Sasuke woke the next morning to Minu sitting on top of his chest.

"Come on already," she mewled impatiently, "we're gonna be late if you keep sleeping in like this, ya lazy bum."

He rolled his eyes at her, but got up out of bed anyway, the kitten agilely jumping off of him. He quickly went through his normal morning habit, getting dressed, brushing his hair, making breakfast, before going out the door. Minu very nearly followed him out, but he managed to distract her with food.

He almost hummed to himself as he walked down the streets, but he knew that would be a very un-Uchiha and un-Sasuke like thing to do. Besides, being happy because he was planning to purposely fail his genin assessment probably wasn't normal. So, he kept up his perfected "emo posture" as he made his way over to training ground three, ready for the upcoming test.

He had a good number of reasons he wanted to fail. One, Kakashi Hatake was very centered around the idea of teamwork. If he failed and was sent back to the academy, then he would finally have an excuse to be more focused on helping his future team develop. Two, being on a team with the Kyuubi no Kitsune's jinchuuriki along with being the last surviving Uchiha was just asking for trouble. Three, Sakura would be able to become a much better kunoichi without her crush on him to distract her. Lastly, he just didn't want to deal with having any of them on his team. He even had Minu's full agreement that those three together plus him would just be a mess.

So, when he got to the training field, a good hour and a half late, he completely ignored Sakura's and Naruto's sleeping forms, opting instead to just stand and wait for the S rank shinobi who even more infamous for his timing than his actual combat prowess.

The man showed up, three hours later, making him four and a half hours late in total. Naruto and Sakura had woken up about an hour ago, the cold ground being very hard to sleep on and all, and they immediately pounced on him, shouting at the ready to berate him. The man merely crinkled an eye at them, and Sasuke was glad he was going to be leaving this team behind. He was already on the verge of a headache.

"Maa, don't worry about," the masked man said, waving his hand in a dismissive manner. "I just saw this really nice restaurant had opened up the minute I walked by, and I figured I wouldn't mind being one of the first customers. It was such a good breakfast that I couldn't just get up and leave."

"LIAR!" Naruto and Sakura shouted at the same time, knocking Sasuke out of the daydream he'd been using to ignore them.

"Maa, either way I'm here now, so let's explain the rules, hmm?" Naruto and Sakura both looked less than appeased, while Sasuke just stared.

"I have here two bells, and three students. Each student needs to get a bell to pass. Pretty simple, right?"

"But sensei," Sakura asked him in all her naivete, "there are only two bells. How can all three of us get one."

"That's a very good question," Kakashi 'praised' her, giving yet another masked smile, "it's really simple, if you stop to think about it. Only two of you can pass, the other will be tied to that post over there and forced to watch the winners and myself as we eat lunch." Sakura's and Naruto's bellies both chose that moment to rumble. His hopefully-not-sensei didn't even spare them a glance.

"Then again, you could all three fail," Kakashi went on, completely aware of their suffering, "it really just depends.

"But that's just not fair!" Naruto burst out, a look of righteous fury on his face. "Every last one of us worked hard to get these forehead protectors, and now you're saying that we just have to give them up if we fail one little test!? People's hopes and dreams rely on their careers!"

And the lives of everyone in the village relies on the competence of their shinobi protectors, he thought. If you can't work together for the good of the mission, then you're likely to cause someone's death. With that in mind, he decided to go along with the little test Hatake had stolen from the Yondaime. It would ensure Sakura and Naruto would actually understand the man's logic, ensuring they could both "see underneath the underneath", as Hatake was so fond of calling it.

"Maa, maa, it can't be that important to you guys, you're just kids after all." Ignoring Naruto's murderous glare, he continued. "You can start when I say-"

He was interrupted by Naruto, who had plunged forward with a kunai in hand, ready to attack the jounin. Kakashi had caught it easily, and was looking down at Naruto as if he were telling a two year old not to play with his food.

"I didn't say go yet Naruto."

