A Change

I slept in the next day. Enjoying the comforts of what could only be provided by a mother - something I had long grown used to over the years. And something I didn't want to leave behind. But I had to get up eventually. I was just glad Yuugao slept in with me.

I bathed, and got dressed in my new outfit. Something I was certain I would keep for the rest of my kunoichi life. It was made to grow with me. So much was condensed into my outfit, that even a little size difference wouldn't affect it. The only person who actually knows what it's made from is Kaa-chan. She's the one watching me whenever create or modify it.

I ate breakfast and left around half an hour before I suspected when sensei would arrive.

I held my flattened ears with gloved hands in preparation for Sakura's screech of pain.

"NARUNA-BAKA! WHERE WERE YOU?!"

'Ouw...' Thankfully the pain subsided after a moment, "Sensei isn't here yet either... And please do not so so loud Sakura-san. Your banshee voice is loud enough without raising it. My ears are sensitive..." She flushed in anger at my little insult, but shut up, thankfully.

I just laid down in the grass, away from Sasuke. His darkness was rolling off of him in waves today. I guess the mixture of not eating, waiting for sensei, and putting up with the banshee has put him in a bad mood.

I waited silently for sensei to make his presence known. I sat away from my teammates, keeping to myself, and away from the obvious pain they bring me.

Eventually sensei decided he had mourned enough at his stone to attend to us. At ten in the morning, exactly, he appeared in front of us in a swirl of leaves. "Yo!"

I shunshined a distance away in preparation for the screech to follow. "YOU'RE LATE!"

Sasuke looked a bit peeved too, but didn't voice his concern out loud.

'Yeesh, I can't believe Sasuke can stand that so close. Maybe it's just my sensitive ears though…' I walked back to the group silently, only to have Sasuke glance at me curiously. He hadn't seen me move away after all.

"Maa, maa. I'm here, don't worry." Kakashi replied placatingly, or at least attempted too. They didn't look satisfied with his answer at all.

"Alright, you're test is to retrieve these bells." He clipped them onto his waist.

The next bit went near exactly as I remembered, sakura pointing out the two bells, and Kakashi explaining about one of us failing, and the intent to kill, ending with two growling stomachs - mine didn't and received a raised eyebrow from sensei. 'At least I haven't changed too much, yet.'

After Kakashi gave us the head start, I jumped into a nearby tree. I had left a clone to set up traps overnight, though I knew I would be hard pressed into actually trapping him.

I created two shadow clones, and sent one each to explain the test to Sasuke and Sakura. Their replies? "I need to prove myself." - 'to who?!' - and of course there was Sakura ignoring me completely, not even bothering to respond - instead looking for Sasuke… 'What did I ever do to this girl?!'

I honestly couldn't figure it out. No matter how much I racked my brain, I barely had any interaction with her. The few times I tried to - giving her advice in hopes to help - she had brushed me off completely, called me an idiot, or tried to hit me for god-knows-what. What kind of grudge does she have against me?

I was pulled from my thoughts when I sensed Kakashi, 'or maybe a clone? there's two,' coming at me from behind. I jumped from the branch in time to avoid a kick, and heard a high-pitched scream a distance away. 'He got Sakura already?' I thought as I felt the distant Kakashi vanish.

I jumped down to the clearing below. I watched him jump right where I wanted him. 'No orange book? Either he's taking me seriously, or taking my advice to heart.' Just as I said that, he reached down to his holster, pulling out something orange…

"Grrrrrrrrr" my audible growls registered in his senses and he looked at me questionable. 'Obviously he didn't care for my warning. I'll take pleasure in this!'

I willed a vine behind Kakashi to pull at a hidden wire, snapping it. Immediately a few dozen kunai shot towards Kakashi. He used kawarimi and hid in a tree, but I had rigged every tree in the nearby area. 'hehe.'

I heard a "Kaboom" from behind me. I looked towards where I sensed Kakashi to see him jumping from tree to tree, trying to get out of the sudden blasts of explosive seals I had placed directly on the trees. Only indication beforehand a slight invisible sizzle.

