Magma through Leaves Chapter 4: 3: Teams, a naruto fanfic

Chapter 3: Teams

"This class of genin aren't all that much to look at, are they?"

Hatake Kakashi flipped to the next page, holding back a snort at his colleague's comment. "You know reports and grades can only tell you so much about an individual, Asuma."

"And what they've told me so far seems pretty accurate," the bearded man fired back across the table with a puff of cigarette smoke.

Kakashi wrinkled his nose beneath his mask. He didn't mind Asuma's habit; he just didn't like the smell. Time spent with ninken often resulted in a stronger than average affinity for smells. It was useful for tracking, but not so much for day-to-day interactions with a casual nicotine addict.

Asuma stacked the Academy files in front of him and pushed them off to the side. "I've done some surveillance on this bunch. They've got potential, for sure, but I wouldn't call them prime shinobi material."

"You have the next generation of the Ino-Shika-Chou trio lined up," Kakashi noted absently, turning to the next page. "How can they not have potential?"

"Yeah," Asuma grumbled in agreement. "But still, a lazy strategist, a sensitive chubby kid and a bossy mindreader? These kids just aren't made of the same stuff as our generation was back in the day and all."

Kakashi flicked a page. "We were in the middle of a war. We needed to be strong to have even the smallest hope of survival."

Asuma raised an eyebrow. "And these kids don't need that kind of strength, too?"

He turned another page. "This is peacetime."

Asuma took in a slow drag. "You and I both know there's no such thing. There's just war and not war. It'll happen to these kids someday as well."

"Hopefully it never comes to that," Kakashi said.

"Hope isn't worth shit in this world, Kakashi," Asuma nearly sighed. "We both know that."

Kakashi nodded.

Asuma paused for a moment before chuckling dryly. "Ha, look at the two of us, reminiscing and bellyaching about the good old days like a couple of miserable veterans."

Kakashi kept his exposed eye on his book. "We're not exactly young anymore."

Asuma just laughed. "Speak for yourself, going-grey-at-twelve."

"It's silver," Kakashi sighed, running a hand through his gravity-defying mop of hair. "It's always been silver."

"Ah," Asuma marvelled at the realisation. "So you've been an old man since birth. That certainly explains the porn, but it certainly doesn't explain Gai."

"What does explain Gai?" Kakashi asked with a shrug.

Asuma returned the motion with equal apathy. "One of the great mysteries of life, I suppose. Though it's not one I'm keen on uncovering anytime soon."

"Indeed," Kakashi agreed with a sagely nod.

"Hey, want to get drinks later?" Asuma asked with a fresh grin. "There's a new bar a couple of streets away from my place. Doesn't really look that good, but it means I won't have to spend much time stumbling home drunk as I normally do."

Kakashi didn't look up from his book. "I would, but I'm afraid I have some things to do in preparation for my team's test. Perhaps another time."

"Oh, like hell you do," Asuma chuckled. "You just want an excuse to read your porn."

"Well, I have fallen behind my monthly Icha Icha quota," Kakashi said, tapping a finger against his masked chin. "A quiet night at home curled up with a good book might be just enough to catch up."

Asuma snorted. "I've seen your apartment, Kakashi, and I'd hardly call that bachelor pad of yours a home. I'd hardly call it a bachelor pad either. When was the last time you even had some female company?"

Kakashi's eye closed in his usual form of a smile. "Speaking of female company..."

A dark-haired woman with piercing red eyes approached the pair, pulling out a chair next to the bearded one and slumping down into it with a huff.

"Something wrong, Kurenai?" Asuma asked.

Ringed crimson eyes snapped over to him. "Put that cigarette out and I'll tell you."

The cancer stick was in the ashtray before Kakashi could blink.

I guess he does like her, Kakashi noted. Asuma didn't put out a cigarette for just anyone.

"Well, everything was about ready for my team's test today when, all of a sudden, I was called into the Hokage's office," Kurenai began. "As it turns out, and despite my protests, I'm getting saddled with a fourth genin."

"A fourth," Asuma repeated. "Seriously? You're getting a fourth?"

Kakashi looked up from his porn.

"Yep," Kurenai nodded with a mock smile. "The rookie jounin has to deal with the irregularity in the system. Isn't that just great?"

Kakashi closed his book.

This was... odd, to say the least. Genin teams were nearly always assigned in threes. The only times he could think of when they weren't was when a jounin-sensei was incapacitated or killed, forcing genin to either act without a supervising jounin if they had enough experience or split up among other teams. It was an awkward situation that had seen many genin left to float between teams without any real sense of permanency or stability during the last war. But right from the start? This was certainly strange.

"Don't worry, Kurenai," Asuma reassured, giving the woman a friendly tap on the shoulder. "You're plenty skilled, more than enough to handle one extra brat."

"Thanks, Asuma," Kurenai said quietly, eyes darting down for a moment before she looked back up to him. "But this throws off the entire premise of Team 8. We're meant to be a tracking and reconnaissance unit, and this one doesn't seem to have any real talent for that. If anything, his skills are only for direct combat."

"Sounds like just what you might need," Kakashi chimed in. "If your recon team runs into trouble, a heavy hitter could definitely make things go a little smoother."

Asuma nodded in accordance. "He does have a point, Kurenai."

"Fine, you've convinced me," Kurenai sighed. "I suppose this Koan kid might not be that much of a hassle, anyway."

Kakashi stared straight at Kurenai. "Koan?"

"Yeah, that's his name," Kurenai nodded. "Why?"

Kakashi folded his arms over his chest. "If I remember correctly, he was supposed to be on Team 7."

Kurenai frowned. "That's odd."

"Definitely," Asuma agreed.

"Actually, that reminds me," Kurenai said suddenly. "Hokage-sama told me to give this to you, Kakashi."

She slid a sealed envelope across the table.

Asuma snorted quietly. "Since when do you play messenger for anyone, Kurenai?"

"Since Hokage-sama asked me, Asuma. Unlike you, I actually do what I'm told," Kurenai retorted neatly.

"Is that a crack about the whole Twelve Guardian Ninja thing?"

"And what if it is?"

The bickering between the totally not-involved couple faded into the background as Kakashi popped open the envelope and scanned it over quickly.

Wait...

He read it twice more, three times as he tried to find some kind of mistake. There had to be. But there was no mistaking it. It was all there, all in the Hokage's writing and stamped with his official seal. This was no mistake.

Kakashi sighed and stood up, shoving his book back into its pouch and balling the piece of paper up in his clenched fist. He started to walk off. The arguing screeched to a halt.

"Where are you going, Kakashi?" Asuma called out behind him as he made for the jounin HQ's doors.

"To see Hokage-sama about this," he said without turning, raising the crumpled sheet in his hand.

He left the building and entered a village just waking up. People were on the streets, starting their days, getting things to eat, meeting their friends and making noise.

Kakashi stared at the ground as he walked through it all.

I failed you, Minato-sensei. I tried to keep him safe from this cursed way of life, but I failed you.

Naruto was not a fan of waking up. While he was a staunch advocate of mornings and sunshine, he despised what they did to his sleep-laden eyes. He hated it when blades of light slashed through his window and stabbed at his eyelids, prying and piercing until they found a way through the cracks of his eyelashes. And once they were in, the beaming daggers started poking and prodding and rooting around in the sliver of space between his eye and its lid until he stirred, shifting slightly in the sheets and making noise that only caused him to stir more. It was a chain reaction of dirty sunlight and crunchy linen that ended in an explosion of morning irritability and a carefully chosen string of curses and insults directed at that big bright bastard.

At the very least, that was his usual routine.

Somewhere between waking up and realising he was awake, Naruto discovered a hate to rival the sun in a grand total of zero-point-three seconds: he hated being tossed out of bed.

Naruto hit the back of his couch in the other room with a dull thud and a loud groan after skidding across his wooden floors with a stirring moan and a waking grunt. His apartment spun around him violently, complete with the sandaled feet of an intruder.

"Oh, what the hell just happened?" he asked, expecting no answer to reach him as he closed his eyes, clutching and cradling his aching head and burning face respectively. The floor was not kind to those who dared plant face upon it.

"You overslept."

Naruto's eyes snapped open, ocean-blue narrowing like blades of water. "So you throw me out of my bed?"

An awkward shrug followed. "You're a heavy sleeper. Heavy problems call for heavy solutions."

"And you thought that forcing my face into the floor was your best option?"

"It was better than tossing you out the window. Or do you disagree?"

Somehow, as Naruto clambered to his feet in an attempt to stare at the intruder on more equal terms, he got the feeling that Koan wouldn't have had much of a problem with that.

"I thought so," Koan said with a half-smile at his lack of response. Naruto wasn't sure whether to interpret his expression as a smirk or a grin.

Probably a bit of both, Naruto frowned internally but shook his head. Something else struck him as weird in this already bizarre state of affairs.

"Why are you so talkative all of a sudden?" he asked, scratching the back of his head and neck to satisfy an itch and his burgeoning curiosity. "And how did you even get in here? Actually, how did I get here?"

"I never left, and I brought you here when you fell asleep," Koan answered. Naruto didn't miss the dodging of his first question.

Naruto raised an eyebrow. "How long did we talk for?"

"A while," Koan said briefly.

"How long's 'a while'?

"The sun was coming up."

"Sounds like a while."

"Yes."

"... I'm annoying you again, aren't I?"

"Is there a point in asking a question you already know the answer to?"

Naruto sighed. "Oh, whatever."

Stretching out the kinks in his back from the unwelcomed adventure across the floorboards, Naruto couldn't help but notice the absence of a ripped shirt and orange jacket from the previous night's conflict. He also didn't feel a bandage where one should've been.

Naruto looked down at his bare torso. His eyes widened.

It wasn't just the bandage that was gone; there was nothing there at all. There wasn't a cut, a nick, a scar or anything. The entire wound that had dug a chunk of flesh out of his side had vanished into thin air. Or thin skin, in this case.

