A/N: Now, technically this was a shorter hiatus than last time. Typical reasons: life, the universe, and other works taking up my time, but I caught the Naruto bug again and decided to give a fresh chapter a go. I'll save the rest for the end, enjoy!

Team Rin

Chapter 9

Chakra Trials

She tried her damnedest to keep the boredom from her voice. "All clear," Natsuko said into her mic, her whisper coming out as a monotone. Green and brown blurred by her as she raced along from tree to tree in a wide zigzag formation, making sure to change her elevation every few hops. At first border patrol seemed like it should have been an interesting mission, but it had turned out that Team Twelve had not been assigned to the borders themselves, but to the third wave of defense.

"Clear." Ayano confirmed, though she managed to maintain the attentive discipline in her tone even through the static white noise of the radio. Natsuko rolled her eyes at that.

Their last two weeks had been nothing but leaping from tree to tree through the thick forests that stood strong near almost all of the landlocked borders of Fire Country. The landscape had grown dull by the middle of the first day. Worse, they had another week on this rotation.

"C-rank per week." She reminded herself in a whisper. It wouldn't completely catch them up to Sakura and Ino, but it would get them close enough so the other two wouldn't be able to hold it over her head when she got back to the village. The well-worn spark of competition lived on between the graduating kunoichi of their class, and Natsuko felt irritated that she couldn't show off her accomplishments.

Stupid classified A-rank mission.

"Naruto? Report." Natsuko blinked to back to focus at Rin-sensei's voice. Their commander had developed a habit of leaving them to their own devises during this mission. She unclipped her staff from its case and prepared to change directions for Naruto's location.

"Eh?" Naruto's irritated answer eased the knot of tension beginning to build in her belly. "Still haven't cut the stupid leaf, Sensei." Natsuko blew out a frustrated huff and resisted the urge to palm her forehead.

"The patrol, Naruto." Ayano sounded as exasperated as Natsuko felt.

"Oh, one second." Naruto paused for a beat before continuing. "All clear within three kilometers!" He declared, and Natsuko could picture his wide grin from his tone.

"Clones are cheating," Ayano said, deadpan.

"Neh, neh. We're on a mission. No such thing as cheating!" He laughed over the line and Natsuko shook her head.

"Technically true." Rin-sensei allowed. "But it does defeat the purpose of learning to work with standard resources."

"But I—"

"Might not always have the clones, Naruto." Rin-sensei's interruption was not a rebuke, but a gentle reminder of one of her most repeated lessons. Master your strengths, but never become so reliant on them that you will be crippled without them.

The hours upon hours of training without staff did not bring Natsuko much in the way of happiness, but she didn't feel naked without the worn weapon in her hands anymore.

It never really seemed to sink in for Naruto, though.

"In any case," Rin-sensei continued. "Three kilometers brings us right to the check in station. Work on your Shunshin, and I'll meet you three there." Natsuko did not need to be told twice to abandon the leisurely sweep and formed her hands through clumsy seals. Despite being shown this technique toward the end of her academy days, she still had not fully mastered it.

She finished weaving the seals and the chakra burst through her system without verbalizing the jutsu, and the Body Flicker blurred the world around her. Her perception of her surroundings warped as if she were looking through the bottom of a glass bottle, and her legs moved so quickly that she did not feel like they were moving, despite her knowing better.

Seconds passed and her augmented senses snapped back to normal and she only kept balance with a hasty application of chakra to her feet.

She glanced behind and judged she managed to move in the area of two hundred meters and smiled.

Progress!

She reported the distance to her teammates, and the radio crinkled with Ayano's immediate response. "Two twenty," she said with a rare teasing tone. Natsuko made a dramatic harrumph over the line and started to go through the seals again.

"Fibe hundred," Naruto spoke, but his voice was muffled as if he had a terrible cold. Natsuko's lips twitched to a smile.

"Ran into a tree again, didn't you?" Naruto grumbled something Natsuko couldn't hear. She just grinned wider.

"Two thirty," Ayano said, breathing heavy. "The race is on!" Natsuko cursed under her breath and completed the technique. She went farther on this attempt, and repeated the process as fast as she could without pulling a Naruto.

