Thank you everyone for your reviews. I especially want to say thank you to Elemental Dragon Swordman who has faithfully reviewed at every update; you have been a great motivation for me. I know this idea is a really weird concept, even I think so sometimes, and often I feel like no one likes it. But, those of you who review have given me the courage to keep writing.

Chapter 10: Jingle bells or Wedding bells

~*G*O*L*D*E*N*~

When white light appears, a new day begins.

Yesterday disappears as today creates

A new history with new memories.

When Naruto, Kiba, and Sasuke showed up for class the next morning, the rest of the students were disappointed in their lack of entertaining fighting. Disappointed at the lack of new things to talk about, the class decided to speculate as to why they were acting so different.

Iruka, of course, was intently lecturing on some subject or another, particularly ineffective as he had to stay sitting behind his desk because of his twisted ankle.

As the class progressed, Sasuke heard everything from 'her and Kiba fell in love' to 'she threatened his man parts.' Kiba was constantly trying to convince everyone that he had just decided to be the bigger person, while Naruto just found the whole thing highly amusing.

"If you are not going to listen to me," Iruka yelled once he finally realized that every single person in the room was ignoring him, "then you can listen to an associate of mine. KAKASHI!"

"My pleasure," Kakashi said, suddenly appearing at the front of the classroom.

All the students began murmuring. Where did he come from? No one had seen him in the room and suddenly he appeared on the opposite side of the room from the door. There were not even any windows nearby.

Then, when their brains began to hurt trying to figure out how this new man had entered the room, the conversation slipped to his mask. Practically every inch of his face was covered, except for a small patch of skin around his left eye. His face was so covered it was hard to keep their attention on it and not the huge mop of … hair-like fibers, which were sticking several inches in all directions around his head.

"My first impression of you guys is," Kakashi drawled after several minutes of basking in the stunned silence of the students, "your boring."

"Who's boring, you old geezer?" Kiba yelled, finally finding an outlet for his frustration.

"Mah, you smell like wet dog," Kakashi commented absently. "So, it looks like I get to play with you brats for today. Everyone outside!"

"Great," Sasuke whispered, as she stood to leave the room.

"What?" Naruto whispered beside her.

"I am too tired to deal with the sadistic scarecrow," Sasuke mumbled in response.

Naruto did not have the time to ask anything further as bustle from the class moving outside made it too difficult to talk, but he gave her a sympathetic look.

"So," Kakashi asked from the middle of the field ('when did he get there?'), "why don't we play a little game? Find the shiny bells I hid throughout the camp." He pulled a small silver bell out of his pocket and shook it once to demonstrate its chime. "There are not enough for the entire class. Anyone who does not come back in 2 hours with a bell will spend the next week reorganizing the Academy's libraries on only one meal a day."

"?"

"Mm … go," Kakashi mumbled, pulling a book out of his pocket.

Looking around, Sasuke rolled her eyes at the rest of the class standing around shocked. She grabbed Naruto's hand and dragged him off in a random direction. Though he was just as confused as the rest of the class, Naruto followed absently across the field.

"Wait for me," Kiba said running after them.

"Kiba wait up," another boy from the class said, rushing forward

That finally got the class going and the students scattered in all directions.

Once out of site from the rest of the class, Sasuke ducked behind a group of trees, pulling Naruto with her. However, Kiba and the other boy were close enough to see them and jumped beside them.

"What's going on?" the new boy asked, extremely confused.

Sasuke looked questioningly at the strange person. He looked similar to Kiba with brown hair and eyes, but his skin was a lighter shade and he was certainly shorter. If possible, his hair was even crazier than Kiba's, being contained only by strange green goggles. The two stared at each other.

"This is Konohamaru," Kiba explained as the silence started to irk him. "He is my annoying partner." That earned him an indignant 'hey' from said boy. "He lives in the cabin next to us with Gaara and his older brother Kankuro," Kiba continued, shoving Konohamaru's face away from him.

"Why don't you live in his cabin if you are partners?" Sasuke asked.

"Cabins are assigned as soon as you enter the Academy, but partners are not assigned until a few years later when your teacher learns each student's personality, their strengths and weakness and so on. It is not always true that people who share a cabin will be good partners," Kiba clarified.

"I suppose that makes sense," she said, still annoyed by the extra people. It was just supposed to be her and Naruto … alo …. No. No, that was not what she was thinking. "What are you doing here?"