He poked a finger cautiously at smooth, hairless skin. It felt just like the rest of him – fleshy. There was nothing out of the ordinary about it other than the severe lack of kunai puncture that he knew had been there the night before.

Naruto shot an uncertain gaze Koan's way. "Uh, is this one of those... uh...?"

Koan nodded. "Rapid healing."

"Right," Naruto mumbled, still oddly unsettled.

He had realised long ago that he possessed a great deal of stamina and tolerance for pain, along with a decent rate of recovery for strained muscles and the occasional broken finger, but this was kind of ridiculous. A wound that large gone in a matter of hours? He supposed there was some use in that.

But, damn, that's weird, he thought almost worriedly. Then something else occurred to him. "Wait a second, where'd the bandage go? More importantly, where did my t-shirt and jacket go?"

Koan held up two fingers. "One: bandage's useless. Two: t-shirt's in tatters."

"But where's my jacket?" Naruto asked.

Koan pointed into the other room, back to his bed.

"Oh, come on," Naruto groaned.

His favourite jacket was pretty much ruined. The rip and tear in the rather tough fabric wasn't too bad. The blood had dried in a massive red spot across the lower left-hand side, staining orange something it really shouldn't have mixed with. He was definitely capable of washing his clothes, but he didn't know if he could get that out with all the elbow grease and detergent in the world.

"Shame," Koan offered his condolences with a single word from the doorway.

Naruto sighed long and hard, forcing the air out of his mouth with puffed cheeks. "I'll miss this jacket."

Placing his wounded friend back on his bed, Naruto went to the small closet opposite to withdraw a spare black t-shirt and some brown shorts. Orange shorts without his jacket just wasn't him, he decided as he fastened his weapons holster from pair of pants to pair of pants.

As he reached at the last for the goggles on his nightstand, right next to his alarm clock, he paused. He didn't need those anymore.

He turned around and walked to the small chest of drawers on the other side of his bed, just below the window. The still-gleaming hitai-ate was waiting for him. Naruto smiled a little as he tied it firmly around his forehead.

Changed and geared, Naruto pulled on his blue sandals and went back to Koan waiting in the living-room-slash- kitchen-space.

"Well, I'm dressed now," Naruto said, gesturing to his state of clothing with little ceremony. "What time is it?"

Koan glanced across at the clock on the wall. "Nine-fifty."

Why does it sound like I'm about to be late for-

"Team assignment is at ten. We should go."

Naruto stared at him for a moment. "How did you even..."

"Practice. Lots and lots of practice," Koan replied with that same half-smile.

Okay, that's definitely a smirk.

"You bastard."

"Hell if I know," Koan shrugged awkwardly. "Come on."

He stepped through what passed for a living room and towards the still-open window, perching himself on the sill.

Koan shot him a stare when he didn't immediately follow. "Well? Are you going to stand there or are you going to get yourself a team?"

"Fine, I'm coming," Naruto groaned as he made his way to the window. "And I still think you're a bastard."

"So you've said," Koan smirked, dropping from the window.

Naruto shook his head and sighed. "What the hell am I doing hanging around this guy?"

His eyes widened partially as he recalled the answer. "Oh, yeah. That."

Naruto shrugged to no one in particular and leapt out of his window.

Koan walked into the room quietly, just like he always did. The classroom contained familiar people, just like it always did. The difference was that Iruka wasn't there far before he was.

Walking up the rows unnoticed to his traditional corner, Koan settled himself away from the others and watched.

It was strange to not see their teacher at the front of the room before a single person had entered, strange not to see him pointing at something on the blackboard or launching into a lecture on the importance of punctuality when someone arrived late with some stuttered, facile excuse leaking out of their open mouth as Iruka schooled them with words. It was... different.

He didn't like it.

He shook his head, turning his sight towards the others. Nearly all of them were there, except Naruto. They were... familiar. He liked familiarity. It was comfortable. It was easy. Perhaps it was too easy at times, but that was the risk anyone ran spending any stretch of time in a single setting, a relatively unchanging environment.

The classroom had always felt somewhat stagnant to him, frozen in a specific feeling and a specific time. Maybe it was something to do with the slightly outdated material taught, or the exceptionally uniform manner of techniques they were expected to perform.

He understood the reasons behind the basic three jutsu perfectly. They were useful, vital to a shinobi's survival. But no ninja was exactly the same. Speciality existed for a reason. Why the Academy sought not to build more on the foundations it created, he didn't know. Yet again, perhaps that was the reason genin teams were guided by an experienced jounin, someone who could help in the areas the Academy couldn't, or wouldn't.

He looked down at the people around him.

Each and every one of them had a different set of skills. There were some overlaps as far as he could tell, but that was to be expected. They all started from the same place: the Academy.

On second thought, no, they don't.

Clans – that was what made them stand out. It was their heritage that centred them in his view. There were those in the room he wasn't concerned with, civilian-born graduates that wouldn't make it in a shinobi life but tried anyway. His focus was on the clan-born.

He had spent quite some time watching them over the years. He had spent quite some time watching people in general over the years. It was where he began. Watching was one of the first things he knew. He liked to think he was a capable observer, able to discern things about people with relative speed. It came from practiced necessity far more than a hobby or a talent. It always felt... forced to him.

But he did it anyway.

His gaze switched from the room to an individual, someone who shared the same back row as he did, but on the other side of the room: Hyuuga Hinata.

She was small, petite, and almost always wore a bulky beige jacket. She had short, dark blue hair, a soft face and extremely pale eyes without a discernible pupil – the Byakugan, the famed eyes of the Hyuuga. They guarded the secrets of their bloodline jealously, but some things about their eyes were common knowledge. Her doujutsu allowed her a range of vision far beyond the norm, three hundred and sixty degrees all around her. Combined with the ability to see chakra and through solid objects, it was a formidable kekkei genkai. The clan's taijutsu style, Jyuuken, was similarly powerful, using targeted injections of chakra to damage internal organs and close tenketsu around the body with ease.

But despite the clan's notorious pride in both blood and skill, Hinata was shy. She stuttered when she spoke, and she never spoke out of turn. She kept her head down, her hands close together and her eyes to the ground. She lacked confidence, suffered from low self-esteem. Yet she was the heir to a prideful clan. He could only imagine the difficulty she faced with her family. It all made her reluctant to harm, to fight.

But she had potential. He'd seen it.

The noise in the room picked up, the ambient sound of mindless chatter resonating off the wooden walls and the boards lowered over concrete. The space was not designed well, too tall and wide and full of things angled at all the wrong places and made from all the wrong materials. The acoustics were horrible. It was difficult to pick out an individual voice from amongst the building cacophony. He knew for sure who wasn't among it, though.

Sitting a row down from Hinata, a male, tall for his age, sat quietly in sunglasses and a faded green jacket, a high collar hiding his mouth from view but leaving his brown bushy hair and upper face exposed. Aburame Shino did not say much. He was not shy or timid like Hinata. He was stoic and rigid, straight-backed to a fault, but it wasn't pride or arrogance that held him upright. It was the culture of logic and thorough rationality entrenched so deeply in the collective mind of the Aburame.

From what Koan knew, the clan was taught to place knowledge and intellect above emotion, right from birth. It made them calm, calculating shinobi. And it made Shino quiet. He observed, analysed before he spoke, if he spoke at all. Words were not always necessary for the Aburame. To the best of his recollection, the clansmen hosted breeds of specialised insects within their bodies that feed off them and their chakra from the day they were born. It was a symbiotic bond that allowed the Aburame use of the insects' many abilities at will, sometimes with the benefit of wordless communication between host and carried species. It also made them misunderstood. A human containing something foreign was often mistrusted, kept at a distance. He understood that.

In summary, Shino was efficient, capable, intelligent, and a promising shinobi.

Koan shifted his view towards the door. He should be here by now.

Colliding right on time with his thought, Naruto walked in, something of a smile on his face.

Koan's gaze sharpened.

A boy with long brown hair tied in a ponytail of spikes lifted his head from a desk, two lines up the five rows. "Naruto?"

Naruto grinned and tapped at his hitai-ate. "Yep, Shikamaru, I graduated."

"How?" he asked with one lazily raised eyebrow.

"Because I'm awesome that way," Naruto answered, not missing a beat.

Shikamaru just mumbled his favourite word as he laid his head back down on the desk. "Troublesome."

Koan shook his head. Nara Shikamaru was intelligent, extremely so, but his tremendous intellect was burdened by an equally extreme lack of enthusiasm. In short, he was a genius – just a very, very lazy one. He had easily seen through Naruto's deflection of his inquiry but hadn't even bothered to pursue, playing it down as simply too troublesome.

And, apparently, most of the Nara clan was just as unmotivated. He could scarcely imagine a clan full of eminent tacticians, accomplished med-nin and expert assassins being so thoroughly lax. But however passive and apathetic they were, the clan's notorious techniques were undeniably effective. Through some form of chakra manipulation he wasn't familiar with, the Nara were able to control shadows. As far as he knew, this ability could be used to immobilise and restrain, or to physically harm and kill. It sounded quite interesting.

Too bad Shikamaru didn't seem to be all that interested in it himself.

The same could be said in part for the large boy sitting next to the Nara, munching away at a bag of chips like he always did. Brown hair sticking out from either side of his unusual hitai-ate, his face was marked on each cheek with a red swirl. Facial tattoos were a common sight in the Akimichi clan. Akimichi Chouji was a rather robust fellow, but a bit on the... heavy side, to put it delicately. From day one, he'd been sensitive about his size. Any cracks at it earned his wrath in equal measure. Like his close friend, Shikamaru, it was difficult to get him motivated or moving, but once an Akimichi gained momentum, weight became essential to their bone-crushing techniques.

