Author's Note:

2nd chapter is out! Reviews would always be nice.
I don't own Naruto or any other characters except for Taiga.

Taiga found herself in the middle of a huge clearing bordered by dense forest in one of Konoha's training grounds. Kakashi stood opposite her, a single bell attached to the side of his belt. She was going through the all-too-famous bell test so that Tsunade could determine her skill level and decide on her rank. She was going to work solo against Kakashi and had five hours to get the job done.

Glancing to her left where Tsunade, Naruto and Sakura stood, she waited for the signal so she could begin. Tsunade nodded and took a deep breath.

"Start!"

Taiga immediately backed up a few paces from Kakashi. From what Deidara had told her, Kakashi was one strong opponent and he had a sharingan which was now visible as he had lifted up his ninja hiate. She knew that it would be plain stupid to get too close to him, considering that her taijutsu was less than competent as she'd only ever really trained her ninjutsu. Genjutsu was not her forte either.

"Aren't you going to come at me?" Kakashi tried to provoke her into attacking.

Taiga stayed still. She didn't necessarily need to fight him, just get that tiny bell attached to the jonin by a single string. All she needed to do was to wet the string, and the bell was as good as hers. A plan forming in her head, she charged forward at Kakashi.

Back at where the other three ninja stood, Tsunade raised an eyebrow. Charging at the opponent for a direct and obvious attack wasn't the best thing to do. On the other hand, Naruto couldn't help but grin. He remembered that he'd always charge head on when he was younger, something that always earned him a few painful strikes at various places of his body before he was thrown back onto his rear. He was already visualising Taiga getting knocked back by a single lazy moment of Kakashi's arm. Sakura just wondered if the girl even knew what she was doing.

Soon enough, their doubts turned to surprise and curiosity as the ground beneath Kakashi's feet began to explode, forcing him to jump back and dodge the blows while keeping an eye on Taiga as she approached. The explosions around Kakashi never stopped, but started to increase with three explosions on average occurring at the same time in no particular pattern.

Kakashi was shocked. This was something that was unexpected. As jumping up too high would make him an easy target for Taiga, he decided that dodging the explosions on the ground would be something that he just had to deal with.

Taiga formed a simple hand seal. "Water element: Jet of Water!"

A huge stream of water began to shoot out of Taiga's mouth. It was easy enough to avoid, but just as Kakashi was about to move to the left, the ground at that spot blew up, making him jump back again to his initial spot, right in time for Taiga's water jet to drench him from head to toe. He found it weird that she would use such a basic jutsu that wouldn't harm him, but only cover him in water.

The explosions on the ground still hadn't ceased, and Kakashi was forced to keep retreating back while Taiga advanced forward. Very soon, Kakashi would be in the midst of the forest as he was being pushed back by the explosions. Kakashi eyed Taiga as she came nearer and nearer, when she suddenly stopped and picked something off the ground. His eyes grew wide as he realised it was the bell and his hand flew to his belt. Sure enough, the bell was no longer there.

"Looks like I win!" Taiga gloated, running back to where Tsunade stood and beckoning Kakashi to follow her. Right now, he was really confused. She hadn't even gotten near enough to try and grab the bell.

Tsunade, Naruto and Sakura stared at the former Iwagakure teen as she pranced around happily, jingling the bell in their faces.

"How did you get it so quickly?!" Naruto spluttered. He couldn't believe it! He was almost jealous of this girl.

"That's what I want to know, too," Tsunade said just as Kakashi reached them.

"Fine, fine," Taiga waved her hand lazily, a huge grin on her face. "I specialise in explosions and blowing things up."

"Somehow that doesn't surprise me..." Naruto muttered.

Taiga continued her explanation. "But I can't just blow anything up. I think you all might have already figured it out, but I have an affinity to the water element. I can only blow things up when they have water on them. I was able to keep blowing up the ground because of the grass. And then I drenched Kakashi so I could detach the bell from him by making the string explode. It would be hard for him to notice or even hear the bell being separated from him as he was occupied enough with all the 'bangs' of the other explosions around him."

"Oh, I see," Sakura said. "You're a lot like your brother..."