Minutes later Natsuko came stumbling out of the Shunshinat the base of a small, one room building built directly in the thick trunk of an impressive tree. She saw neither of her teammates and took the opportunity to collapse onto her back with a breathy laugh. The Body Flicker was not incredibly difficult, but it drained chakra like no other.

"You alright, Natsuko?" Naruto still sounded odd and Natsuko craned her neck to look behind her, finding the blonde – tissues plugging up his reddened nose – sitting on a branch just above the checkpoint's entrance. The boy hadn't even broken a sweat. She grumbled under her breath, only mollified when Ayano landed out of her own Shunshin with sweat pouring down the redhead's pale face.

She fell to a seat next to Natsuko with an almost inaudible thud. "Capacity can still use a bit of work," she said, running a hand through her hair. "A lot of work." She amended a moment later, joining Natsuko in laying back and staring at the sky.

Never one to be left out, Naruto fell in next to them a moment later with his arms as a pillow and a lackadaisical grin below his swollen nose. Natsuko let out an amused breath and let her teammate have his moment, taking the opportunity to rest before Rin-sensei came and—

"I wouldn't call it mastered," Rin-sensei said, leaning over the trio with an eyebrow raised in wry amusement. "But improvement is something, right?" She made a seal with her left hand and a shroud of green chakra flowed over it as she brought it down to Naruto's nose. "Got ahead of yourself again, Naruto?" Though she sounded exasperated, she was smiling, and Natsuko fell into a familiar curiosity about her sensei.

Ever since they had returned from Takigakure, Rin-sensei had taken their training up to a level that left her and her teammates driven into the ground.

Sometimes literally.

But the woman had also been carrying around a different demeanor. The most accurate word Natsuko found to describe it was softer. Rin-sensei had always been stern but patient and kind, and she still was those things, but there lacked a rough edge to her that Natsuko had not realized was there until it was gone.

"Only once this time, Sensei," Naruto said, flaring his now properly colored nostrils with a grin. He flashed their teacher a wide smile. "Thanks!"

"That's your free one of the week."

"Are we finished for the day, Sensei?" Ayano asked, pulling herself to her feet and standing at attention. Natsuko gave the girl a quizzical look.

"Well, I've sent our predecessors on their way and our relief is due in about six hours." She glanced toward the sun dipping toward the horizon. "Why don't you three spend some time on your leaf exercises for a couple hours before getting some rest."

Naruto cheered and two dozen clones popped into existence, running into the surrounding trees to retrieve leaves for them. Ayano sat down heavily and Natsuko couldn't help the tired groan that escaped her as she sat up.

"To be able to keep going while on the edge of exhaustion is essential for a shinobi's survival," Rin-sensei said with a bright grin. Natsuko met her sensei's eyes with a deadpan look, and trailed her gaze toward Naruto. "A couple hundred more clones, Naruto." The blonde hastened to obey and the forest bled orange.

She would complain about the unfairness of it all if he didn't have a demonic chakra beast in his belly.

"And you, Rin-sensei?" Ayano asked in an odd, formal way. Where Rin-sensei had grown more easygoing, Ayano had become more and more uptight as the weeks passed. No amount of prodding had gotten Natsuko anywhere, but she had never been accused of giving up easily.

"I have training to keep up with as well," the brunette said, hand coming to a rest on Ayano's shoulder. "Can't have the other jōnin leaving me behind, yeah?" She smiled, earning a tentative one from Ayano in return, and disappeared into her own Shunshin.

A small pile of leaves drifted to the ground between Natsuko and Ayano courtesy of a distracted clone. Natsuko took one up with a sigh, pinning it between her thumb and two forefingers. It felt moist and flexible, which as far away from the end result as possible. She pushed that thought away and closed her eyes, focusing on bring the remaining dregs of her chakra to the three fingers.

She compressed the energy, pressing the chakra together so that it would be delivered with a crushing force.

Theoretically, anyway.

Rin-sensei explained elemental manipulation as changing the nature of the chakra itself. Natsuko had the misfortune for having the hardest nature to transform chakra into. The energy wanted to be malleable, and the earth nature did not. Where fire only had to make the chakra volatile, or wind had to shape it to a fine, cutting edge, earth had to turn her chakra's nature on its head and make it do things it naturally resisted.

Using the correct natured chakra with an elemental technique would strengthen the result dramatically, Rin-sensei said, and so Natsuko powered through the weeks of the slowest progress she had ever taken to learn anything.

