clone and henged it into another form.
"I guess it's just us again…Seiji."
The clone stayed silent for a second, then smiled and dropped down next to the blond shinobi, its hands behind its head.
"Looks that way…"
From the Desk of Tyr'll
Not sure how well that chapter came out, but it is unusually long for what I write…
Please voice out my mistakes so I don't make them again in later chapters. Now, next I would like to mention a couple of the reviews I got…
Melia: I'm not quite sure if you were serious… was that sarcasm?
Jamez: Not actually what I originally thought about, but you came very close to hitting the nail on the head…weird, I never really thought about it that way… Oh, and I took that phrase out of the summery on your advice.
It is still, however, not a self-insert.