Taiga nodded and pretended to look interested as Sakura gave her a brief description of Deidara's abilities. She knew already knew all of this information, plus some more that the pink haired girl didn't seem to know.

"Hold on," Naruto said. He was still confused. "How did you blow up the grass, then?"

"Ah," Taiga said. "Have you heard of the word 'dew'?" She smirked as Naruto shot her a look for her sarcasm.

"Anyway," Tsunade said, "I haven't really gotten to see any of your other abilities, but I can tell that your ninjutsu is already jonin level. What about your taijutsu and genjutsu?"

Taiga suppressed a snort. Jonin? Her ninjutsu was easily S-rank. But she didn't need to let Tsunade know that in order to not arouse suspicion, so instead she planted a sheepish expression on her face. "Heh... I don't know any genjutsu at all, and I've never really trained in taijutsu, so I would say it's definitely below average."

Naruto hid a smile. So she wasn't that awesome after all! He was more well-rounded than her, so he could still hope to beat her.

"I see," Tsunade pondered Taiga's words for a moment. "Very well then, you shall start as a genin."

The was silence for a split second.

"WHAT THE FU-"

"WHOOOO!" Taiga's swearing was cut off by Naruto's cheer. She was a going to be a genin! A genin! Now he wasn't going to be the only one stuck in that lowly rank.

"Although your ninjutsu is very impressive, I'm afraid I can't let you be anything higher than a genin because of your other skills. Promoting you right to chunnin might harm you in the long run. Starting as a genin would help you have more time and opportunity to work on your taijutsu or genjutsu. And it's okay, Naruto here is also a genin, so you won't be alone."

If Taiga was annoyed then, she was seriously pissed now. "You're telling me that I'm at the same level as him?! I have an ego, you know!"

"So do I!" Naruto shot back. "You haven't even seen me fight yet, let alone all my awesome, fear-inspiring techniques that will help me become Hokage one day!"

Taiga just glared at the blonde ninja. Yes, she'd heard from all the Akatsuki members that Naruto's biggest dream was to become the Hokage. But she supposed that she could make being a genin work for her. "Whatever, we'll see how great you are when I squish you later."

Tsunade cleared her throat. "Taiga, I've decided to assign you to team seven as well. You will be filling up the last spot on this three-man team." She was careful to leave out Sasuke's name. Upsetting Naruto and Sakura was something she didn't want to do.

Taiga stared at Tsunade for a while. Didn't that place once belong to Sasuke? She knew that he was a sensitive topic around Naruto and Sakura. Sasuke himself told her about his whole 'ditch Konoha' thing as well as his battles and encounters with Naruto. This was going to be interesting. But thankfully, Sasuke being the good friend that he was, had also filled her in about Naruto's and Sakura's personalities, so she knew what to say and do around them, although she was having trouble with Naruto, if her disdain for him was any indication.

An uneasy silence had settle around the group. Tsunade and Kakashi wondered how the two younger ninjas would handle this.

Sakura had actually been thinking a lot about Sasuke recently, but not in the way that she used to, always fawning over him and dreaming of being his wife. She had decided that she needed to toughen up more, to get over her former crush's betrayal. She wasn't going to give up on bringing him back to Konoha, though. The thing is, she just grew tired of the emotional trauma that came with the whole situation and decided that she was going to rise above it.

Taiga was surprised to see Sakura smile genuinely at her. "Well, welcome to the team, Taiga!" She said, holding no traces of pain. "I think we'll be able to get along very well." She then gave a currently hurt and confused Naruto a look that said 'I'll talk with you later and explain'.

Taiga was stunned. Sasuke said that Sakura was a hopeless fan girl when it came to him and that she was obssessed with him and probably took his departure extremely harshly. What had changed? She made a mental note to tell Sasuke about this when she wrote back to Akatsuki to inform them of her progress in her assigned task.

Naruto decided that if Sakura could suck it up and be strong, he could too. He faced Taiga and grinned at her. "So, teammate, you haven't answered my question. Do you like ramen?"

Hooray! In chapter 3, more will be revealed about Taiga and what she really is doing in Konoha. I suppose all of you can guess that she has some ulterior motive. I'm open to suggestions for any character pairings. Don't forget to review and check for more updates!