"You're just tearing the leaf," Ayano said to her right. Natsuko winked open an eye to find the nearest Naruto clone with his hands pressed together and a panicked expression of apology twisting his face.

"Don't tell the boss!" He said, bowing at the shoulders. "This is just so boring."

"And not all of us can have an army of clones learn for us," Ayano said, deadpan. She raised a fist and walloped the clone on the head, dispersing it in a puff of smoke.

"Harsh much?" She chided Ayano. Ayano held up a finger. Somewhere in the distance, the real Naruto yelled at his clones to stop slacking, and a wave of shuffling followed as at least half the clones redoubled their efforts after being caught. The corner of Ayano's lips quirked and Natsuko took the point.

"If we have any hope of doing this before the deadline, we have to go all in," Ayano said, curling her hand into a fist. Her eyes caught the light of the setting sun, and Natsuko had never seen the redhead ever look so fierce.

"Didn't think you wanted to be a chūnin that badly." Ayano faltered, a faint blush flitting across her cheeks.

"I just don't like backing down from a challenge," she said and turned back to focus on her own leaf. Natsuko saw the air above her teammate's hand shimmer with heat and found determination redoubling itself in a desire to keep up.

Rin-sensei had mentioned the exams in passing during one of their lighter training days, and Naruto started to pester her to let them compete. Their teacher's response was always a resounding no, and Natsuko was glad for it. After Satoshi and seeing just how outclassed they could be, she trusted her mentor to know when they would be ready.

But Naruto was the most stubborn ninja Natsuko had ever met, and Ayano joined in with her own quiet way. They had worn down Rin-sensei's patience until she had given them an ultimatum.

If they wanted to take the exam, they had to prove they could master a chūnin level skill.

And so they spent hours upon hours upon hours, of their free time, staring at leaves, trying to replicate the results from the chakra paper through a chakra resistant material.

"Yatta!" Naruto's voice cried out in sheer joy and both Natsuko and Ayano snapped their attention to one of the clones that was jumping up and down, waving half of a leaf in each hand. Shouts of disbelief came from his fellows, but the clone just disappeared with a grin. Each remaining one blinked, grin, and repeated the feat on their own leaves within seconds.

Natsuko experienced mixture of jealousy and redoubled determination as the clones all disappeared to leave a maelstrom of sliced leaves whirling in their wake. The original Naruto grinned and grabbed at every leaf within reaching distance, repeating the technique over and over again as if just to prove he could.

"I can't wait until I can use shadow clones," Ayano said, observing their celebrating teammate with a halfhearted grumble.

"Your chakra reserves are building, but it still may be awhile Ayano." Rin-sensei said, having crept up behind the pair in complete silence. A hand landed on Natsuko's shoulder before she could flinch away on instinct. She turned to her sensei to find the woman's face locked in a neutral expression while studying Naruto.

"How soon would it be safe to try?" Ayano asked, her voice stilted as had become her habit.

Rin focused on the redhead with an encouraging smile. Ayano bowed her head. "When you make chūnin. Maybe."

"Well, since Naruto can do it now…" Natsuko led, but Rin-sensei shook her head.

"It has to be all three of you," she said, adamant. "You can't make light of the exam. If you aren't ready, you shouldn't compete."

"It took Naruto a month and a half with shadow clones," Natsuko said, unable to keep a whine from edging into her voice.

"Do you have any advice that can help, Sensei?" Ayano asked, still looking down.

"Naruto used his strength to cover his weakness. Chakra—" She glanced toward the blonde genin and cut herself off, eyes widening. Naruto was flipping through hand seals, eyes closed in concentration. "And impulse control. Brace yourselves." Rin-sensei's arms snaked around their fronts and Natsuko felt her teacher's chakra lock them in place.

"FŪTON: DAITOPPA!" Natsuko thought Naruto mastered the jutsu during their first mission, but his previous results paled in comparison. The technique usually pushed the anything in its path with supernatural force, but now it tore into the trees in its path. Bark flew, branches broke, and chunks of wood were ripped from trunks as the wind technique blew through the forest.

Naruto's jaw dropped as he witnessed the damage his jutsu caused. Natsuko was sure her expression matched.

"Could've been worse," Rin-sensei muttered. "Naruto, think before you use new techniques!" She shouted, but the blonde protested.