Rubbing the back of his head in obvious embarrassment, the blonde immediately reset to where he had been before.

"Remember, you will accomplish nothing unless you come at me with the intent to kill." He gave us all a level stare. "Go!"

Sasuke shot to the trees, heading to a spot he had found earlier that looked like it would provide decent cover. Deciding he could go a little overboard, he hid his chakra, making sure that only actual sensors would be able to find him. Something he planned to become better at himself in the next year or so.

Sakura was on the other side of the clearing, hiding underneath a bush. She would have been completely unseen, had it not been for her bubblegum pink hair. He supposed she was doing the best she could, but it still made him smirk to see her. Naruto wasn't anywhere to be seen in the tree line, and Sasuke knew it could only mean one thing.

Naruto, you're such a Dobe.

And there he was, in all his bright orange glory, standing right in front of Kakashi, making boisterous claims. He nearly facepalmed at the idiot's audacity, but refrained from doing so.

The battle, if it could even be called that, was completely one sided. Hatake didn't even have to try, pulling out his book as if he didn't have a care in the world. That just made Naruto angry, which led him to make even more mistakes. The guy didn't even have a real fighting style. His biggest way to attack was to spam shadow clones at people. If he weren't already being such a dobe, attacking a jounin in a 'fair fight', he would have felt bad for the guy. As it was, he could hardly contain laughter.

A small chuckle did escape his lips as he saw Kakashi's hidden technique, a thousand years of suffering. Boy, Naruto would be feeling that in the morning. The blonde landed in the water with a big splash, and an even bigger yell. He'd heard Sakura yell something from her hiding spot, something about Naruto dying, and knew she'd been discovered. Hatake turned to where he had heard from her, but was attacked, yet again, by Naruto. Sasuke had to hand it to the guy, he was tenacious if nothing else.

Of course, the fight ended in the same manner as before, and in even less time. It wasn't as funny as the first ending, but he guessed seeing Naruto hanging upside down from a tree would be good enough as blackmail. As soon as Kakashi got done 'teaching' Naruto about how to actually understand a trick, he shot off after Sakura. Sasuke was a bit concerned, seeing as how Naruto was Konoha's so called Prank Master, and he'd just been fooled by a bell just lying on the ground. It made him wonder about the skill of their shinobi, if Naruto was able to pull pranks on them.

Sakura screamed somewhere in the distance, and he figured to was time to make his move. He got out of the tree he had previously been in, and started jogging over to where he thought Kakashi was. It didn't take him long to be found, and soon he was facing the copy nin. Sasuke wasted no time, plunging straight at the jounin with all his meager taijutsu prowess. He wasn't sure if he wanted to know how he'd managed to beat everyone their year in physical fights, but right now wasn't the time to think about it.

Kakashi grabbed the kick aimed to his midsection, and the punch aimed to his face with ease. Sasuke was stuck in his grasp, but he could still see the bells. He reached an arm out hoping they were within reach. His finger barely grazed the surface of one for them before he was sent flying by Hatake. He scowled, hating the fact that he had been beaten so easily, especially when he'd actually been trying. He ran through a familiar set of hand signs, feeling his chakra begin to take a shape that was almost second nature.

"Fire style: great fireball jutsu!" he shouted, letting out a large breath of flames. He could see Kakashi's surprise, and he would have smirked, had he not been busy being a living flame thrower. The fireball jutsu didn't actually need to take the shape of a sphere, and took full advantage of that, having it encompass an even larger area.

He could feel Kakashi's chakra fluctuate, and knew he was using a jutsu to escape the flames. He wasn't supposed to know however, and had to once again resign himself to a less than savory situation.

He glared up at the silver haired man from his position stuck in the ground.

"Lesson three: ninjutsu." He said, making Sasuke's scowl deepen even further. He knew exactly what ninjutsu was, thank you very much!

"You're right Sasuke, you are different from the others," the jounin said as he walked away. "But is that really a good thing?"

