Diversion

After we all had the chance to introduce ourselves Kakashi took it upon himself to bring me to old man Sarutobi in order to tell him about my predicament. It had never occurred to me that there was the possibility of me being put immediately onto a team.

When Kakashi and I had arrived in old man Sarutobi's office, old man Sarutobi had explained that Takata was new at being a jounin sensei and he just wanted to get out of the job by sending everyone back to the academy or well, making them quit being ninja.

And with that I was sent out of the room while the "adults" talked. It had taken them about 20 minutes to finish talking and suddenly I was placed on a genin team.

A team that had a chance of passing whatever the jounin would throw at us. I remember feeling happy but a little nervous, what if Takata had been correct in saying I would never amount to anything, my parents had said the same thing.

But once I heard that I would be placed on a team with Naruto and Sakura, I knew everything would be alright. They were my friends I had dared to say. I didn't, in that moment know how true that word would become.

I had immediately left Kakashi after thanking him for allowing me to be on his team with a hug, in order to head to my apartment and grab some dinner before going to bed.

I knew the next day would be harrowing and full of surprises, I mean what else would happen with Naruto on the team.

I had woken up the next day ready to face whatever test Kakashi would throw at us. I headed to the meeting spot at exactly 6 am and within a few minutes every one else had arrived. Everyone except Kakashi, he was late.

It wasn't until 10 am when Kakashi decided to show up and everyone's stomachs were growling, except my own.

Kakashi had asked me and I had told him I had no idea I wasn't supposed to eat lunch as I hadn't really been listening to his instructions the day before. I hadn't even known I was to be a part of his team. Deciding to just forget that I had eaten he explained to test.

"You have to take these from my pocket to pass the test and become Shinobi. Those who don't will be sent back to the academy for another year." was all Kakashi had said as he held up two shiny bells on strings. I had thought he wasn't serious but when he said "okay when I say go come at me with the intent to kill, use weapons and jutsu"

I remember thinking 'oh shit not jutsu I suck at any jutsu' and suddenly Naruto was running at Kakashi with his kunai and the test had started.

Sakura and Sasuke disappeared into the trees and I was left to hide in the bushes still not being able to jump high into the trees like the others.

I watched as Naruto got his ass handed to him by Kakashi before landing in the pond a little ways away. I had been scared of Kakashi from that moment on, he was strong but that wasn't even the tip of the iceberg.

I had decided that maybe I would try to get Sakura's help in trying to grab the bells. I had known there was no way to get them myself, I was too weak. I had been right for once in that thought, but sadly the others weren't so keen on helping each other or me.

With the outcome possibility being only two passing the exam, Sakura refused to help me because she wanted to be on a team with Sasuke.

Sasuke refused to help me saying I would only hold him back in his goals, even after I dug him out of his hole in the ground from what I assumed was one of Kakashi's jutsu's.

Naruto refused on his thought that being Hokage meant he had to do everything alone. Man was he wrong, didn't he see how many people old man Sarutobi relied on. By the time I was done evading Kakashi and rallying the troops, the bell rang signaling the end of the test and I knew it was inevitable, we were going to be sent back to the academy.

I was the last to arrive at the stone where we would be eating and Naruto had been tied up to a post. I had sat down between Sakura and the tied up Naruto and listened to what Kakashi had to say. "You all have no need to go back to the academy"

I was shocked and so was everyone else 'we had passed?' I thought but I remember almost crying as Kakashi stated "You should all quit being ninja you have no aptitude for it. You three, Sakura, Sasuke and Naruto had no clue as to the reason of this test. Only Fei understood the meaning of this test."

I had stared at him in shock before he continued talking "You three are clueless the meaning of this test was teamwork, why do you think Shinobi don't generally work alone?"

In that moment I watched in shock as Kakashi grabbed Sasuke and threw him on the ground. "Sakura kill Fei or Sasuke dies." He released Sasuke only a moment later "This is what it's like to be a Shinobi you have to be ready if one of your cell members is taken hostage what do you do, abandon the mission and save your comrade or complete the mission successfully at the cost of your comrades life?"