"I made sure not to face you guys or the building!" He pointed out. "And did you see how awesome that was? That will beat Sasuke's fireball no problem." Naruto spun and pointed at Ayano. "Let's test it out!"

"No." Ayano and Rin-sensei said at the same time, and Naruto adopted a sour look. Natsuko laughed.

"Anyway, chakra control. Elemental manipulation, at its core, takes a large amount of control. Both of you have much less of an obstacle than your teammate." Natsuko supposed that was fair.

"Well, I can't let the idiot leave me in the dust," Natsuko said while shooting a grin toward Naruto, who made an exaggerated roll of his eyes.

"That's… sort of the spirit." Rin sensei sighed. "As for advice, well, unlike pure chakra manipulation, emotions can help the process. Anything from stubbornness." A hand came to rest on Natsuko's head, mussing her hair. "To passion." Rin-sensei did the same to Ayano, who blinked in surprise. "Use them, and you might just make the deadline."

"Eight days?" Ayano asked, nodding. The light didn't need to catch her eyes for her determination to shine through.

"Eight days." Sensei confirmed. "But for now, rest." Their teacher guided them to the guard station without releasing their heads, somehow managing to corral Naruto as well.

Natsuko thought the woman was spending too much time with Kakashi-sensei as she tried in vain to break free.

Ayano paced back and forth along the balcony, acutely aware of the sun rising in the sky to the east as it taunted her with its reminder of passing time. With an irritated growl she stomped her foot down on the weathered concrete and spun to the looming door with purpose. Her fist reared back, surged forward, and stopped a hairsbreadth beneath the apartment's designation, 3T.

"Come on." She hissed the words under her breath, willing her hand to cross the final distance. It did not move. "You experienced true terror in Takigakure and survived, you can knock on your sensei's damned front door." The healing burns along her back ached as she held her fist overextended above her, shaking.

The door pulled open and her sensei's big brown eyes crossed to focus on Ayano's fist now resting centimeters from her nose. Ayano pulled it back with a squeak and stood at attention and tried to look nonchalant as a blush gained traction on her cheeks.

"I thought I heard your voice Ayano," Sensei said, head tilting to the side. Her loose hair flowed with the motion, brown locks framing the woman's face on one side and exposing bare neck on the other. "What's up?"

"I-I wanted to see if…" Ayano trailed off, the words she had planned sitting at the edge of her tongue bur refusing to come forth. That Sensei was wearing nothing but a giant, fluffy, purple robe did little to help her. "If we could start on training right away." She bowed her head to both tear her eyes away from her sensei and to hide her crimson cheeks with her hair.

"When I said bright and early, I meant after a couple days of rest." Ayano chanced a glance through the protective screen of hair to see a bemused smile on the jōnin's lips. Ayano adopted her best impression of Naruto's modest grin and found the courage to stand straight again.

"Ah, I guess I'm just eager to get better." She forced a small laugh and backed up a step, already planning to sprint away and forget about awful plans and worse execution. She raised a hand in a wave and took half a step before Sensei's hand wrapped around her wrist in a warm, steady grasp. Ayano froze.

"Since you're here, let's check your back." Ayano's protest caught in her throat as Sensei pulled her into the apartment with a single, firm yank. The redhead had not spent much time thinking about the older woman's apartment, but her mental image had been something bigger and far less impersonal. "Have a seat." Sensei pointed to the only piece of sittable furniture in the sitting room, and Ayano slipped around a scroll and book covered table to the overstuffed armchair and sank into its squishy depths.

Ayano let out an instinctive groan of appreciation as the seat seemed to drain the tenseness from her muscles.

"Two things to never skimp out on with money," Rin-sensei said from her little kitchenette as she dug around in her refrigerator, pulling out jars of what Ayano assumed were various salves and setting them on a tiny table. "Shinobi gear and a place to plant your ass." The older ninja sent a toothy smile over her shoulder and Ayano found herself letting out a small laugh.

Sensei had been in such a foul mood the evening before that Ayano struggled to reconcile the humorous attitude and warm disposition the woman displayed. She wondered if Rin-sensei was putting on a front for her benefit or if something happened the night before that broke her from her rut.

"Has it been any better?" The former head medic mixed ointments and herbs together with practiced ease, hands steady. Ayano could not identify what ingredients were being used before they were ground into a large mortar.