The Akimichi clan had the ability to convert calories into chakra at a very high rate. Put together with their high levels of physical strength and size-altering ninjutsu, an Akimichi with enough weight at his back could be devastating on the battlefield. The downside to their body-expanding ninjutsu was high chakra consumption. Their naturally high reserves somewhat counteracted their techniques' drawbacks, but they needed to constantly eat to maintain sufficient chakra levels.

That explained Chouji's perpetual consumption of chips, but it didn't change the fact that he still found the noise of teeth constantly gnashing away at crunchy foodstuffs irritating.

Koan moved his eyes back to Naruto.

Stepping past another desk, a laugh made Naruto stop. "Something funny, Kiba?"

A boy with sharp, slitted eyes and wild brown hair wearing a fur-lined, hooded jacket with a white-furred dog sitting atop his head shook his head.

"Nah," he chuckled. "I just can't believe they let you graduate, dobe. The standards for genin must be slipping or something."

"I can't believe they let you inside. The smell alone should be reason enough to keep you out of the building," Naruto countered with a wily grin before he kept on moving up the line of desks.

Inuzuka Kiba grumbled.

It was typical conversation between Naruto and Kiba. It started with an insult, ended with a retort. Sometimes it went on for a few minutes. Others just ended in seconds. It all depended on who could smack the other down the hardest with words, though it had occasionally spilled over into taijutsu practice over the years. It was all about a clash of ego, the whole alpha-male mentality of the Inuzuka clan so heavily engrained in Kiba's mind he couldn't separate it from his associations with other males. Even though it may have been a strangely complex social issue between Kiba's clan and the rest of Konoha, Koan preferred to dismiss it as one big pissing contest.

Members of the Inuzuka clan tended to be far more animalistic than the average person. Just a glance at the red fang markings proudly displayed on their cheeks was enough to give that away. Below their immediate appearances, the Inuzuka acted much like a pack of canines would, appropriate considering that their main style of combat consisted of strong collaboration techniques with their partnered ninken. Beyond combat, the Inuzuka possessed very strong senses, particularly in smell. It made them adept in tracking via scents, ideal for searching large areas for individual targets.

Despite his fast-paced taijutsu and capacity for tracking, Kiba's behaviour suggested he would have trouble working in a team environment. The need to outdo others and prove his dominance – Koan almost laughed at that – would be present in nearly everything he did.

The Inuzuka really didn't think that one all the way through, Koan thought, though there was probably something in there he hadn't considered. Like a drive to protect the pack or something. I don't really know.

Koan shook his head free of irrelevant thoughts and continued down the list. Ah, yes, the anomaly.

The number of clan heirs in the class had always pushed his sights to them specifically, forcing him to ignore the majority when he considered the group en masse. Considering the number of civilians he knew would not last long as shinobi, it was, perhaps, to be expected. But among those civilians he had first dismissed was Haruno Sakura, a girl, oddly pink-haired, green-eyed and typically clad in a red dress over dark green shorts. She was something of an abnormality.

Civilians were not often successful as shinobi, or, at least, not for extended periods of time. It was simple mathematics given the proportion of Konoha's shinobi forces occupied by members of clans. But every now and again came along a number of civilians that went against the mould. The majority of those who succeeded in becoming shinobi remained unremarkable, genin and chuunin holding more permanent positions in administration or in the village-based defence divisions. Fewer among those were the ones who held potential. One of those was Haruno Sakura.

She was... mixed, in his opinion, when it came down to capabilities. She was intelligent, had very good information retention; she excelled in the more theoretical components of the Academy's curriculum. Physically, she was not as impressive. While she was accurate with shuriken and kunai, and familiar with the Academy-taught taijutsu to an excellent degree, she didn't have the physical strength or speed to make full use of it. Chakra-wise, her reserves were very, very small. D-rank techniques would tire her quickly; she would run dry when she needed her chakra most. What offset that was her uncommonly high level of chakra control. He remembered distinctly seeing her perform the basic three jutsu almost perfectly on her first go.

That was what made her an abnormality. A civilian with that natural level of chakra control, even when her reserves were negligible, was unheard of. But, there was a slight problem with her being a civilian: focus. Her reason for joining the Academy, for becoming a shinobi, was not... ideal.

Koan's eyes shifted from a head of long, unusually pink hair, to one with hair far shorter, far darker, spiked at the back. It neared black, though carried a hint of blue above a circular collar on a blue shirt, white shorts and blue sandals.

Uchiha Sasuke was the focus of Haruno Sakura and many other girls in the class, the object of a romantic fixation he didn't quite get. The more subtle complexities of it all eluded him, but he could still see that Sasuke ignored them, quietly rejecting attachment and substituting it with solitude. He was a loner, though it wasn't by choice.

A dead clan would force solitude on anyone.

The Uchiha clan, one of the two founding clans of Konoha, and Sasuke's family, were slaughtered in a single night by one of their own, a once-in-a-generation prodigy by the name of Uchiha Itachi, Sasuke's older brother. Koan understood the loneliness, the need for quiet. He left Sasuke be.

The girls didn't. They were attracted to him, something to do with his 'cool' attitude, how 'mysterious' and 'lonely' he appeared to be. It all seemed so shallow to him, so superficial and so utterly external.

But that was well beside the point. Despite Sasuke's... damage, he was skilled. He was the Rookie of the Year, highly proficient in taijutsu, capable of Katon ninjutsu in addition to the basic three, and very good with the usual weapons, thrown or otherwise. All of his abilities were enough to award him the designation of prodigy, genius.

Koan shook his head. Names wouldn't keep him alive in battle.

Then there was the last of the group he took note of.

She sat near to Chouji and Shikamaru, her uncovered shoulders uncharacteristically tense beneath the platinum-blond hair trailing down her upper back. As soon as his eyes fell on her, she turned slightly, enough for him to see green-blue glance towards him, one held beneath bangs that fell down the right side of her face, accentuated by the gleaming presence of the hitai-ate around her forehead. Turquoise orbs lanced into him, piercing the outer layer and seeing beneath for a painful instant. It was... agonising.

A moment later, Yamanaka Ino turned away.

Somewhere, in a dark and dusty corner of his mind, he was grateful.

There were things he didn't talk about, things he didn't like to think of. She was one of those, but there was no use in dredging up the past. It was behind him now.

His thoughts complete, Koan closed his eyes and waited.

"Are you trying to sleep or something?"

Koan didn't open his eyes. "No, Naruto."

He heard hands and fingers rustling through hair. "Then what are you doing?"

"Waiting," he answered.

Again, he heard Naruto scratch at his head. "For what?"

The door at the front of the room slid open. Koan's eyes did the same. "Him."

Iruka walked into the room holding a clipboard. Koan didn't care so much about the list of names and teams when he watched Iruka's movements for a moment.

His gait was slow, but not deliberately. He saw the strain in his legs, the slight lack of complete balance as he put one foot in front of the other because of the wound from last night. More than just that, Iruka was tired. The dark circles sitting under his eye attested to the validity of his theory.

But why did he look so... drained? It was as if the light had been siphoned from the man's eyes, the vaguely carefree glint that reflected from them at the right time of day gone on the wind. As intrigued as he was, the question would have to wait.

"Quiet, everyone, quiet," Iruka said in a firm voice.

The gathered genin kept on chattering away.

"Quiet!" Iruka shouted.

The noise dropped dead.

Iruka cleared his throat. "Alright, let's get this underway."

The team and names began to roll out of Iruka, constant and monotone. Koan paid little attention, not when he heard none of the usual variation, the minute differences in pitch and volume that accompanied Iruka's journey through words. His oration became... dry, exhausted.

More than just his body was tired. His mind, his spirit was dampened, weighed down by something. Familiarity told Koan as much as he observed with his eyes and ears.

Iruka cleared his throat before announcing the next team. "Team 7: Uzumaki Naruto, Haruno Sakura, and Uchiha Sasuke. Your sensei is Hatake Kakashi."

There was a sigh lower down the rows, issuing out of Sakura's mouth more as a light groan than a mere exhalation. She never had been particularly fond of Naruto.

Sasuke made no noise, made no sign of acknowledgement. He just stayed where he was, hands folded beneath his chin, dark eyes forward. He didn't seem to care.

Naruto blinked at first, smiled slightly before it faded away into a something of a scowl. As far as he remembered, Naruto was fond of Sakura, but less so of Sasuke.

Given a little bit of thought, Koan recalled the name of their assigned jounin. Hatake Kakashi's reputation preceded him, both as an accomplished shinobi in his own right and a student of the Yondaime Hokage. Team 7 seemed to be in good hands.

"Team 8," Iruka said. He paused, scratched at his head for a moment. "Odd, but never mind. Team 8: Hyuuga Hinata, Inuzuka Kiba, Aburame Shino, and Koan. Your sensei is Yuuhi Kurenai."

That was... unexpected. Four genin in a single team had not been his anticipation, nor had he anticipated an assignment to what sounded like a tracking unit. He was far more suited to combat than reconnaissance.

But Iruka went on. "Team 10: Yamanaka Ino, Nara Shikamaru, and Akimichi Chouji. Your sensei is Sarutobi Asuma."

Out of a reflex, one he had thought crushed, burnt and forgotten, he looked down the rows of desks. Towards her. When she looked back, even for just a moment, objective thought vanished like a desert mirage. Feelings... rose, like the tide at night. Emotions... returned with a vengeance. His heart thundered in his ears. The beat grew, accelerated, became something else again and again until there was a storm raging in his skull, booms of thunder and bells of iron ringing through the swelling clouds in his head, sound ricocheting off bone, metal grinding through grey matter and cutting its way down and through to what lay below the mountainous terrain of hellfire and brimstone and lava and-

FUCK!

On the outside, Koan looked away. On the inside, he tore himself away.

Breathe. Breathe, you fucking idiot. Breathe before you actually get angry.

He took his own advice as Iruka resumed at the last.