I watched on in morbid satisfaction as he scrambled away. 'I'm running out of traps though...' I willed a few vines to wrap around his ankle the moment he landed on the next tree, and just as he sliced the vine and jump, the explosion took him in the side. Right where he was holding his book….

I was filled with utter accomplishment as the bottom half of his closed book was roasted when he landed back in the clearing where I had created my specialized clones.

His face was petrified in horror as he felt his book protect him from part of the damage to be wrought. I could see it. He turned to me in astonished rage.

"I~ warned~ you~" My sing-song voice declared.

"You. YOU! YOU DESTROYED MY PRECIOUS!" He was literally crying anime-like tears. Something I had never seen before.

'His what now? Really…..?'

"That was an autographed, first edition print! You will not get away with this!"

"You are facing a Fuuinjutsu Mistress, surrounded by plant clones who each possess my skills, along with the ability to telepathically communicate with my specialized chakra. I think you need to reassess the situation Kakashi-sensei." I couldn't help but grin at him. His face had actually paled when I explained my clones could use my sealing techniques too.

Immediately he was on the move, kicking at a grass clone, which dodged underneath his leg.

My clones had actually been placing seals in the ground around Kakashi as they were shifting their feet. A gravity seal, one which forces anything inside the area into a dense gravitational field several times heavier than the earth's natural gravity. Actually mapping it out without it being discovered took a little bit of coordinated effort among my clones though.

As soon as I received the mental command it was completed, I moved into action. I ran forward at Kakashi. Doing a small twirl to avoid a punch to the side, my gloved hand headed towards the bell.

I sent the mental signal to a clone to activate the wide-area gravity field. Immediately Kakashi started plummeting towards the ground - I was prepared, so while I fell in tandem with sensei, my direction kept steady towards the two bells. My fingertips touched - placing a small seal on one - and immediately Kakashi's astonished surprise turned to speedy retreat. Even under the field, he was fast - though I still had half my seal in place slowing me down, along with the gravity.

He was out of my range as fast as I could blink. Yet I had achieved my objective - distraction allowing me completion. The gravity field let up a moment later, chakra running out.

"Almost!" He said in a semi-bored voice. His emotional pride was abundant though.

"Hehe, I'll get it yet, sensei" I just gave a happy-go-lucky grin as he vanished towards Sasuke.

I made my way towards the stumps where the food was, and unsealed my own lunch. I knew what would happen, so I came prepared. About halfway through my lunch, I heard Sakura's scream for the second time that day. 'And she faints to a bodiless Sasuke. Surprising that the result is the same even with my slight changes to the timeline and my changed gender.'

A moment later, the one-eyed man appeared in front of me. Astonishment was applied to his face, as if he couldn't believe I was eating when he told me I couldn't have lunch before the test. I created a wood clone to go dig Sasuke up while sensei spoke up.

"Ignoring orders I see? And the test hasn't even finished. There's still two minutes, and you have no bell…."

I held up my palm, and immediately a violet flash uncovered a bell. I applied chakra to my palm and instantly the bell disappeared into my blood seal storage. Kakashi's face looked as if he had seen a remnant of the past, along with unsurmountable surprise.

"H-h-how?"

"I told you I was a Seals Mistress, sensei. Actually, I figured it out a little while ago. Father was indeed a genius. His work was comparable to several of the most complex Uzumaki seals I studied."

It was true. My past life knowledge was the real reason I figured out his seal without years of research, and only a few tiny examples of his to go on - though I think the second created the basis of the technique.

"I-I see. You pass. No matter what, you pass."

I raised an eyebrow at that. 'What does that mean?'

The timer went off when my clone signaled Sasuke had been dug up. Sakura was to be carried by it, walking alongside Sasuke. By the time they got back to the three stumps in the main clearing, my lunch had been long finished, and sealed up.

"Glad you could join us!" He said as he motioned them to sit down. "Needless to say, you two fail!" He looked at them a little angrily.