"A bit," Ayano answered and tore her eyes away from the woman's work and busied herself taking a closer look around the apartment. The walls were painted a subdued blue and bore no artwork or windows to break up the monotony. A pair of doors stood at the back of the room, one closed and the other open to a bedroom with the only personal items Ayano could make out from her sensei's home.

Their team portrait sat on Rin-sensei's nightstand alongside a picture of another shinobi team. Ayano's heart sped up at the sight and her throat went a bit dry as she realized just how much they meant to their teacher.

She turned her eyes away, suddenly uncomfortable with that knowledge, and found the papers on the table in front of her were either all written in code, or were speaking of subject matter so advanced she could barely scratch the surface on understanding.

"Shirt," Sensei said in the tone she saved for giving orders on the battlefield. Ayano blinked, looked to find her sensei standing next to the chair with the large mortar in one hand and an expectant eyebrow raised.

She kept her blush contained to a faint pink as she pulled off her shirt and Sensei removed the bandages covering her back in a meticulous fashion. She leaned her front over the arm of the overlarge chair, hissing as the last layer of protection was removed, taking some healing skin with it.

"Sorry Ayano," Sensei said with genuine regret. "Burns always suck, but now that we've got access to better supplies, I should have you fixed up in no time." Something thick and cold landed on the back of Ayano's left shoulder and she grunted in reflex, expecting pain. Instead she felt nothing but relief as Sensei combined the salve with a medical ninjutsu and traced her hands along the burn in a long, repetitive circle.

It was bliss.

"Now, now. Someone new already? I'm hurt." Kakashi-sensei stepped out of the door next to the bedroom – proving it to be a bathroom - naked from the waist up minus his mask and the hatai-ite crossing his left eye. "I haven't even left yet."

"Always full of tact, Kakashi." Rin-sensei said, annoyed but not angry. "Ayano…"

The implication hit the genin like a freight train, and her world shattered.

Her eyes snapped open to the sight of embers dying in the fire pit. Reality crashed back into Ayano's perception and she forced her breathing to calm and her heart to stop hurting. She rolled onto her back and hoisted herself into a sitting position, resting her forehead against raised knees.

"Everything alright, Ayano?" Sensei's soft voice at once soothed and irritated her. It just figured Sensei would have watch when she woke from that particular dream. She pressed her face further into her knees, trying to stop her stupid emotions.

"I'm fine, Sensei. Just a bad dream." Her reply came out muffled.

"Takigakure?" Sensei guessed and Ayano barely held back a rough laugh.

Having nightmares about all the crap that happened in that village would have been normal. It was even expected. Yet nothing about that mission had ever haunted her in her sleep, yet one awkward situation at Sensei's home did. Ayano did not want to know what that said about her state of mind.

Still, she was ready to latch on the excuse, only to have her words die in her throat at the look of genuine concern in her mentor's eyes. Ayano swallowed the lie and shook her head. "No," she said. "Just some personal… stuff." Sensei nodded as if she had expected that answer, surprising Ayano. Had the suggestion been bait?

"Would you like to talk a about it?" Sensei shuffled forward, placing more wood in the pit, and placed a hand on the pile. It blazed to life in such a nonchalant display of control over fire elemental chakra that pissed Ayano off.

"No." Her irritation bled into her voice and Rin-sensei blinked in surprise. Ayano wondered if she had ever been anything but polite to the woman before.

"If it's bothering you enough to haunt you in your sleep." Rin-sensei spoke gently despite her surprise. "I've found that the easiest solution is to speak with someone about it." Her head tilted to the side and her eyes drifted out of focus. "Granted, it took me years to figure that one out."

The image of a cheerful Kakashi flitted across Ayano's mind, and she had to fight to keep her expression neutral.

"It doesn't have to be me," Rin-sensei continued with a sad smile. "But even if you need to go to someone else, don't let whatever it is sit around in your head."

It was ironic, Ayano thought, that the only person she trusted enough to speak with would also be the most mortifying.

She glanced at her teammates, snoring in their sleep, and considered whether that embarrassment would be worth getting the weight off her shoulders.

"You know how heavy those two sleep," Rin sensei said, guessing her concern. She adjusted herself to set cross legged, elbows on knees and chin resting on her cupped hands. Still, Ayano hesitated. On one hand, she could get it out of her head. Put it in the world and let it go wherever it would. Move on.