"The jounin will be here in one hour to pick up their teams. That is all, genin. Do your village proud."

Koan shook his head, kept on breathing and made his way past Naruto without a second thought, moved down the rows without delay and was outside before he knew what to do with himself.

Outside, beyond the threshold of the Academy, he breathed a little easier. There was a little less dust, a smaller number of people. It was calmer. He needed that.

Leaping into the branches of a nearby tree, Koan waited for his team to filter out with the others, all the while trying to find his breath again.

"This change was rather abrupt, Hokage-sama," Kakashi said, standing before the wide desk of the man in the hat, the letter roughly squeezed in a gloved hand.

The Hokage bowed his head in brief acknowledgment. "I apologise for the lack of warning, Kakashi, but extenuating circumstances allowed for very little leeway."

Extenuating circumstances? That sounds like total... wait.

Kakashi paused a moment to think it through, ignoring the irrational part of himself that demanded its voice be heard. "Does this have anything to do with the trouble out on one of the more distant training grounds last night?"

The Hokage nodded.

He couldn't help the sudden feeling of intrigue. "What happened?"

"Danzo," the Hokage answered quietly.

Danzo? Then, that means...

"I understand," Kakashi said almost immediately, his grip on the letter slackening greatly

The Hokage sighed. "Once again, I do apologise for the position this puts you in. I am very aware of your views on the matter."

His views were simple: he didn't want Naruto involved in any part of Konoha's military, least of all as a shinobi. Too much had been lost to it already. He couldn't lose the only link to the past he had the same way he lost everything else.

The Hokage had agreed with him wholeheartedly, but the Hokage's opinions and the Hokage's decisions could not be confused as one and the same. There came a time when need outweighed emotion. Decisions for the many had to be made in spite of the feelings of the few. Such was the burden of authority.

With an eye downturned to old wood he'd stared at too many times before, it was Kakashi's turn to sigh. "My opinion doesn't matter now, does it, Hokage-sama?"

The old man nodded once more, a grave expression passing over weathered features. "I am afraid so. Konoha can no longer afford to keep Naruto-kun away from this life."

Kakashi looked up the Hokage, an eye meeting two. "I didn't realise the situation was that dire."

"Nor did I, not until it was too late to act," the Hokage admitted in a sullen tone.

Despite himself, Kakashi nodded. "I suppose we'll just have to live with it, then."

No matter how he felt, duty to the village came first.

The Hokage's voice slid from one tone to another, the one reserved for private moments in a life filled with so little. It was the tone of an old man. It was the tone of the old man beneath the hat and the robes.

"I am truly sorry, Kakashi," the Hokage said softly. "This pains me as well."

He... hadn't thought about that. He was not the only one with something to lose in all of this.

"I know, Hokage-sama," Kakashi nodded. "I'll do my best."

Seeing the Hokage motion to the door with an approving nod, Kakashi left the office.

Standing from his chair and turning to face his village, the Hokage clasped his hands behind his back as he let loose a long, tired sigh.

"I sincerely hope our best is enough."

Naruto sat quietly as he watched Koan move swiftly from the room. Why's he in such a hurry?

It was probably best not to ask. As he'd discovered from the previous night of half-conversation, Koan did not divulge all that much about himself. If he responded, it was typically with short, sharp answers. If he didn't respond at all, Naruto could take that as a sign to move onto the next topic. He had yet to see Koan angry, but he had a feeling he didn't want to see it.

If what he had said about jinchuuriki was true – and he certainly had no reason to doubt him on it –, an angry one could be deadly. On the other hand, Koan had gotten him out of bed by throwing him out of it, and that had seemed like Koan's attempt at having fun.

Weird...

Either way, it would probably be best to just leave it alone. There were more pressing things at hand, anyway.

Like his team.

It was an odd thing in his mind. At one point, he probably would've rejoiced at having Haruno Sakura on his genin team. When he first arrived at the Academy, she'd been nice to him, her vivid green eyes so happy and her cute face so sunny and smiling. She was bright and funny and sweet and smart and a whole lot of other things, too.

It was more than enough for him to hope that she would be his friend. Then she found out who he was. Just like so many others, she no longer wanted to be around him.

Hope began to fade.

He kept watch over her for a time. He was happy to see her happy and smiling until she caught sight of him and she would duck out of view as quickly as she could. It pained him.

Hope dwindled a little more.

Eventually, she joined in the communal activity name calling could sometimes become. She would try and antagonise him just like the others would, try to get him angry so they could turn the teachers on him. They tried to make life that little bit more difficult for him.

Hope became cinders.

He kept trying, kept persisting in the few ways he could. He tried greeting her with a simple smile and a wave as she came into the classroom. He tried to talk to her as everyone started to make their ways home after class. He tried to get assigned to her in group projects. He tried to get partnered with her during taijutsu classes. He tried to help her however he could. But he was ignored, avoided, declined and rejected time after time.

He had his limits, and he felt the fire dim at the last.

That wasn't to say the fireplace had been cleaned, scrubbed down to the last splinter of charcoal. There was still a place for her somewhere in there. He would still be the first on his feet in times of need, still try to be there if he could be. Perhaps it would always be like that.

It just wasn't the roaring hearth it had once been.

Then there was the other guy on the team: Uchiha Sasuke.

At first glance, Naruto had dismissed him. He came across as nothing more than an overrated prick. He didn't really want anything to do with him. He didn't treat the people around him well, he ignored the swarms of girls that always seemed to be jockeying for his attention at every turn, and he looked down on pretty much everything in sight.

He just seemed like another A-grade asshole.

But there were reasons behind the curtain of condescension and dismissal. He was actually quite skilled, though Naruto would never admit that aloud. Sasuke had earned his place as Rookie of the Year. If he thought about it hard enough, Naruto could imagine the hordes of fan-girls being quite annoying if he was the centre of their world. And then there was the reason he didn't like to work with others or associate with people in general: his dead clan.

That needed very little explanation.

Beyond his dislike of the guy, he wasn't a bad teammate to have when it came down to a fight.

The one hitch in the plan, however, seemed to be the tiny little thing of them getting along in the slightest. Sakura didn't like him, but she very much liked Sasuke because every other girl liked Sasuke. Sasuke didn't really like anyone. Naruto didn't like Sasuke, but sort of liked Sakura. On the whole, there was generally just a lot of unreciprocated liking combined with a healthy dose of abhorrence for him specifically.

This is not going to end well.

Absorbed by his thoughts, he missed the reason Sakura suddenly ran out of the mostly-empty room in tears. He figured it out a moment later when he looked down the unmanned rows.

On his feet without even realising it, Naruto stood over Sasuke barely three seconds later. "What the hell was that about, Sasuke?"

He said nothing, just stared at the front wall with a bored expression on his face.

Naruto was not in the mood to wait. "Well?"

"You're annoying, dobe. So is she," he answered with a grunt.

Naruto's face darkened. "And that's your reason for making her cry?"

He didn't answer. He just grunted again.

"We're supposed to be a team, teme," Naruto growled. "Making her cry doesn't help that one bit."

Sasuke scoffed. "Like I care."

It was such a typical response. He brushed everything off like it was nothing, keeping everything at a distance because he was so far above it all. The truth was he just didn't want to be hurt again. Looking at him long and hard enough, Naruto could see that well enough beneath Sasuke's cold facade.

"You should care," Naruto muttered as he walked to the door. He paused at the threshold to send Sasuke a withering glare. "You can't survive on your own forever."

The fight with Mizuki had taught him that lesson well enough.

Naruto stormed off to find Sakura.

He was... unsure.

Watching the three of them move from the entrance of the Academy to a nearby eating area, one they'd used for lunch breaks over the years, he wasn't certain on exactly what to do.

Social interaction had never been his strong point. Verbal silence was his preference. He didn't like mindless chatter or background noise generated by the human tongue. He liked ambience, the songs nature played. They were performed constantly, through everything and everywhere in a hundred thousand different ways in a hundred thousand variations. Every environment had its own song, its own players, singers and instruments.

He chuckled silently to himself.

Everything society tried to do was just a copy of the original.

Huh... that actually makes sense.

If everything society was and ever would be was nothing more than a simple replication of nature, he already knew how to interact with it. He'd spent more than enough time watching and observing the patterns. Perhaps it wasn't that social interaction was not his strong point. Maybe he just never liked it in the first place.

No matter what his views were, it was... necessary. The only way up was through.

Koan dropped from his place in the branches without a noise and ambled over to them with his hands in his pockets. Shino, Kiba and Hinata were gathered silently, loudly and quietly around a table. One was listening, one was talking, and one was murmuring. To that combination he would not bring much more than another inaudible voice.

"Oh, so now you decide to show up," Kiba greeted disdainfully as he approached, standing up to make a show of... intimidation?

A few metres away from them, Koan chuckled.

Kiba's brow furrowed. "Something funny?"

"Your attempt at looking threatening," Koan answered, lips twisting in a wry expression.

"What did you say?" Kiba growled, sliding a half-step forward.

His mouth dropped into a flat line. "You heard me."

The red marks on his face shortened and sharpened as Kiba bared his teeth. "Well, why don't you say it again, huh? Make me understand."

"You're insecure," Koan said.

"What?"

"Their presence doesn't threaten you," he said, glancing towards timid Hinata and impassive Shino. "Mine does."

Kiba was taken aback momentarily if the slight shift backwards of his feet was anything to go by, but he kept his sharp teeth showing and the clan markings on his face compressed. "What, you think I'm afraid of you or something?"

Koan shook his head. "No. It's just that your dumbass pack mentality tells you to be."

Kiba snarled gutturally, the same way his dog snarled a moment later. "What the hell do you know about a pack, Koan? What the hell do you know about a clan, huh?"

They didn't know anything about him, but Koan almost flinched. Dark eyes turned on the Inuzuka. "I know enough that I'm not going to tolerate your 'top dog' bullshit a moment longer, Kiba, because you're not."