"I don't know," Kiba said shrugging. "You seem to know what is going on with that strange guy, so I figured it would be good to follow you. He was the one who dropped you off here, right?"

"Yeah, he is her guardian," Naruto added, earning a glare from Sasuke. "What? It's Kiba. I thought you two were going to try and get along."

Sasuke grunted.

"Fine, be stubborn," Naruto continued, "but, you could tell us what is going on."

She stared at him for another minute, before sighing. "This is one of Kakashi's favorite training sessions," she mumbled. "He values teamwork above everything and really likes to test it in cruel ways. By not having enough bells for everyone, he observes who is still willing to work together and who will abandon their friends for their own interests."

"So we have to work together to find the hidden bells even if we don't get enough for all of us," Naruto reasoned. "That should not be too hard."

"That is not completely true," she said ominously. "We do have to work together, but there are not bell's' in the Academy. There is probably only one bell: the one he is holding. We will have to fight him for it."

"But, why would he trick us like that?" Konohamaru spoke up for the first time.

"Because he's a sadistic pervert," Sasuke snapped. All three boys shirked back at her harsh tone. "Sorry," she mumbled.

"O…kay," Kiba said slowly. "So, we have to fight him? Then why did you walk off?"

"Because I did not want the rest of the class to figure it out. It would have been too hard to fight him with that many people getting in the way. It would get too complicated."

"But, you said the test was about teamwork," Naruto pointed out.

"Yes, but that was still too many people."

"Does he not want the whole class to work together, just the partners?"

"I don't know. I just need to think about it for a minute."

"But, if we wait too long, we will all fail," Kiba interrupted.

"But, if we go in without understanding the situation, we will fail anyway," Sasuke countered.

"Whatever, I'm telling everybody else," Konohamaru announced. "I am not cleaning the sorting the library, that thing has not been organized in ages, at least not since I have been here and probably long before that." Without waiting for a reply, he walked out of their hiding place.

"Kiba," Naruto said, a warning in his voice.

"It's fine," Sasuke spoke first. "Let him do what he wants. I could be wrong anyway. The test could really be for the whole class to work together to take the bell from him … and you can be sure it would take the whole class … or he really could have hidden bells throughout the grounds … though that is not likely."

"Soooo, what do we do?" he asked thoroughly confused now as was Sasuke.

"I don't know. Why don't we wait to see what happens when the class hears Konohamaru's story?"

"I'll keep an eye on the brat," Kiba said, moving to follow his partner.

When the two boys were out of site, Sasuke sank to the ground with a sigh. Naruto crouched down next to her and placed a hand tentatively on her shoulder. He did not really understand why she was so upset, but he would just have to be careful with his concern so as not to make her angry. He was slowly learning how to act around her.

"We … still have almost the full 2 hours," Naruto said slowly. "We have a little while to figure it out. Let's give Kiba and Konohamaru a while to try things out." He was confused by her silence. Well, really he was confused about his reaction to her silence. He was almost disappointed that she did not snap at him and storm off like she normally would.

She had said she was tired from last night. That nightmare had really seemed to rattle her. It was nice to see her show some emotions, other than anger of course, but it was different and confusing. He was not sure how to react to the more … girly aspects of Sasuke's personality. Before, he had always just treated her practically like a guy, except the few times he flustered him with her lady … stuff.

Despite all his bravado, he had never been particularly good with girls. Besides, most girls at the Academy were more like boys and he had spent most of his life here. He had never really thought about girls … in a girl/boy way before.

"So …." he tried desperately to think of something to say.

"We should go find a place to hide where we can see what happens when the other students confront Kakashi," she proclaimed, ignoring his attempt to talk about something she was sure would be highly embarrassing.

"Yeah, sure," he blurted out.

They both stood and walked in awkward silence back towards Kakashi. Once they had found a suitable observation spot, Naruto tried a different tactic. "Why don't you take a nap for a while and get some rest?"

"I can not sleep during a test like a loser like you," she argued.

"Only an idiot does not rest when she needs to."

"Maybe you're right," she said, with a sly smirk. "You have plenty of experience being an idiot."

"Right. Hey!" he yelled, once his ears caught up with his mouth. "Well, you can watch Kakashi while you are lying down."

Sasuke demonstrated her exhaustion by lying down without another comment.

"Here," Naruto said, patting his leg in an invitation.

For a minute, she stared at him with a raised eyebrow, but consented eventually. 'A few weeks ago I would have cut of his leg just for suggesting this' she mused.

"Where is everybody?" he asked after several minutes of watching the silver haired man read his stupid book.