On the other, devastating humiliation.

Her lips stayed shut.

The silence dragged on for long minutes, broken only by the constant crackle of the fire and the occasional call of a cricket in the distance before Sensei started to tell a story.

"I've noticed a look your eyes, Ayano." The girl's heart skipped a handful of beats. If she couldn't stop Sensei from knowing, she wanted to tell her, rather than being figured out. "For weeks now, and doubly so since this mission began."

"I—"

Sensei held up a hand. "I don't know when exactly it started, but it worries me. I've seen it before." Rin-sensei's eyes went faraway again. "A long, long time ago, back when I was just a genin." Ayano found her interest hooked despite her wariness. Rin-sensei never went into detail about her past, as a rule.

"I had a teammate, Uchiha Obito." A brief, wistful smile found its way onto her expression. "He was always carefree and cheerful. With a wide smile and a penchant for always helping people or getting into trouble. Always one or the other."

"Sounds like Naruto." Ayano noted.

Rin-sensei nodded. "In some ways, yes. But you've been reminding me of him lately, more often than not." Ayano raised an eyebrow in question as Sensei's description had sounded nothing like her. "Never quite as serious, but every bit as dedicated." Her demeanor dropped and she met Ayano's eyes with a hint of something Ayano could not figure out. "Until a good way into the Third Shinobi War."

Ayano experienced a growing sense of dread.

"It was our first mission after Kakashi made jōnin. Just the three of us since Minato-sensei was needed elsewhere on the front."

"The Yondaime Hokage was your sense? The Yellow Flash?" Ayano asked, shock overwhelming her annoyance at Kakashi-sensei's inclusion in the story. A sudden pressure sparked at the edge of her reality. That was one hell of a shinobi lineage to be part of. Rin-sensei, to the Yondaime Hokage, to Jiraiya-sama, to the Sandaime Hokage…

"I never mentioned that?" Rin-sensei's eyes widened a fraction. "Well, now you know." She shrugged, and continued on like she had not dropped such a massive detail. "Now, Obito could get serious for missions, but there was an edge to him the day we left the village that I'd never seen before. He tried to put all of his focus on the objectives ahead of us, and mostly succeeded, but I could tell there was something on the edge of his mind. Something niggling at his attention to draw his focus away from the present, and he had that look in his eye."

Rin-sensei kept her eyes steady on Ayano's. The genin swallowed reflexively.

"No matter what I did over the next few days, I couldn't pry out of him what was wrong." She shook her head. "We got separated for a time, and by the time the dust settled…" Sensei took a deep breath as her voice caught. "Obito was trapped beneath a boulder, half his body completely crushed."

Ayano recoiled at the mental image, stomach twisting.

"He survived for a few minutes," Rin-sensei still did not break eye contact and Ayano could not look away. "Long enough for us to see that look gone from his eye. Long enough for him to give that eye up for a rival turned friend." Kakashi of the Sharingan, her mind filled in the blank. "Just long enough for him to be himself for precious moments longer before he died."

Ayano had little idea how to respond to the story other than feeling overwhelming silly to be so torn up over an unrequited crush.

"So you understand that I can't let you stew on this anymore. The Yamanaka Clan has a fantastic clinic back in Konoha that—"

"Sensei," Ayano interrupted her teacher. She still couldn't break eye contact after the woman had shared so much. A blush rose to her cheeks with every passing moment, but after being interrupted, Rin-sensei seemed content to wait for Ayano to build the courage to continue.

Ayano told her sensei everything in a rushed explanation on the winds of a single breath. Her jōnin instructor listened with a passive expression Ayano was thankful for, and when the need to breathe brought her small drama to an end, she awaited her sensei's judgment with a thundering heart.

When Rin-sensei stood up, Ayano was sure the woman would leave the clearing to put as much distance between the pair as possible, but she was surprised as Sensei circled the fire to sit next to the redhead, laying a hand on the girl's shoulder.

"Oh, Ayano," she said with a drawn out sigh. Ayano could make out sympathy, embarrassment, pride, and a touch of bemusement. Sensei spoke few words, but made her stance utterly clear.

Ayano had never expected rejection could come with a side of acceptance, and found that she felt lighter than she ever had before, despite a lingering sense of loss.