"I'll bet you anything I'm stronger than you," Kiba growled once more.

Koan scoffed. "I don't need to engage in some useless pissing contest with you for a position that doesn't even exist."

More snarls rolled out of Kiba. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"This is a team," he said firmly.

"And what the fuck does that have to do with me?"

"Everything," Shino interjected, adjusting his shades as he stood to face them both.

Koan didn't show his slight surprise at the interruption.

Kiba stared. "Now you're against me, Shino? What the hell, man?"

"I am against neither of you," Shino corrected. "Koan-san is right in his thinking. This genin unit is meant to function as a team. Infighting at such an early stage will create nothing but avoidable conflict in the near future. I hereby advise you both to cease and desist in this pointless line of conversation to circumvent wholly preventable complications."

Koan blinked once before he nodded.

Kiba just stared, his jaw hanging slack. "I think... you said more just then than you did in the past six years combined."

Shino sat back down and returned to face Hinata without another word.

Kiba shook his head, muttered something under his breath, and slid onto the bench next to Shino.

Koan remained standing, focused on the ground.

That was... uncomfortable.

The risk of argument was why he didn't like social interaction. He preferred nature. Nature didn't argue with him. It remained silent.

His gaze drew across to Hinata, just out of the corner of his eyes. Her head of dark blue hair was down, her fingers were woven nervously together, and her shoulders were just the slightest bit slumped. She didn't like fighting. And he brought it with him.

This is the problem with four genin on a team.

One more voice changed the team's dynamic radically. One more body meant one more person for the jounin to watch out for. It was one more responsibility, one more potential liability, one more worry that no one else needed. It was why genin teams were made up of three genin.

Yet here he was.

Koan sighed inaudibly.

"W-would you l-like t-to sit down, K-Koan-san?"

Dark eyes shot to the right. Hinata shifted back, almost imperceptibly. But he saw it, saw the fledgling anxiety in the movement. She was nervous. He had no intention of startling her.

So he indulged her. Without another word, he took slow steps – predictable steps – around the table, past Kiba and Shino, and placed himself on the same side of the table, but some distance away from her. He nodded, a motion he hoped relayed appreciation of some kind.

Hinata looked up briefly, enough to see it. Recognition darted across her lips before she returned to her cautious posture. With her shoulders hunched, her head lowered slightly and her fingers poking together nervously, she looked... fragile.

How strange.

A few moments of silence passed them by. It was only after those few did he recognise the next few as awkward. But then it wasn't.

Kiba began talking to Shino, quietly at first, but quickly becoming loud, animated with great gestures of his arms as he explained something passionately, something to do with the Inuzuka and their clan compound rife with canine life in all its shapes and sizes. Shino nodded and contributed something of his own, a somewhat clinical statement on the structure of the Aburame, the sort of logical hierarchy with which the clan functioned in a manner much akin to that of a hive, resembling their insects in some ways. Hinata offered a small, quiet token of the Hyuuga, a clan with long history and even longer traditions.

Then it fell to him.

Kiba looked at him expectantly. Shino gazed upon him with waiting impassivity. Hinata did not judge him with her eyes, but he still felt the weight of her hearing upon him, strange as it was.

"I'm not from a clan," he uttered simply.

"That we know," Shino said. "We wish to know of your family."

Koan looked down briefly. "I'm an orphan."

Shino nodded. "I apologise for the intrusion."

How... strange.

Kiba, despite the simmering glint of resentment or rivalry still sweltering in his slitted eyes, rubbed the back of his neck with an awkward grin. "Yeah, that was kind of insensitive."

"I am... sorry, Koan-san," Hinata murmured, oddly without a stutter.

"It's alright," he managed after a moment. "It's not like I ever told anyone."

They all nodded in their own ways: rigidly, lively, and gently. But he doubted they understood.

Nature understood. The Hokage understood. Naruto understood.

The one within him understood.

"Indeed, meat sack," a deep, rolling voice said in his head.

Koan glanced up slightly. You're always looking out for me, you damn dirty ape.

The ancient voice laughed slowly, a dry chuckle of immense proportions. "Say whatever you need to, flesh bag. It changes nothing."

Right.

"It changes nothing," the voice repeated.

Again, right.

A rumble quaked in the depths. "It. Changes. Nothing."

... I'm annoying you, aren't I?

"Yes."

I'll leave you alone now.

"Do."

The voice faded into the recesses of his mind.

"Huh," he murmured. "So that's where I get that from."

Kiba frowned. "Get what from?"

He shook his head. "Nothing."

Kiba relented with a quiet mutter. Conversation resumed. Koan said nothing.

But it was exactly what this thing wasn't. It was something. He just didn't know what yet.

It wasn't hard to track her. Her straight-line run did little to deter his efforts to follow. He doubted she was thinking about that now, though. No matter how incredibly intelligent Sakura could be, how encyclopaedic her mind truly was, it just seemed to shut down when emotion took hold of her.

Out on missions, that could be dangerous.

He found her crying softly on a bench nestled in a secluded corner of a secluded path. The rays of sun practically dripping through the trees above did little to distract him from Sakura's tears. He could see the slight tremors that ran along the gentle peaks of her drooping, dejected shoulders every few seconds as she stopped sobbing to just breathe. Clear in every way, she was struggling. She needed help.

Hands in his pockets, Naruto walked slowly towards her sobbing form.

"Sakura..." he began uncertainly.

She didn't look up from the ground. "What... what do you want, Naruto?"

Beneath the pink locks shadowing her face, Sakura's voice was strained, shaky. It didn't sound like her. He didn't like that.

"I just wanted to check on you," he said, shifting awkwardly on the spot. "See if you were al –"

"Do I look alright to you?" she snapped, reddened, tear-stricken eyes bearing down on him.

Naruto frowned. "Hey, I was just worried about you, Sakura."

"Like you... like you care," she mumbled out between more wracking sobs. "Like anyone cares."

The tears fell harder.

Naruto reached out a hand. "Sakura..."

It was slapped away before he could try and comfort her. "Don't touch me!"

His hand dropped to his side. "I'm... I'm sorry."

Naruto turned on his heel. "I'll leave you alone. Sorry for bothering you."

"Wait..."

He glanced back. She was looking up at him all of a sudden. Her red-green eyes lost judgement, lost sharpness. They became dull, incapable of cutting. It was like looking at edgeless knives. Then he remembered they were her eyes. They were Sakura's big, bright emerald eyes rimmed with dripping tears and puffy stains of red. They weren't dangerous.

An arm reached out towards him, pleading. "Don't go..."

He didn't.

Naruto sat down next to her on the bench. She leaned on his shoulder and cried.

He didn't say anything. He didn't try to do anything to comfort her beyond a light pat on the back. He didn't know what to say. He didn't have the words she needed to hear. But, as time passed them by, it seemed he didn't need to say anything. His presence had been enough.

Her tears slowed to a crawl as she looked up at him, something between embarrassment and shame trembling on her features. That faded to steady understanding when he didn't look at her with judging eyes.

Ever so slowly, words came drifting out of her.

At first, he wasn't sure what she was talking about. It began as quiet murmurs about harsh words fired at her by Sasuke. Then it was her shaky initial response to him cut off by the laughter from a handful of other girls. And then she was out the door, crying her eyes out on a bench somewhere nearby before he showed up.

After that... it was about her feelings. Within the space of a day, she already felt like a failure. He told her she wasn't. She quoted Sasuke word for word. He insisted he was wrong. She asked how he could possibly know.

"I don't."

She was surprised, perhaps a little shocked.

"Even if he's right now, you can prove him wrong."

All it would take was time and effort.

Beyond that, they didn't talk about anything in particular. It became casual, comfortable. It became friendly.

Sakura looked at him tentatively. "We're... we're friends, right, Naruto?"

Naruto glanced at her with a smile. "Yeah. We are."

Friends...

It sounded good to him.

After some moments and minutes of quiet conversing between the other three, filled with their respective styles of speech, someone approached. There was a sudden twitch in nearby leaves, an abrupt shudder that ran through the upper branches of the trees that circled the area at different points. Someone wanted them to look up.

Kiba did, for a moment. Shino remained still. He could not tell where exactly Hinata was looking. He threw his gaze to the space around him.

But there was nothing there. Wait...

Something felt... off.

Shino pushed his sunglasses higher on the bridge of his nose. "Genjutsu."

Three claps rang out from nowhere.

"Very good."

A woman melted out of air and into view.

He found her appearance... uncommon. She wore a series of bandages marked with what looked to be rose thorns over red mesh armour equipped with only the right sleeve, along with bandages around her hands and forearms. Black hair hung loosely down her shoulders, some make-up was on her lips and around her eyes, and her hitai-ate was tied firmly around her forehead, covering a sliver of fair skin.

She didn't look like a lot of other people.

"K-Kurenai-san," Hinata greeted with a small wave.

The woman smiled. "Hello, Hinata. Please, call me Kurenai-sensei."

Her unusual red eyes turned to the rest of them. "The same goes for all of you."

Two silent nods, Kiba's lopsided grin and a yip from Akamaru answered her.

"So," Kurenai began, leaning herself casually against the other bench. "It's very likely that you each know who each other are, however, I imagine the majority of you don't know who I am. I'll introduce myself, and to keep the theme going, you'll each introduce yourselves to the team. My name is Yuuhi Kurenai. I recently became a jounin, and I specialise in genjutsu. I like reading and studying a variety of subjects, experimenting with genjutsu, watching sunsets and spending time with my fellow jounin. I dislike those people that regard kunoichi as ineffective ninja and when teammates fight with each other. My current ambition is to make this team a success in every way I can."

Kiba almost jumped to his feet when Kurenai's eyes fell to him. "My name is Inuzuka Kiba, and this is my best friend in the whole wide world... Akamaru!"