"I don't know. You've known Kiba and Konohamaru longer. What do you think they told the rest of the class?" Sasuke asked.

"With them," he said with a snort, "it could have been anything. How long has it been since the test started?" He glanced up at the large clock over the door to the classroom and Sasuke did the same. It had only been about half an hour. "I guess there is still plenty of time for those two to cause some kind of commotion."

"Maybe they got lost," she commented. They both chuckled.

When they had stopped laughing, Naruto asked, "How long do you think we should wait?"

"If nothing has happened in an hour," she said, "we can try to fight him ourselves, though we probably won't beat him."

"Yeah right, I bet we could beat him easy," Naruto said, crossing his arms and nodding his head to accent his confidence tone.

"Not a chance," she cut him off swiftly. "I have fought him many times and I know his strength. We might not be able to beat him even with every student in the class."

"Then there is no point to this exercise."

"The point is to try even when there is no hope. If I did not learn that, I would not even be here. He taught me to fight for the smallest of chances."

Naruto pondered that quietly. He took a deep breath and let his hands fall to his sides. "I guess I understand. I am fighting for a long shot, too. No one really expects me to become king."

"But, that struggle would make you an even better king," Sasuke said softly. She looked up hesitantly from his lap. She really did believe what she said and hoped Naruto could see that. Most of the kings were spoiled brats, who really knew nothing about working hard, but she knew Naruto understood pain, maybe more than she would have liked.

"And, when I am king, I can help you find your family's killer," he assured her firmly.

"I guess when I become a Royal Soldier and you become King, I will be like your babysitter," she said with a smirk.

Naruto choked in surprise. "You … you will be my servant," he said once he had caught his breath.

"Oh, I will be serving you," she said seductively. "Following you everywhere you go." She placed her hand on his thigh. He gasped. "Keeping you safe." She stroked up and down his leg. He groaned. "Catering to your every need." She squeezed. He gulped.

"MmMmMaMamaybe you could do something else," he stuttered. "I … I Mmean I could get you the information Eeven ... even if you weren't in the Royal solders. I could make you … a … an … an advisor or something else. Like, the king tells the queen stuff even though she is not one of his subordinates."

"Oh?" she asked, raising her eyebrow. Slowly, she sat up and turned to face him. From the sly look on her face, Naruto knew he had said something that was going to get him in trouble, but he was not quite sure what yet. "You want to marry me."

Uh oh. There was no easy way out of that. If he said no, then she would get mad at him. If he said yes, then she would tease him. So, he just sat there, staring at her like a crazy person.

"Hey, stupid old man, we want your bell," Kiba's voice said from across the field.

"Thank you," Naruto shouted, rushing across the field to join Kiba and Konohamaru.

Well, that was interesting. Sasuke enjoyed tormenting him like that. It was especially fun to see him so relieved as he walked away. Content with her work, she followed after him with a smirk.

"Kiba, what took you so long? Where is everybody else?" Naruto asked when he had reached him.

"Well, no one believed Konohamaru," he said sheepishly, pointing at his partner.

"They didn't believe you either," Konohamaru argued indignantly.

"You both have pulled almost as many pranks as me, so I guess it makes sense that they would not believe you," Naruto chuckled.

"But, we even had a perfectly logical explanation," Konohamaru whined.

"An explanation I gave you," Sasuke said. "You must really have a bad reputation if they would not even believe my logic."

"Hey," Konohamaru protested new to Sasuke's taunting. "Maybe it was you logic that was bad."

"You believed me," she said with a shrug. "If it was not good logic, then you must be pretty stupid to believe it."

"I'm not stupid!"

"Come on, not another one," Naruto sighed referring to Sasuke teasing another one of their classmates. He glanced over at the clock. "We have less than an hour to get that bell from him. Let's focus on that."

Before they could talk anymore, Kakashi interrupted them with his annoyingly happy voice, "You really think you have this figured out Sasuke?"

He had not even peeked up from his book, which infuriated her even more. The book was his way of ignoring people and it meant he was not worried about them at all. Now she wanted to fight him for the bell just to get him to drop the book.

Without another word, she charged him, mind scrambling for any attack that could possibly do any damage. Sweep the legs? He'd just jump away. Right hook? He will block that easily. Round house kick to the head? Maybe, but I would have to get the height just right or it's an easy dodge.