If only you knew, you lazy bastard.

"I'm extremely disappointed in all of you," Kakashi said, glaring down at them. Naruto fidgeted from where he was tied to the pole, uncomfortable with the man's gaze. Sakura was staring at the ground, red blooming across her face.

"I told you, you need to see underneath the underneath. Have any of you ever seen a three man genin team?" Naruto shook his head, and Sakura's gaze fell even lower. "The purpose of this exercise was to see if you could put aside your career differences and work as a team. Obviously, you could not."

Naruto and Sakura objected to this, saying they didn't know. Sasuke tuned out their meaningless objections, thinking instead of how he would survive another year at the academy with these two. Come to think of it, hadn't Naruto failed twice already? How many times was he allowed to retake a year? Sasuke sent a discreet glance over to the boy who was tied up to a wooden pole, and felt a flash of sympathy. He didn't want to get involved with him. He knew if Minu were here, she'd tell him to help the guy out. Darn, sometimes he really hated that kitten.

"Give us one more chance." He said, speaking up for the first time. Kakashi turned his single visible eye on him.

"Am why should I? You've already proven you can't work together, what more proof do I need of your idiocy."

"Now we know we should work together, and we can better use each other's skills to make a plan," he said, ignoring the slight. "You can go harder on us, see if we can adjust to meet standards."

Kakashi looked like he was pondering over it for a minute, but he knew that the ninja had made up his mind with Sasuke's first sentence. He just didn't know what his decision was.

"Maa… ok!" He said, cheery demeanor back in place. "But only you and Sakura get to eat. If either of you feed Naruto, then you'll fail permanently. You won't be allowed to be sent back to the academy. Your career will end here." On that last positive note, he disappeared with a shunshin.

They ate in silence for only thirty seconds before Naruto's stomachs grumbled. The boy looked down, ashamed at his weakness. Sasuke rolled his eyes before proffering his lunch to the other kid.

"Huh?" Naruto asked, using his superior intellect.

"You are hungry. That leaves you weak. If you're weak, then the team is weak, and we fail." Naruto had tears collecting near his eyes, and Sasuke nearly flinched at the level of emotion that three gruff sentences had brought forth. It wasn't sympathy that made him cringe, it was that fact that he'd been living in isolation for six years, and just didn't know how to deal with it.

Luckily, Sakura stepped up to the plate, offering to feed Naruto instead, because she was on a diet. That was something was going to have to change, and fast. But it was something that Kakashi would have to deal with, as he didn't want to be stuck here any longer than he had to. Sakura was feeding Naruto a single bite when Kakashi showed up, fury emanating from his body.

"You broke the rules!" He said, his voice deadly. "Failure means death in the shinobi world!" Angry black clouds gathered behind him, and he glared at us with hatred.

"Any last words?"

Sakura, a quivering mess, looked at him, a defiance Sasuke hadn't expected to see in her eyes. "We needed to help the te-team." She said, her voice breaking a bit in the end. "If Naruto was weak, then we would have lost. We're in this together!"

"We're a team. We win and we lose as one." Sasuke surprised even himself by saying that. He was producing a litany of curses in his head, knowing there was no way he'd be able to fail now.

"No way is someone as stupid as you gonna tear us apart!" Naruto shouted at him.

"Very well…" Lightning crashed in the distance, a product of the genjutsu. "You pass!"

Sasuke headed home, disappointed in himself. Stupid morals, and stupid cat too, they'd made him pass. Now he was stuck with a team of idiots, and there was no way out. Maybe if he just didn't show up tomorrow, everything would be ok. They wouldn't keep a genin who showed up even later than Kakashi, would they? He sincerely hoped not, since that may be his last option.

It may be time for him to bring Minu along with him on missions. After all, if anyone could be annoying it was her. And maybe Naruto, but mostly her. Three minutes in and she'd be laughing at everyone. Maybe then he'd get an excuse to leave early as well as show up late.

Yes, he liked that idea.