He stared for a second "I'll give you one more chance eat lunch and we'll have a retry after, but if any of you feed Naruto you fail." And with that Kakashi was gone.

I immediately heard Naruto's stomach growl and I had felt so sorry that I was the only one that had eaten that morning. I slowly moved a bite of rice up to Naruto and told him quietly to eat.

I was rewarded with a shout of "But Kakashi sensei said not to feed me you'll fail, believe it!" but I told him to be quiet and just eat it, and with that everyone joined in feeding Naruto some of their food. I could tell Naruto was pretty damn happy to be fed by Sakura it was kind of cute.

But suddenly the sky had turned grey and a flash of silver was seen before a certain high powered jounin landed in front of us. "YOU!" he yelled "You disobeyed me! You Pass! Those who break the rules are scum, but those who abandon their friends are worse than scum"

We had all just kind of stared at him before his words hit us "WHAT?" Naruto had screamed from his post "We passed? We passed, believe it!" We had been full of smiles that afternoon.

But those smiles soon turned into sarcastic smiles and annoyed glares once we received a particularity stupid D rank mission to find Tora for the wife of the land of fires very own daimyo.

I remember we had given the poor cat Tora back to her owner who immediately almost squeezed the life out of her, and we were standing in old man Sarutobi's office waiting for another mission when Naruto had started to complain "Old man I'm tired of doing these stupid D rank Missions they're so boring."

Iruka who had been standing next to old man Sarutobi had started to rage at Naruto for being so disrespectful but for some reason that I still don't know today, old man Sarutobi gave us our first C ranked mission that day.

I had felt pretty scared not knowing what else lurked in this world of ninja, in the four months of living here I hadn't been out of the village. I knew the names of the villages and what villages and towns had Shinobi but other than that, I knew relatively nothing.

We had all agreed to meet the smelly drunk man named Tazuna at the village gates a few hours later. I had gathered my ninja tools and my simple little first aid kit, just in case and headed out to the gates.

I was the first one there with Tazuna arriving second leaving Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura to arrive at the same time just a few minutes later. I hadn't been sure if Kakashi's lateness would occur even though we were going on a time sensitive mission, and was happily surprised when he showed up only 30 minutes late.

Kakashi finally being there, we were allowed to leave and our first C ranked mission began. But I couldn't help that I had felt unnerved, 'Why would a bridge builder need guards to return to his home? Why had he even been in the leaf village in the first place?'

Walking down the nice dirt path in the woods with my teammates I thought about how pretty this world was. Being able to see the forest surrounding the village made me feel excited, I was not a good fighter but I would help my comrades no matter what.

We had been walking for about 4 hours when we came upon a puddle off to the side of the dirt path, I had found that pretty odd since I remember it having not rained for weeks.

Seeing that no one else thought it weird I disregarded my thought of the oddity and settled into a walk next to Naruto who was trying to be nice to the drunken Tazuna but was having little luck.

I had thought it funny that just that morning he had been threatened the bridge builder after he had said Naruto had a weird face and now he was actually trying to be civil, 'maybe Naruto is growing up' I had thought. But then something scary happened, Kakashi who had been standing at the back of our little traveling group was ripped to shreds by a chain that seemingly came out of nowhere.

I held back my scream for once and dodged the chain that was headed towards me. I had pushed Sakura out of the way startlingly fast as the chain made a swoop towards us in an attempt at decapitation.

I watched as Sasuke beat the two ninja up and stopped them from seriously hurting Naruto 'Heh, I guess he started listening to Kakashi's advice' my eyes had opened wide 'Kakashi' I had thought before looking over to what I thought would be his mangled body. But was actually a pile of wood.

'Substitution' quickly came to mind before I had to duck once more as the chain came at me again. I backed up away from the ninja that had gotten away from Sasuke. I had to think quickly in that moment because I was pretty sure I didn't want to become a mess off blood and body parts.

I was coming dangerously close to being cornered against a tree that had grown way too large, and was now sticking up in a prickly vine like formation that would be very difficult to get around.