He triumphantly raised his white-furred dog into the air, aloft for all to see. Akamaru just yawned and fell asleep in Kiba's hands.

Patting his sleeping canine on the head and putting him back in his jacket, Kiba grinned. "I like Akamaru, walking Akamaru, eating with Akamaru, Akamaru, and dried meats and things. I dislike stuck-up jerks, stuck-up assholes, stuck-up pricks, stuck-up-f –"

"I think we get the idea, Kiba," Kurenai cut him off at the pass.

Kiba blanched underneath the woman's surprisingly intimidating gaze. "Uh, right... anyway, my ambition is to be the best tracker and fighter in my whole clan... and maybe become Hokage, or Jounin Commander, or something like that. I'll figure it out when I get there."

Shino adjusted his sunglasses once more. "My name is Aburame Shino. I am fond of entomology. I dislike judgement passed without logical basis. My current goal is to develop my own techniques within the sphere of the Aburame. My long-term ambition is to lead my clan well."

Koan watched as Hinata leant into herself a little more. The sudden attention on her seemed to make her recoil. "My n-name is H-Hyuuga Hinata. I like k-kind people, p-people who encourage o-others. I dislike... c-conflict. My ambition is to g-grow strong e-enough to... to be recognised by... my father and... and by someone..."

Then Kurenai's unusual gaze turned to him. The others looked at him, too. He... wasn't used to it, but he cleared his throat with a quiet cough and pressed on nonetheless. "My name is Koan. I fight best at close to mid-range. The list of what I like is fairly short. The list of what I dislike is a lot longer. My goals, ambitions... don't have many, and I don't have any I care to mention right now. That's all I have to say."

He noticed a glance travel from Kiba to Shino and back. Beneath slouched shoulders, Hinata did not react. Leant casually on a table's edge, hands pressed lightly against the wood, Kurenai betrayed nothing.

He expected as much.

But he didn't expect that odd stare of Kurenai's to be so piercing. She gazed at him carefully, perfectly measured. It was practiced. She was weighing him up, stacking his words and his appearance in equally high piles against one another to see what added up and what didn't. And he was aware of the holes in his defence. They were tiny, damn near unseeable, but they were there. Kurenai could see them.

He didn't like that.

Her red-eyed watch snapped loose of him and swept over the others. "Well, now introductions are out of the way, what do you think this team will be focused on?"

"Tracking and reconnaissance," Shino answered immediately. "My insects may be employed in part for both. Kiba-san's enhanced sensory capacity and Hinata-san's Byakugan fit both respective roles equally, if not in a superior manner to my own."

As he finished, his head turned the slightest bit towards Koan.

Koan shifted his eyes down slightly. Of course.

Kurenai nodded firmly. "Very good, Shino."

"Kurenai-sensei..." Hinata's shy voice interjected quietly into the air around them.

"Yes, Hinata?"

"Why d-do w-we have a f-fourth member?" she asked. "I thought g-genin teams were m-made of three genin a-and one jounin."

Kurenai nodded again. "Traditionally, they are. Three genin has been the standard format for a very long time. Only during times of active conflict with other villages are more than three genin assigned to a single jounin. There was a slight irregularity with this year's number of graduating genin, however, which forced a slight change to the usual procedure."

Hinata bowed her head in a nod and resumed her cautious, withdrawn posture.

"That in itself does bring up a good point," Kurenai continued. "Specialised teams can often suffer from a lack of diversity in regards to skills. If we're put in a position out in the field where our abilities may not suit the situation, a teammate with a different skill set can definitely help."

With that, she very casually gestured towards him.

That was... true. He hadn't given that much consideration, but she was right. He wasn't geared for tracking or scouting. He was made for combat, forged for direct engagement. That was his strong point.

"Now, talk amongst yourselves for a moment," Kurenai said, right before she motioned for him to follow.

She pulled away into the trees. He followed.

Koan had a feeling he already knew what this was about.

"Kami, what's taking this guy so long?" Naruto grumbled quietly.

No one took this long, least of all a jounin. They were meant to be elite ninja, the best of Konoha's best. At least, that was what he had gleaned from Sasuke's uncharacteristic mumblings to no one in particular.

Sakura leant back in her seat and sighed. "You'd think a jounin would know how to be on time."

Situated a desk away from him, Sakura proceeded to tap her fingers impatiently against the wood, a vague melody consuming her movement in a few moments.

They all had their own little idiosyncrasies, their small habits that dealt with boredom.

At first glances, Sakura liked to tap away at her desk in a slightly rhythmic fashion. Sasuke seemed to enjoy scowling at the world and grunting when he couldn't be bothered to answer. Naruto? Well, he liked to prank people.

The pranking urge hadn't grabbed at him in a while, so he didn't really have any decent materials on hand. But they were in a classroom...

Standing up quickly, Naruto moved to the front of the room to snatch an eraser from the base of the blackboard.

Sasuke perked up... or whatever passed for perking up when it came to him. "What are you doing now, dobe?"

Naruto scowled reflexively. "Just trying to pass the time, teme. You glare at everything. Sakura taps at her desk. I do this."

Sliding the door the tiniest bit ajar, Naruto jumped and quickly wedged the eraser into the gap. The moment the door was opened, the eraser would fall onto their head. It wasn't clever in the slightest. It was pretty stupid, actually. But he didn't care. It was something to pass the time with.

"That's not the smartest idea, Naruto," Sakura said with a pained expression.

Naruto nodded. "It's not meant to be clever. It's meant to tell our sensei we're annoyed."

"We could do that with words as well," she suggested.

Naruto shrugged as he returned to his seat. "Or we could do this. It doesn't make much difference to me."

Sakura just shook her head and sighed again. Naruto sat back down and waited.

And waited. And waited.

It had been three hours already. Three hours. He could scarcely stand – or sit – to wait another second. Just as he was about to shout his disapproval of this guy's horrible sense of time and lack of punctuality, footsteps echoed in the hall.

Naruto waited a second longer.

The door slid open, an unfamiliar head of silver hair popped in and the eraser fell. A single exposed eye looked down at the ground, then back up at them.

The door slid open fully, and a silver-haired man in typical jounin gear – except for a mask covering most of his face and his hitai-ate slanted to shelter his left eye – stepped in to regard them with a bored yet analytical gaze.

"My first impression of all of you..." he began slowly, "... I hate all of you."

Sakura gaped slightly at him. Sasuke snorted quietly at him. Naruto just stared at him, unfortunately wide-eyed.

The man's eye closed and flipped upwards in a manner reminiscent of a smile... except with his eye. He pointed upwards with a gloved hand, thumb extended skyward. "Meet on the roof in five."

"Is that five seconds, minutes or hours?" Naruto asked.

The eye-smile didn't falter. "I'll give you all one guess."

"Hours?" Sakura chimed in.

Sasuke grunted.

"Minutes?" Naruto asked hopefully.

"And..." he drawled out, "... Blondie is the winner! See you all in five minutes on the roof."

His hands formed seals at a lightning pace and he was gone in a sudden swirl of leaves.

"That was mildly impressive," Naruto noted absently.

Sakura nodded. "But he was still three hours late. Three hours late."

Sasuke shook his head. "This guy seems like an idiot."

Naruto feigned slack-jawed astonishment, slapping his palms to his cheeks. "Sakura, he speaks! The Uchiha speaks!"

Sakura chuckled quietly. "Shocking, isn't it?"

Naruto shot her a wide grin. Sasuke scowled at nothing and everything and began to walk out.

He was starting to enjoy this whole 'friends' thing.

He and Sakura exited the classroom and quickly made their way up to the roof, Sasuke just a few steps ahead of them.

Naruto had spent some time up on the roof before. It was actually a small park lined with trees and benches oddly enough. Not many people knew about it, or if they did, not many actually stayed up there for prolonged periods of time. It had always been strangely empty when he'd been up there.

Oh, yeah. He kept forgetting about that.

The silver-haired man sat on the furthest railing, Sasuke, Sakura and himself taking a seat just opposite him on the ground and on nearby benches.

"So, how about we go around in a circle and introduce ourselves?" he asked them with another one of his odd eye-smiles. "Just give your name, likes, dislikes, goals and dreams, or something like that."

Sakura cocked her head to one side. "Can you start us off, sensei?"

"Okay," he nodded without opening his eye. "My name is Hatake Kakashi. I like some things, I dislike some things, I don't feel like sharing my goals, and I had a dream last night involving a talking tree and a cat that barked like a dog. It got really weird."

Sakura eyed Kakashi warily, Sasuke didn't seem to care, and Naruto nodded absentmindedly. Yep. Sasuke was right on the money with this one.

Apparently, this guy was meant to be a jounin, an elite shinobi. Somehow, somewhere beneath all the weird-ass mannerisms and strange outward appearance, this guy had the skills and experience of a professional at the top of his field. Naruto had no small measure of difficulty believing that.

Kakashi pointed to him, still smiling with his eye. "Your turn, Blondie."

Naruto looked at him funny. "Okay... my name is Uzumaki Naruto. I like ramen. Ramen's pretty good. Though, when I say 'pretty good', I mean ramen is freaking amazing. I don't like the time it takes to prepare ramen, the proper stuff or the instant stuff. And as for my dream..."

Looking at the ground for a moment, Naruto trailed off mid-sentence.

He wasn't quite sure of that one anymore. The position of Hokage had been his goal for a very long time. His dream was to... be free. Yet again, he hadn't always known what that really meant. And now he wasn't sure what he was dreaming of being free from. The Kyuubi, perhaps?

But then someone else has to shoulder my responsibility...

He couldn't let that happen. It was his burden.

Freedom can wait. Responsibility can't.

He looked back up at Kakashi, suddenly resolute. "My dream is to one day become Hokage."

Kakashi opened his eye to look at him fully, properly sizing him up before he gave him a slow, steady nod.

"And what about you, Pinkie?" Kakashi asked, turning to Sakura.