"WHAT?!" Was Sakura's screech. 'My god, she doesn't ever stop with that loud voice. I know she's nice when she understands, but I'm going to put a silence seal on her again if she doesn't stop.'

"What about Naruna-san?" Sasuke looked really peeved, but questioning the 'two' Kakashi pointed out. Obviously he wasn't going to enjoy only me passing.

"Naru-chan, care to explain the test details?" He's really lazy…

"Hai, sensei. The test was about teamwork. The two bells were to pit us against each other. The reason he told us not to eat this morning was to keep us weak, and him forcing us to wait was him being lazy with an added benefit of further weakening us - I however ignored his 'advice' from yesterday and ate a healthy breakfast." - 'not that it would have mattered in my case' - "Further pushing the need for us to work together to accomplish our objective. If we had all worked together, we would have passed regardless of retrieving a bell or not."

"Exactly! And you two ignored Naruna's advice both yesterday, and her attempts to work together today. Ignoring a comrade and their advice without thinking on it baselessly will get you killed in the field. 'Those who abandon their mission are trash. But those who abandon their comrades are worse than trash.' I will not teach anyone who fails to see this."

His famous speech actually came out more moving than I remember.

"As such, you both will be sent back to the academy. Naruna will become my apprentice"

'...WHAT?!' My thoughts were echoed aloud by Sakura again. My ears may heal fast, but that pain….

"Why does she pass? She may have figured out the test but she didn't get a bell either!" At this, I raised my palm and summoned the bell from my palm's storage seal. Though only Sasuke's anger filled face saw this at first.

"She was the dead-last! Why would you take someone like her on?!"

That last part really pissed me off. And was visible by my red flowing hair flying up in the air, mimicking my tail in enraged eagerness. I threw the bell at her, hitting her in the head. My emotions visible.

"She did get a bell…" Sensei muttered loudly enough for Sakura to hear as she turned to see what hit her on the ground. She looked up to see my emotional self.

"EEEP! F-Flames! Fox!" She backed away slowly…

"Don't make assumptions on useless tests that ignore skill! I am far better than I let on! Dattebane!" I didn't attack her escaping figure, but I really wanted to at that moment.

"O-Okay, just calm down!"

I did. I forced myself to take steady easy breaths. Letting my flame-like figure and aura settle down. She re-approached cautiously. Sasuke was now a brooding mess, and my senses only just picked it up. Making my stomach queasy, and giving me a slight headache now. It was worse than before, worse than Mizuki. 'I wonder if it's the sharingan or chakra levels that make the difference?'

Kakashi took notice of my sudden odd behaviour. Watching as I moved a distance away from Sasuke. "Naru-chan? Are you feeling well?"

"H-Hai… Um, I'm extremely sensitive to emotions and auras. Really dark emotions and auras tend to make me sick. Unless I'm in an emotional state, I need distance, or it affects me."

He raised his eyebrow at this. Sakura was obviously thinking I was making it up. Though Sasuke was staring at me in slight surprise, and much loathing. 'M-Maybe it might be better to go through with sensei's plan to make me an apprentice. I kinda don't wanna have to feel like this every day. And it might keep Orochimaru away from him, thinking he's not ready to be a vessel yet.'

"Uzumaki Naruna, you are to follow me. Haruna Sakura, Uchiha Sasuke, you are both to report to the Iruka at the academy tomorrow morning at 0900."

They both nodded towards Kakashi, though the Uchiha would have killed us both with his glare of death if he could.

After the two were a distance away, I turned toward my new shishou. "Are you sure this is a good idea? They are both talented, and can be raised to be incredible shinobi one day, if trained properly."

He turned to me with a slightly raised eyebrow, but declared his stance firmly, "I am certain. I will receive trouble from the council on this decision I'm sure, but it won't be terrible. The Hokage will back me up on this. Those two are not ready. Sasuke believes he can and has to do everything himself. He needs to be broken from his one-man-team ideology. Haruno follows Sasuke like a lost puppy, and needs to be separated from him. Keeping them together will stunt her growth, and put strain on Sasuke at the same time. I will put this in my report, and maybe they will pass in the next test a few months from now."