The only real jutsu I knew how to do had been a little variation of the clone jutsu, Kakashi had taught it to me just after passing his genin test. It was a clone jutsu that required focus and top chakra control. Good for me that was something I actually was good at back then.

The only downside was that when I was 15 I had shitty chakra reserves and doing the jutsu once would mean that I would be out for the whole fight. But I didn't want to die so I had quickly done the signs for the jutsu before I quietly said "Earth Style: Earth clone wall."

I had managed to make two rock solid clones that stood before me that took the hit of the chain before they crumpled away and I was suddenly very fatigued. 'Dammit, stupid chakra' I had thought before, a flash of silver startled me and I fell backwards into the tree that would have become my grave.

The flash of silver had been Kakashi coming to save the day, and that he did. He had tied up the two chunin level ninja and set them up against the vine like tree. Before asking, no demanding Tazuna why two ninja were after him.

I had stared in shock at the words that came from Tazuna, that moron had almost gotten all of us killed, he should have told us this was a higher level missions.

I had wanted to go back to the village and let someone else take Tazuna home. But later on I would realize that a ninja persevered through even the toughest missions.

Kakashi had asked us if we wanted to go back, but Naruto didn't want to, he wanted to prove himself as strong.

He needed to show that he was just as strong as Sasuke, I understood that so I walked over to Naruto and told him I was all for continuing.

But I wasn't, I stood there wrapping Naruto's hand where he had been cut by the poisonous kunai of the now chained up chunin ninja. I had stared in silence and fear as Naruto's hand closed up unnaturally quick, before saying a quick "let's go" and with that we continued our journey to the land of waves.

We had travelled for about another hour before reaching a body of water that we had to cross. I once sat next to Naruto on our trip to the island that was supposedly located somewhere out in the water. It was nearly impossible to see and we had to be very quiet as we couldn't be seen by Gato's men. Gato was the man after Tazuna, he had wanted to stop trade to other countries so he could take over and take people's money. It had taken me a while but I eventually realized why Tazuna had lied. The land of waves was incredibly poor and he already spent most of his money on trying to finish the bridge for his town, I slightly admired him but was still pretty peeved he lied.

It had taken another hour to reach the island and once we got off the boat Naruto was back to his crazy self, throwing kunai at every little flutter of the trees and bushes.

Eventually seeing him about to kill a poor little bunny I had told him to maybe stop throwing his weapon around and just hold it in his hand in case something came at him from another direction. I mean it was totally possible.

Kakashi had reacted oddly to the poor little white rabbit breathing heavily on the ground and immediately told us to duck and drop to the ground.

I have to say what happened next, was something that I would relate all future missions to. A man black and white cameo cow-like pants came flying out of his hiding spot to stand on the large sword that had passed above our heads moments before.

This man was Zabuza Momochi, demon of the hidden mist one of the seven ninja swordsman of the mist. Now don't get me wrong when this was all happening I had no clue who this ass was, just that he scared me.

He had come to stand in front of us, Kakashi had told us to get in formation to protect Tazuna and Kakashi had started to fight Zabuza. I realize now that I don't know why Kakashi thought this man to be so dangerous, he fought many stronger people and came out much more successful than this fight.

In this fight I'm not sure if he meant for it to happen but he was caught in a trap, even with his special eye out for the world to see. The sharingan, the one dojutsu that I would come to hate.

The thing was too powerful for its own good and with Kakashi using it he should have seen that the water was full of chakra, seen that it had been a trap, but no the grand Kakashi of the sharingan, the copycat ninja could not see a simple trick as that.

That's why to this day I'm sure it was a test to help form a bond as a team and protect him together. Protect him we did, Sasuke and Naruto created a diversion to get Zabuza's mind off of the water prison and made him release the jutsu, allowing Kakashi to be freed and Sakura and I stayed to watch Tazuna.

I know we didn't really help at all in this instance but I had been almost out of chakra and would have just been in the way and Sakura was still almost as weak as I was. She didn't know all the amazing things she does now back then. So just this once we had allowed the guys take care of the dirty work.