She offered him a gentle scowl at the nickname. "Right... my name is Haruno Sakura. I like..."

She paused, looked around a little. Naruto saw her glance hit Sasuke's face quickly, her eyes practically ricocheting off his when they suddenly snapped away and back to the ground. Sasuke became something other than purely impassive.

"I'm not really sure," she continued quietly. "I dislike stupid decisions, and when people make them. My goals... I need to rethink those. As for my dreams... same thing, I guess."

Kakashi stroked his masked chin with a gloved hand. "Okay. It's the brooding one's turn now."

Sasuke leant forward into his hands, elbows supported by his knees. "My name is Uchiha Sasuke. I don't like a lot of things. I hate more things than I actually like. My dream is an ambition. My ambition is to rebuild my clan... and to rid the world of... someone."

Sakura glanced at him cautiously out of the corner of her eye. Naruto did much the same.

Kakashi just blinked once. "Okay... Well, you three seem... unique, perhaps. That's something. Anyway, we're going to do something as a team tomorrow."

Naruto scratched his head. "We have a mission already?"

"Something along those lines," Kakashi nodded. "We're going to be doing some survival training, but this is going to be a little bit more serious than what you did at the Academy."

Sakura raised an eyebrow. "How come?"

Kakashi paused a moment. "Well... think of it like a test. A really hard test. A really hard test that you're more likely to fail than pass."

"Get to the point," Sasuke grunted.

Kakashi nodded. "It comes down to this: you're not genin yet."

"Then what was the graduation exam for?" Naruto asked.

"That was there to weed out those who weren't qualified," Kakashi explained. "This next test determines whether or not you three become genin. And, quick word of warning, there's a sixty-six percent failure rate for this thing."

Sakura sighed. "Sounds like fun."

"Oh, don't be like that," Kakashi chuckled. "Anyway, we'll meet tomorrow at five A.M. on Training Ground Three. Bring full mission gear and I'll decide whether or not you've got what it takes. See you, then!"

His hands flashed through seals again and he disappeared in another swirl of leaves.

Naruto blinked at the handful of leaves left in Kakashi's place. "Well... shit."

Sasuke grunted once more. "Agreed."

Standing a distance from the others beneath the shelter of the trees, Kurenai appeared... apprehensive. He knew where this was going.

"Hokage-sama told me something rather... unexpected," she phrased delicately. "He said that you are a..."

Of course.

"Jinchuuriki," Koan finished for her. "What about it?"

"Will it affect your teammates?" she asked.

Koan shook his head. "Unless I'm heavily provoked, it won't."

One of her thin eyebrows rose. "Are you sure?"

"What do you know about jinchuuriki?"

Her face became firm. "Enough to know they're dangerous."

"To teammates or enemies?"

She remained inexpressive. "Jinchuuriki are a risk to be around."

"Shinobi are a risk to be around," he countered.

"That's different."

"How?"

"Very few ninja ever wield as much power as jinchuuriki."

Koan shook his head again. "Shinobi are made no less dangerous by that fact. The difference lies in number. There are only nine jinchuuriki."
"A valid point, but I still have a responsibility to ensure the safety of my genin."

Koan blinked once, twice... thinking. "You say that like I'm not one of them."

"You were going to be one of Kakashi's," Kurenai said after a moment.

"And I suppose that makes me even more of an irregularity."

"Look, Koan, I'm not trying to separate you from the others. All I'm trying to do is keep them safe. A lot of things can go wrong out on missions, and the last thing I need is to be looking over my shoulder the entire time for a threat that may come from within our own ranks."

"I understand."

"I'm sorry if that sounded harsh, but –"

"I understand your reasoning, Kurenai," Koan interrupted with a raised hand. "But I'm not a time bomb. Jinchuuriki aren't like that. They... we... don't function like that, not if we have the slightest bit of control over our power."

"And how much do you have?"

"Enough to restrain myself if need be."

"And if you don't?"

"... then the deed falls to you."

Her eyes closed, and Kurenai sighed. She seemed... regretful, in a way. "I hope it never comes to that."

"As do I," he agreed.

Kurenai opened her unusual eyes again, scanning his face with a pensive gaze. "You seem oddly calm about all this."

He nodded. "I came to terms with it some time ago."

"I imagine it wasn't easy," she said.

He looked down slightly. "Something like that."

Silence fell down from the branches above them.

He didn't have anything else to add. There was nothing else for him to say. Her views were out in the open. She had a responsibility to the village, to the Hokage, and to the genin serving under her to maintain safety and security at all costs. No threats were to be tolerated against any of the three. The village was sacred, the Hokage was its head, and Kurenai's team was suddenly precious. In those circles, all those rings of immense import, he stood within and without.

Such was the duality of the jinchuuriki. To be so essential to the balance and safety of village and nation together, yet to represent such a threat to both was a strange existence indeed. But it was his, and it was the only one he knew.

He looked at Kurenai. She was impassive, composed, even as he could feel the chill of an uncomfortable silence settling over them both. He looked to the others in the clearing, still talking silently, loudly and quietly all at the same time. They were vigilant, unaware and observant all at the same time. He didn't know their lives. They didn't know his.

Maybe it would stay that way. But once again, he didn't know.

A motioning of hands from Kurenai towards the grass visible through the trees caught his attention. "Perhaps we should continue this some other time."

"Very well," he said, walking ahead of her.

"Koan?"

He stopped moving. "Yes?"

He could almost hear nervous creases spread over her as she struggled to find the right words. "I don't hold what's inside you... against you."

Koan threw a glance over his shoulder, towards her, before he kept on walking. "We'll see... sensei."

He didn't know, but there was a chance. Time would tell.

"Goodbye, Ayame-nee-chan," Naruto turned to call behind him as he walked away from his favourite ramen stand.

A warm wave and a warmer voice met his eyes. "Goodbye, Naruto-kun. And good luck for tomorrow!"

He tossed the lovely brown-haired girl behind the counter a thumbs-up. "I'll definitely pass now."

Ichiraku's was – in his totally unbiased view – the greatest source of ramen in the world. And that was no small feat. Ramen was amazing in and of itself, but the stuff they served on that well-worn bench and in those well-aged bowls was on a level beyond all others.

But there was more to it than that.

It wasn't so much about the ramen. It was about the people serving it, the two people behind the counter that worked the stoves, prepared the noodles and toiled for the perfect salty-sweetness that was the renowned broth of Ichiraku's. Teuchi and his daughter, Ayame, were good people. They were kind, they were caring, and, above all, they treated him like they would treat anyone else. It was always with a smile, always with a friendly wave, and always with understanding. They were like that with more than just him.

Naruto smiled. With a belly full of ramen and the taste of salt and pork and noodles and everything else lingering in his mouth, the darkening streets of Konoha weren't dark at all.

The sun was sinking below the hills of verdant green beyond Konoha's walls, and the sky was turning a tired auburn between the orange-lit clouds. It was a nice time in the village, when the people were heading home, the markets were closing down, and the warmth of the day faded into a comfortable neutrality carried by the evening winds of dusk.

He enjoyed it, but...

Naruto looked down as he walked.

That test kept looming over his head. That seemingly necessary yet very unnecessary test kept standing at attention, front and centre in his mind.

He knew it was going to be a team exercise. It had to be. Genin cells relied on teamwork. It was more than just him there. He felt he could rely on Sasuke and Sakura. They weren't fools, they weren't unskilled. They were just... not yet ideal.

The Academy hadn't done much to encourage a needed sense of teamwork. Class rankings and awarded titles like Rookie of the Year didn't help either. Among the boys, it had always been about competition over cohesion. It was a somewhat similar theme that ran through the girls, but more along the lines of interest in boys and materialistic things he didn't really understand that well. It had seemed to him so often that joint efforts were wasted efforts when it came down to grades and exams.

Yet again, it wasn't like he had been offered much in the way of assistance. But even that was changing.

He had Koan... sort of.

Naruto still wasn't sure what to call him, what to refer to him as. Koan was not quite a friend, not quite a source of advice, and not quite a nuisance that woke him up in the morning by throwing him out of bed and into another room. His face was still sore from that little trip.

Naruto shook his head. "How did he even get into my apartment, anyway?"

"I already told you."

Naruto recalled the somewhat unpleasant morning with a nod. "Ah, that's right. I fell asleep on the –"

He cut himself off as he looked sharply to his right. "Uh... how long have you been walking behind me?"

Koan rubbed a hand along the back of his neck. "Two minutes. You looked deep in thought."

Despite his larger size – Naruto was a bit on the short side, but he could see Koan was probably the tallest guy from their class –and relatively heavy stride, Koan was surprisingly quiet. Yet again, he barely said anything at all. It made him slightly anxious around him.

For a moment, it was just the two of them walking along streets bathed in the waning light of nightfall. For a moment, Koan's presence didn't seem awkward or forced. It felt... comfortable.

That's new.

Naruto placed his hands in his pockets and eyed Koan for a brief moment. "Did you want something?"

"How did the test go for you?" he asked.

Naruto shook his head with a sigh. "It's tomorrow for me."

Koan nodded. "In that case, I have something to teach you."

"Teach me?" Naruto raised an eyebrow as he glanced at him. "Why?"

Koan met his gaze without hesitation. "You're lacking."

He didn't lower his eyebrow. "Lacking what?"

Koan shrugged. "Proper taijutsu, chakra control – take your pick. There's a lot to choose from."

Naruto chuckled dryly. "And I suppose that's your way of saying you're stronger than I am."

"At the moment," Koan nodded.

Naruto frowned. "What do you mean?"

"You have potential," Koan said after a moment's pause. "Not sure how much, but it's there. You just need a hand to shove you in the right direction."

Naruto laughed quietly. "And it's your hand that's going to be doing the shoving, I'm guessing."

The hint of a grin or a smirk tugged at the corner of Koan's mouth. "I do like to push things over."