When she managed to fall back asleep some time later, Ayano rested well.

"Oy, Sensei! When are we going to be done with this boring stuff?" Naruto asked, grumbling as he checked the traveler's passport against both the border patrol's logbook and his own bingo book as Rin-sensei had told them to.

Natsuko clicked her tongue. "Stop complaining, Naruto," she said, stamping a passport of her own and handing it back to an older woman, who snatched it away and power walked through the station toward the Land of Fire side. "Next?" Natsuko called, and a bland looking man with a Kusagakure hatai-ite stepped forward and Natusko began to repeat the process.

The old man in front of Naruto huffed in irritation. Naruto gave him a lazy glare as he stamped the passport and handed it back.

"Be patient Naruto." Sensei admonished as she paced behind the three of them, pretending to read a series of scrolls as she kept an eye on everyone passing through. "I think today may be our last day before we head home?"

"Really?" Naruto asked, sitting up in excitement. This mission had been so boring after he had gotten the leaf exercise down. Even the bump up from patrolling inside Fire Country's borders to manning the waypoints themselves had gotten dull within an hour. Five days of it had been torture.

Especially considering that until they had gotten to the Kusagakure border that morning, they had had to deal with nonstop rain the entire time, and dealing with soaked and angry people who had to wait in line for hours was not Naruto's idea of a good time.

"Damn it," Ayano said under her breath to Naruto's right. She was logging passports and notes with one hand, sparing each visitor only just enough attention to confirm who they were, and passing them along. She went through more people than Natsuko or Naruto even as half her attention was focused on a leaf in her off hand.

She was last of them not to have gotten it down after Natsuko managed to crumble her leaves the day before. Naruto wished he could help the girl, but he could only come up with teaching his teammate the Kage Bunshin behind Rin-sensei's back, and he knew Ayano would never go for it.

Maybe he could convince Rin-sensei to teach her the chakra battery jutsu, and Ayano could use—

Fingers snapped in front of his eyes. "Some of us would like to get out of here today," an irritated girl said. Crimson eyes behind a pair of glasses glared at Naruto and he glared right back, snapping the Kusa passport out of her hands with enough force to throw the girl off balance a step. The annoyance in her eyes redoubled. "Don't you know it's not smart to harass a foreign kunoichi?" She jerked a thumb to the hatai-ite holding back her oddly styled red hair several shades darker than Ayano. "Do you have any sense?"

"You're one to talk with a haircut like that." Naruto sniped as he took out his annoyance by flipping the pages of his bingo book. She didn't have a last name, which only made it more irritating to try and find her.

She took insult, running her hands through her hair with a haughty expression. "Like anyone wearing that," she gestured to all of him, "would know anything about fashion." Naruto snorted. If having one half of your hair cut to the shoulder and layered to look spiky while the other half was straight and falling to your mid back was fashionable, he wanted nothing to do with it.

He'd happily stick with his orange, thank you very much.

He found her page in the book, confirmed her name was Karin, and marked the page for review before scribbling her name in the official logbook. The moment he was done he thrust the passport into her face, just a centimeter below her nose. She snatched it back, scratching his hand in the process, and narrowed her eyes at him.

"Are you going to be in the chūnin exams?" She asked, holding up the line to the other travelers' displeasure.

"Why do you care?" Naruto asked, matching her expression.

"Because I want to know if I'll be able to kick your ass without being arrested." She smirked, planting a hand on her hip in challenge. Naruto felt himself grin to match.

"Just look for Uzumaki Naruto, future Hokage, and know I won't take it easy on you, dattebayo!"

"Heh, you'll try Uzumaki-baka, but I—"

"Hurry the hell up Karin-baita!" The foreign redhead's left eye twitched as another genin around their age called out to her from the building's exit. She glared at the guy who had to be her teammate with more anger than she'd managed for Naruto. She grumbled something under her breath, nodded toward Naruto, and trailed after her grinning teammate.

"Making friends?" Sensei asked, now leaning against the wall behind them, still engrossed in her scrolls.

"Weird girl." Naruto groused.

"Will you please start holding your own weight here, Naruto?" Natsuko demanded more than asked, looking harried. A tick of guilt led Naruto to speeding people through the checkpoint in an effort to catch up.