'Thats…. actually sound reasoning. Maybe without Sasuke being the last Uchiha in Konoha, there isn't much pressure on Kakashi for this? From his own words, they would have been trying to make sure he passed the team no matter what in the original timeline. Maybe the lunch test was there for this purpose, and he decided against it?'

"Besides, you said you couldn't actually stand being around Sasuke. And it's obvious Haruno hurts your ears nearly every time she speaks, though I doubt that part is on purpose, she hurts my ears as well. It's very unlikely the three of you would provide a cohesive unit."

'My words exactly!' I couldn't help but giggle at that. Though I couldn't help but wonder if I just screwed up, it was a significant change after all...

"Alright, my foxy apprentice, let's get lunch." And we moved out.

- Hokage's Office -

"Now that Kakashi is here, report."

Each sensei failed their team, then it reached Kakashi.

"...Team 7 Failed." The Hokage blinked at that, nobody else, however, was surprised. Kurenai was a bit disappointed, but not surprised. She had actually asked the Hokage to appoint a different sensei for their team when she had heard about it.

"However, Uzumaki Naruna passes."

"You… You're passing a single student?" Kurenai asked pointedly.

"You wish to take her as an apprentice?" It was more of a statement than a question from the Hokage.

"Hai, Hokage-sama. She showed great adaptability, skill, thought ahead, managed to get a bell, and…. destroyed my book…." He let a tear roll down his face at the last sadly muttered part.

The Old Hokage nodded in sympathy while the rest of the Sensei burst out laughing.

Kakashi put on an indignant face as he continued, ignoring the rest, "Uchiha Sasuke showed great skill for one so young, but he shrugged off Naruna's attempts at teamwork. He detests the Haruna girl as well, at least from what I can see in his expressions when she talks to him. He doesn't want to be near the girl.

Haruno Sakura is a complete fangirl. She would ignore Naruna completely if she could, and did so when Naruna approached her with the offer. She took off after Sasuke immediately. Fell for my genjutsu despite her potential ability in the area, passing out. She later passed out again when coming across Sasuke buried up to his neck. Her physical prowess is almost nonexistent as well, she looked too thin, almost malnourished. She also needs to be taught yelling doesn't need to be applied when asking a simple question… She would be practically useless in real combat situations so long as the Uchiha is on the team - I suggest separating them permanently. It might be wise to have Haruno trained in Genjutsu or Iryojutsu at a later date, she shows the aptitude.

Naruna's senses are especially powerful. Both in the physical and spiritual sense. She has trouble near the Uchiha boy, and she folds her ears down every time Sakura opens her mouth. If she anticipates the girl yelling, she actually covers her ears with her hands - I even heard slight whimpers during this.

Overall, this team is a failure from the start. There was simply not enough information provided in the first place upon selection for this team, in my opinion, and seems to have been destined to fall apart from the start. There is more, but I believe that should be enough for my report."

The Hokage looked thoughtful for a while, taking all the information in. He couldn't really send the Uchiha back to the academy, that would just end up with extra trouble, and loss of talent. Since the girl showed aptitude, she could be sent to the hospital to learn while she works on her physical abilities. The boy, however, needs to learn teamwork. Maybe another apprenticeship? He would have to think on them.

- Naruna -

"Kaa-chan! I passed! I have an apprenticeship under Inu!"

Yuugao blanked at that. 'Apprenticeship…? Under Hatake?!' - "What happened to your team?"

I shifted around nervously, "They failed… The team failed since we didn't work together. I had tried to tell them what the test was about, I actually explained, but they didn't believe a word I said. I think Sakura actually stopped listening completely the moment I opened my mouth!" That thought made me mad…

"Well, congratulations on passing! What would you like to celebrate with?"

My eyes showed stars with my reply, "ICHIRAKU RAMEN!" Yes… I was just as hooked as Naruto. Aside from the two being near family-like after all these years, The stuff is to die for…