Well, it was her best shot, so she jumped and aimed a kick to his head. Unfortunately, she was a little high and he just bent backwards to dodge it, still reading his book. When she landed, she checked for any openings, though not really expecting to find any. However, she did spot a slight opening on his left side where his left arm was raised to high to hold his book to his face.

In the heat of the moment, she did not consider the possibility that the opening was a trap and carelessly aimed a punch to his left side. In an instant, Kakashi had changed position, twirling around so instead the fist was aimed to the right of his back. The punch flew past his right side and he used his free right hand to grab her arm. As if Sasuke weighed nothing, he twirled her around and threw her across the field.

The whole exchange took less than 30 seconds and left the three boys observing the fight completely confused. All they had really seen was Sasuke running forward, some blurry movements, and then Sasuke flying through the air.

Konohamaru, not having seen Sasuke's entrance fight, just thought Sasuke was too weak and decided that he definitely would not be defeated. As he raced by, Naruto tried to stop him, but was too late.

After throwing Sasuke, Kakashi's back was turned away from the other boys and presumably could not see the approaching boy. Thus, Konohamaru was surprised when the man simply sidestepped his punch. With a grunt, Konohamaru quickly threw his other fist forward, though it was also dodged easily. The stubborn boy could not understand that he was being toyed with and continued to attack with futile move after futile move.

Kakashi read his book.

Several minutes passed by before Kiba and Naruto finally decided to help their flailing classmate. They both rushed into the fight, hoping to outmaneuver Kakashi with their numbers.

They failed and Kakashi read his book.

Eventually Sasuke rejoined the fight, and all four of them fought him. Time passed quickly as they mindlessly attacked the frustrating man and soon their hour was over.

Kakashi closed his book. "Time's up," he said to the four figures panting on the ground. "You'll have to wait for the rest of the brats to arrive before you hear your punishment."

And, two by two, the rest of the class returned to the field all looking completely despondent.

When all the students had appeared, Kakashi began speaking, "Well, not one bell I see. I guess you all fail. Hmmm…. But it would probably be too much hassle to have all of you working in the library at once. I'll tell you what. How about just one person from each cabin takes the punishment for the whole cabin?"

The exhausted students looked blankly around to their companions. This whole day had been unusual: Kiba and Sasuke getting along, Iruka giving up his class to a strange man, said man giving them a bizarre task, and now talk of an even more bizarre punishment. What was going on?

"So," Kakashi said cheerfully, "Who is it going to be? Who do I punish? Come on. Choose."

Murmurs began running through the field. Who should go? They quickly got louder as they tried to get their fellow roommates to take the punishment. Shouts filled the field: 'you're oldest,' 'you're younger,' 'I'm smarter,' 'I need more time for my studies,' etc. Excuses of all kinds rang throughout the class until the students were ready to physically fight each other for their freedom.

"Well, this is taking too long," Kakashi droned. "If someone from your cabin does not step up, the whole cabin will get a formal reprimand."

Now, to a normal fighter just hoping for a job in law enforcement or the army, a reprimand was just a slap on the wrist, but for anyone hoping to join the Royal Soldiers, it was practically a rejection letter. Unfortunately, just about every student in Iruka's class was striving for just that.

The shouting increased and now several students were throwing punches and kicks at their closest friends. The fighting spread rapidly throughout the class and Kakashi watched the whole thing with a bored look.

"I WILL GO!" Sasuke shouted, causing the whole class to stop talking. She looked around slowly. "I like books more than my roommates and I am smaller, so I need less food."

"No, I can do it," Naruto said. "Sasuke and Kiba are my friends and if I can make their lives easier, I will do it. It does not matter if I have to be stuck in the library for week. What is the point of being assigned partners if we do not look out for each other. As a fighter it will be my responsibility to take care of others, how can I do that if I sacrifice my own roommates for my comfort?"

Naruto's speech seemed to both shame and inspire the class. Within seconds, every student was volunteering for the punishment like it was a great honor. However, Kakashi did not look happy at the turn of events. In fact, he appeared furious, glaring at the class.

The class froze.

"Well, then," he started slowly in a deep, scary voice. "You all pass," he finished cheerfully.

Huh?

Kakashi walked away from the open mouths and wide eyes of the confused students.

"Class dismissed," Iruka shouted from the doorway of the classroom, where he was hobbling out on a crutch and holding a stack of papers.

That night, everyone went to sleep hoping this day would just be another bad memory and never be repeated again.

When the black of night reigns,

Another day ends as today fades

Forming memories from realities.

~*A*N*G*E*L*~