The sun was beginning to set, but team Anko was still training.

"Aren't we done yet?" Kao huffed while doing push-ups. It was her twentieth set of hundreds and hundreds of those horrible things. She was sweating like crazy and her hair was sticking in even more directions that it normally did. The boys where done with this particular set, and where resting against a tree.

"You two were the ones that were late. Why do I get punished for that." Jun murmured in between breaths. The day was too long and the training too hard. Not only were they doing more body exercise then ever, they had to give every ounce of their chakra with the weird survival test Anko-sensei had made up and they couldn't even let their body or chakra reserves rest with a meditation session. Kao was pretty sure she would faint from either body or chakra exhaustion pretty soon. But the look in Anko-sensei's eyes promised even more torture to come.

Finally, Kao completed her sets and she let herself fall to the ground. Some grass blades were soon sticking to her damp face, while she lay there trying to catch her breath. Her dogs were sleeping against each other some distance away. They too were exhausted from the earlier exercise, but luckily for them they didn't have to participate in these body exercises. Somehow Anko-sensei always favored them. Seeing them lying there so peacefully against one another, it wasn't hard to see how close the brother dogs were. But even though they looked the perfect image of innocence right now, a step too much in their direction and they would be wide awake and on their feet.

Anko-sensei let out a cackle. "You're not done just yet! Let this teach you to never be late again."

"And yet this happens at least once a week." Nakai muttered. Now that he thought about it, their late streaks might have been the reason for their strength as a team. The training sessions of Anko-sensei on these occasions were win or lose situation. You would either improve through her training and personal spars, or be left behind and forced to bite dust. A lot of it.

But maybe that was just another one of his crazy thoughts. Kao always complained about those, so he decided to keep this one to himself and stare at the sun while catching the few minutes of rest he could.

Late in the evening, team Anko was finally done. The teammates were sprawled on the ground at their beginning point, the three trees, where Anko had taken them for their last exercise.

Anko had figured that if those kids would want to lay anywhere all over the floor, it would be this particular favorite spot of theirs. Really, she was quite considerate of them, not that those brats would notice. She was a nice teacher, she concluded to herself, mentally patting her own shoulder. Wait, was something dripping from her hand there? She put her hand up so she could see it clearly and yes, something was on it alright.

"Hm, this is not my blood. Oh well, Jun should have dodged better." she shrugged before addressing the group.

"'Kay guys, listen up. You're off the hook for now, but next time will be even worse so don't you even dare to do it again. And I'm talking to you two, Kao, Nakai. I'm telling you, more blood WILL flow if you dare to be half an hour late again." she tsked. "Kids these days...". And with that, she disappeared, leaving her beloved students to rest. She really was going too easy on them, maybe she should hit them harder next time. Ah, that would be fun.

Some time passed before Jun, Nakai and Kao could find the strength to talk again.

''Can you two please be on time?'' Jun muttered, but without much irritation because frankly, he was too tired for that right now.

There was a moment of silence before Nakai decided to speak up. ''You know, it was not my fault that we were late. Kao was just being her usual self again. With that stupid speed of hers and those dogs following her around, she disturbed the whole of Konoha before bumping into me. And then she didn't even remember the location." he announced.

"Maybe you should start to remember the location yourself then, and not rely on Kao of all people." Jun said.

"At least that way she's useful." Nakai deviously said, expecting an angry punch from his only female teammate. Jun too, was waiting expectantly for the banter to begin between Nakai and Kao. But the only sign of life Kao made was a light snoring.

"I can't believe her, is she asleep? How can someone be asleep that fast?'" Jun said throwing his hands in the air in experation, but quickly letting them down again when pangs of pain shot through his muscles with the movement. He groaned, before gathering himself and slowly sitting up.

"I'm pretty sure only Kao can do it that fast, that little brat of a sister of mine always takes ages to fall asleep.'' Nakai said, not bothering to move at all.

Jun studied his teammates. Kao had rolled over on her side and now looked as peaceful as her dogs, who had quickly joined her and now lay sprawled over her. He couldn't understand that those dogs could stand to sleep with her. On the first few missions, the team had soon discovered that Kao was a disaster to sleep close to, with the way she kept moving around.

Nakai had closed his eyes, not sleeping but not bothering to look at the sky now that his beloved sun had set. His ponytail was loose and made his hair in a disarray, though that usually happened at the end of the day.

"Well," Jun decided, now fully standing up and carefully trying to stretch, "good luck with getting her home!'' And with that he began his trek back home.

"Wait, what?" Nakai asked, glancing at him with wide eyes.

"With that girl sleeping I don't suppose we'll be going to the usual place and our favorite restaurant is closed by now, so I guess we'll be going home. And since you're the one living the closest to Kao, it is only natural for you to take her. Besides, I don't want those dogs to bite me." Jun explained.

Said dogs eyes shot open and they growled in unison at Jun.

"I-I mean, I don't want t-those amazing strong beasts of the Inuzuka to punish me." Jun quickly added. Kuromaru let out a huff and closed his eyes again, and after glaring at Jun for some time, Shiromaru let him off the hook too.

Jun sighed in relief and began walking again. "Good luck Nakai." he told his friend, who let out a groan.

"What a drag..."