Naruto shook his head with a short sigh. "Of course you do."

A smirk made headway up half of his face before Koan's stride suddenly overtook his. "Follow me."

"Where are we going?" Naruto asked, silently cursing his shorter legs as he tried to keep up.

Koan glanced over his shoulder. "You'll see."

It took them ten minutes to reach the training ground cast in fading light.

There were so many of them scattered around Konoha, all different shapes and sizes. Some had crystal-clear rivers flowing through reeded glades against grassy banks; some were composed of dense woodland with little space to manoeuvre; some were flat and featureless, equipped with the standard practice dummies for taijutsu and targets for thrown weapons.

This one was a circular clearing, perhaps fifty metres wide and lined with trees. A number of tall, thick wooden posts were strewn almost randomly across the tight-packed grass.

Naruto spared Koan a glance. "What's with the poles?"

"Fights don't stay in one place," Koan said.

"Oh," Naruto mumbled, walking a little bit closer to place a hand on the rough wood of the pole. They were meant to offer basic obstacles during spars, interrupting the flow of a battle by placing objects in the way. It was straightforward, but effective for an introduction to real-life combat.

Naruto began to turn to his right. "So what –"

Fist filled his view.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Naruto almost shouted from just below Koan's outstretched arm.

Koan retracted his limb slowly. "Just testing your reaction time."

"By almost taking my head off?" Naruto stared at him, still slightly crouched.

Koan shook his head. "That would've just been a bruise, maybe a slight fracture at worst."

Naruto stood back up. "I saw the crater you slammed Mizuki into. I somehow doubt the worst you can do with a punch is a fracture."

Koan tilted his head slightly to the left as he nodded. "You're right."

Naruto frowned and turned slightly. "What are you... oh, that."

The wooden post was made of thick, durable wood. It was dense, pockmarked with years of scratches and punctures from shuriken and kunai. He didn't think one punch would do so much damage. Where Koan had hit now sat a thick, gaping crack in the wood, lined with dozens of outfacing splinters and leaking sawdust. He could've sworn that the pole hadn't been leaning that much a few seconds ago either.

"That's... odd," Naruto said uncertainly.

Koan shook his head. "Not that odd. Plenty of people are stronger."

"Yeah," Naruto half-agreed, "but those people aren't genin."

"Fair point," Koan nodded.

A moment passed before Naruto said anything. "Uh, weren't you going to teach me something?"

"Yeah," Koan said, taking a few steps back. "There're two things actually. First one is this."

And then he slid a metre to his left... without moving his feet.

Naruto's eyebrows shot up. "How did you do that?"

"There are two steps to this," Koan began. "First is to layer chakra over your soles. Make sure it's a small amount."

Naruto nodded slowly as he closed his eyes to concentrate. "Alright."

For most people, the problem they faced when using chakra was quantity. They had to be careful with how much they put in for fear of exhausting their reserves too quickly.

In his case, however, the issue was control. He had a lot of chakra, more than he really knew what to do with. Jutsu rarely tired him out. Strenuous physical activity could bring fatigue to his body, but he had never really had to be afraid of running low on chakra. The problem was that he couldn't control it very well.

The feeling of gathering chakra was like tugging on a rope without his hands. It had been strange at first, but years of feeling the sensation had made it more than familiar. The harder he tugged on the rope he felt in his centre, the more chakra he pulled out. It had to be a small amount, which meant it had to be gentle pulls, which meant it took time. As such, it was no surprise that it took him more than a minute to feel out the right amount to push through his feet and layer below him.

"I think I've got it," Naruto said, looking up to Koan.

Koan nodded. "Second step is to push chakra out of the sides of your feet. If you want to go left, push from the right side; if you want to go right, push from the left, and so on. Make sure you keep feeding chakra into the ground as well."

"Alright," Naruto mumbled as he resumed concentration.

Chakra was pooling in his feet, excess leaking slowly out of his soles. All he needed to do was push a little bit of that energy out of his left or right side.

This shouldn't be too hard. Let's see...

He pushed very, very lightly to the left.

Naruto looked down to his feet. "Hey, I – Whoa!"

He landed right on his ass as his feet flew out from under him.

Koan chuckled. "That's what happens when you apply to much pressure."

Naruto turned his gaze up. "Should I keep practicing?"

"Yes," Koan nodded.

The pattern of 'chakra, slide a little and then land on his rear' continued for a while, the growing monotony interrupted occasionally by a quiet laugh or a tiny bit of advice from Koan. As it turned out, the technique of sliding across the ground was both a chakra control exercise and a useful trick for added mobility when it was needed.

The sun had well and truly disappeared below the horizon by the time he felt some actual improvement. The moon was out between the clouds, casting down blue and silvery light before he got used to the outlandish feeling of floating along the ground with little resistance.

"I think I've got it now," Naruto said, eyes on the ground as he watched himself slide from side to side. "It's actually kind of fun once you get used to it."

Koan nodded. "Somewhat, I guess. Now that you're used to it, we'll move on to the second part."

Naruto's eyes snapped up quickly. "And what's that?"

"Throw a punch at me," Koan said, raising a hand in a catching position. "Hard as you can."

He scratched the back of his head. "Why?"

Koan sighed. "You'll see."

Naruto stopped sliding around carelessly and shrugged as he stepped towards Koan. "Fine. Have a fist."

He cocked his fist back, felt his muscles tense, and let it fly straight into Koan's waiting palm with a satisfying smack of knuckle slamming down hard on flesh.

Koan didn't even flinch.

"What was the point of that?" Naruto asked.

Koan looked down. "Do it again, but watch my legs this time."

Koan's hand went up, Naruto's fist went in and his eyes went down.

"Oh," he mumbled. "Your legs didn't move."

Koan nodded. "The point of this next one is to lock your feet in place. It stops you from getting knocked back so easily in close-quarters."

"And how do I...?" Naruto trailed off.

"Push your chakra into the ground and then compress it," Koan said.

"That sounds weird."

"It is."

He let the chakra gather in his feet again before he began to feed it into the ground.

Compress it? How am I supposed to... oh.

If chakra had been a weird experience at first, this was in a league of its own.

"Should it feel like I'm clenching my feet into fists?"

"Yes."

"... it feels really, really weird."

"Yes. Yes, it does."

"Do you ever get used to it?"

"Not really."

"That sucks."

"The sensation might suck, but the trade-off is worth it."

"How so?"

"If I you catch my punch, you won't be sent flying."

"Wait, you're going to –"

Koan's arm became a blur.

Naruto smashed into the wooden post behind him.

"Kami, that hurts," he grumbled, clutching hands at his poor, bruised torso.

Koan was already standing in front of him. "You didn't use enough chakra."

It was thirty seconds or so of recovery before Naruto hauled himself to his feet with a groan and responded. "Apparently not."

Koan folded his arms over his chest. "Try again."

"Fine," he sighed.

Naruto focused his chakra and sent it down through his legs slowly before he let it pool in his feet. Then there was the second step. He pushed a fair bit of the gathering energy out through his feet to the ground below, allowed it to waver and billow in the grass before it found purchase in the earth, and then locked it and himself in place with that weird-ass thing that felt like he was making his feet into fists.

Koan stood up. "Ready?"

"Ready as I'll ever be," Naruto nodded.

Koan threw a slow fist forward, telegraphed to the extreme. Naruto caught it easily. It wasn't so easy to withstand.

Pressure swept through his body like a tsunami. The ground beneath his feet actually cracked. But he remained standing this time.

"Fuck, that hurts," Naruto groaned as he released his grip on the chakra in his feet, letting it flow back into his body and rejoin the stream.

"You're still standing this time, though," Koan said with a half-smile.

Naruto nodded. "Yeah, but your punches are still a bitch and a half to take head on. How the hell are they that strong, anyway?"

Koan shrugged. "Kekkei genkai."

Naruto frowned. "What are those again?"

"Abilities passed on genetically, usually in a clan environment," Koan said.

The crease of curiosity in his brow didn't go away. "But what's yours?"

"Remember the fires that started when we fought Mizuki?"

Naruto nodded. "Yeah. What about them?"

"Those were from my Youton techniques," Koan said.

Naruto scratched at his neck. "Youton?"

"Mix fire and earth into one, you get Youton. It can come in different forms of volcanic material, but the main thing is lava," he explained.

He sure was frowning a lot. "That's... kind of scary."

Koan nodded. "So I can even use them, I need to maintain very high internal temperature. To stop my body from falling apart under the pressure, my muscle density is significantly higher than most. If I shove chakra directly into my muscles, they react accordingly as well."

"Ah. So that's what makes you hit like a ton of bricks."

"Yes."

"... I call unfair advantage."

"It has its downsides."

"Like what?"

"I weigh a lot."

"How's that a problem?"

"Think about it."

"Is it something to do with your speed?"

"It slows me down, yeah," Koan said with a slight nod of his head.

"Is there anything else you can teach me right now?" Naruto asked.

Koan shook his head. "Not right now. We'll save it for another time, like after tomorrow."

"Yeah," Naruto muttered, his eyes immediately downcast. "That."

It was frustrating. That entire test determined whether or not he actually got on a team, like it dismissed everything he had already done up to that point. Like the entire ordeal with the scroll –

"Like it'd all been for nothing, right?"

Naruto looked up quickly. "How did you..."

"I could see it in your eyes," Koan replied. "It was obvious."

Naruto nodded. "Yeah. I suppose it was."

"But you're prepared now, at least a little," Koan said.

"Is that why you..." Naruto trailed off.

"That's part of it," Koan answered. "The other part is that we should probably train together from now on."

Blue eyes widened just a little. "You mean that?"

Koan's eyes, dark things that they were, met his. "Yeah."

Then his eyes shifted up to the night sky. "I mean that."

This took a little while.

The next chapter won't take as long.

Waiting for the story to really pick up at Chapter 5,

A238