The rest of the day passed in a blur of taking notes on people Naruto was sure he would never see again and trying to remember he should try to avoid pissing off the foreign visitors.

Few things had ever tested his patience as much as the last few days.

But when the four of them lounged in the small dorm provided for them at the end of the night, Naruto felt mostly relaxed in the knowledge that tomorrow they would be going home. He only contained his excitement for eating a meal prepared by someone else once again by relaying his idea to Rin-sensei, who was hesitating, but considering it.

Which was a first for any of his ideas outside the middle of training.

Then a spark of flame lit up the darkening room and Naruto snapped his attention to the redhead laying on the top bunk across from him. Ayano's eyes widened as ash fell from her hand into her gaping mouth, but she didn't seem to care as she cheered and leapt down from the bunk.

Sensei hoisted herself off her lower bunk, dodging around a hanging Naruto, and handed Ayano another leaf from her pocket while Natsuko looked on from the last bed with baited breath. Ayano took the leaf and it burned to a crisp moments later. She looked up to their teacher with the widest smile Naruto had ever seen her wear.

He cheered for the girl as Natsuko hoisted their taller teammate up from behind in a body hug, both laughing heartily.

"Well," Rin-sensei said after they had calmed down. "I guess that means you'll be competing in the exams." Her smile turned melancholic for a moment before she sat down on the floor and pointed to the area in front of her. The three genin scrambled to sit in a triangle formation before her.

"As if there was any doubt, Sensei," Naruto boasted, throwing an arm around each of his teammates.

"It came down to the wire." Ayano rubbed the back of her neck, sheepish, but Naruto bumped her shoulder as Natsuko defended her.

"Yeah, but we did it in just a month and a half," she said. "Some people take years."

"And some people take days," Rin-sensei cut off their growing cockiness at the head, taking some of the air out of the room. Her smile returned. "But I didn't doubt you three for a moment. Have you figured out the real purpose of our mission? Why I forced you through desk duty rather than training?"

Naruto blinked and wracked his brain. The only thing he could think of that stood out as weird to him from the missions were—

"The bingo books," Ayano said with a snap of her fingers. She pulled hers out from her jacket and laid it on the floor. Naruto and Natsuko did the same with theirs.

They had spent the last five days at a handful of the Land of Fire's most frequented border crossings, taking note of every ninja entering the country.

Including every genin.

It wouldn't be everyone, Naruto guessed, but there were a hell of a lot of them.

"You had us gathering information before you even knew if we were going to compete." Natsuko put words to Naruto's thoughts and Sensei's grin widened.

"Like I said. I would never underestimate what my genin are capable of." Rin-sensei tapped each of their bingo books in turn. "Now spend some time combining notes and pouring over the details." She dropped a fresh bingo book on top of theirs, pages clean. "And this is why I always say a shinobi has to look—"

"Underneath the underneath," Naruto and his teammates parroted the saying, and Naruto thought he understood the saying for the first time. Rin-sensei was crafty as hell.

With an eager grin, Naruto dove into his book and started going over his notes.

A/N: Super transition chapter was go! A quick peek into each of our Team Twelve genin's heads and their current state of mind. In following Rin's hesitant but fair view on advancing her students, she didn't give immediate approval for her rookies to compete like the other jonin. Instead, she laid out one hell of a difficult test for them in starting to master elemental manipulation. They are all far from proficient at it, but it's enough for Rin to believe them ready.

It's been roughly 2 months since the adventures in Takigakure, and Rin's talk with Kakashi has had some bleeding effects rippling out to others. Most notably with Ayano in this chapter, where her initial arc of settling into her identity comes to a relative close. I hope you all enjoyed how that went, as I thought it was paramount in setting up her character moving forward. Natsuko still needs a little TLC, but she's a much more straightforward person who's own challenges will continue in time.

Now, I know Naruto isn't amping up in strength/maturity to some of your likings, but I firmly believe he's on a natural pace. He's already a bit more patient than in canon, and, frankly, in a heck of a lot better shape as well. He won't be taking down Orochimaru any time soon, but he'll certainly hold his own.

So what do you think? Next chapters will look to be more Naruto-centric as we move into the chunin-exam arc. I'll be spending some time coming up with different tests as, frankly, the canon tests have been done a near infinite number of times and I would like to do something different. So there's that to look forward to!

Until next time (hopefully in less than 16 months)!