Disclaimer: i do not own Naruto or any of its characters, just the plot. and the OC's.

Title: Bearing an Hourglass

Language: English

Form: Multi-Chaptered

Genre: Romance/Adventue

Rating: T

Pairing: Sakura Haruno/Sasuke Uchiha, Kushina Uzumaki/Minato Namikaze

Summary: What would you do if you found out you are one of the only two people exclusively chosen to trade your existing time line for another one to fix past mistakes, so that the entire fate of the ninja word effectively lies on your shoulders in just a single minute? That's what Sakura and Sasuke have to figure out.

Note: Okay! The second part! Hope you enjoy! Clarifications in the author's note at the end of the chapter. As always, follow/favorite and review!

Note 2: I'm sorry it got taken down before for an hour or so, so I'm uploading it again! Sorry that it's not the next chapter! But then again, come on, it's me. It would've just been weird if I updated this fast :p But anyway, good news-I will be updating this story on next Thursday, so yay! It's kind of a special day, anime wise, since they will be releasing the episode titled ' ', and trust me guys, even if the content will be nothing related to Sasusaku, since they are kids in that episode, when else will we ever get an episode with only their names like that? Never, that's when. So in celebration of that, I'm gonna write extra fast and finish off the second part of the Chunnin exams!

Bearing an Hourglass

by fourthfireshadow

Act II

Chapter 13- A Test of the Body (Part I)

It was exactly the same.

Well, not exactly the same, she supposed, since it was a lot of years in the past, but still. The eeriness, the aura, the vastness and that unmistakable humidity from the denseness of greenery emitting from behind the electrical fences were the same. The concerned murmurs from the participants behind her were also similar, except there was no loud, obnoxious yelling from the loud, obnoxious blond this time around. Which really begged the question of where the hell an equally loud and obnoxious redheaded Uzumaki was. She had only left Kushina sleeping back at their place as a prank; she didn't think the girl would literally sleep through the exam.

Sakura looked at the turnout, mentally counting the number of teams' present at the same place where teams had to assemble for the second stage of the chunnin exams during her first try—the ever-foreboding Forest of Death. Other than her own team, there were only two more teams and the designated proctors present, which made her frown in confusion. Where was Sasuke and Kushina? Other than that, weren't there other teams that had passed as well? Sharing a baffled look with Minato, she turned her attention to the examiner of this stage—a stern looking man with an even meaner glint in his eyes.

Well. At least he seemed saner than the crazy that was Anko. That lady had genuinely creeped her out, especially after learning that those mannerisms had been passed down from her out-of-this-world psycho mentor Orochimaru. In front of that, this guy was nothing.

He was looking over them with something akin to disinterest as he began explaining what exactly was going on with only three teams out of the six or seven that did pass. "Welcome to the second stage of the chunnin exams. This stage is usually to test the participants' survival and task completion skills. However, before we being the test, I need you all to read these and sign if you wish to continue onwards."

"Consent forms…?" one of the people around asked, puzzled. Sakura took one of the papers with something akin to resignation and passed the rest to her teammates, her lips quirking up at the print. It was exactly the same, word for word.

"Yes, consent forms. One thing all of you need to understand about this stage of these exams is, once you enter the forest, anything goes. There are no rules regarding how you go about to achieve your task, other than those pertaining to the task directly. Which means, the village will not be held accountable for any harm or injury that you may receive, and the village will also not be responsible for any deaths that may occur."

She felt the atmosphere surrounding the area immediately shift as the last word was uttered, the air now more serious and oppressive than it was a mere moment ago. Looking around, she could already see some people's face go pale and even Shikaku's lazy groans could be heard. There was a tinge of apprehension also colouring everyone's expressions, which made the examiner smirk in amusement.

"Of course, if any one of you backs out, your team automatically gets disqualified as well, so bear that in mind and make your decision." He said, glancing at all of the teams with a watchful eye. "Now, as all of you may have guessed, this forest behind me is going to be the venue for this stage, and your task to complete will be involving these."

Reaching into his flak pocket, he brought out to very familiar scrolls—a cream and a blue one, making Sakura's eyes narrow in slight exasperation. This was her third time doing exactly the same thing!

"These are the heaven and earth scrolls. Three teams from the six that passed the first round will get both of them, while the other teams get only one. The objective of the teams that get both the scrolls is to guard them until the end of the second exam, while the objective of the teams with only one scroll is to get the other missing scroll using whatever means necessary during the allotted time and get to the tower located about ten kilometres from the entrance, in the middle of the forest."

At this, her interest piqued greatly—this was definitely a change, a modulation of the original scroll test. While this wasn't exactly the same, it wasn't exactly different either. The only thing to worry about was which one was her team going to be—the ones with both or just one? Was that why only three teams were called at a time? Were all three of them going to get just one? or both?

"You all must have noticed that only three of the six are present at the moment. That is for a reason, as the other three teams do not know about you all getting here an extra half hour early. The three teams that are present at this point of time are the ones that passed the first stage of the exams with the highest scores, and for that, congratulations. As a reward, your teams will get the advantage of getting to choose to be on the defensive with two scrolls or the offensive with just one. Each side has an advantage that you have to think about carefully, so I will give you all two minutes to discuss whether you wish to continue and if you do, then what position you'd like to be in. Your time starts now." He declared promptly, making all the genin rush to their respective teammates in huddles.

Sakura turned to the other two, already having a vague idea of what she wanted to do. Feeling the paper in her hands, she however felt compelled to ask the question even if she already knew what the response was going to be. But then again, surprisingly she couldn't be sure with Minato, so.

"Before we start discussing options, you both do want to continue, right?"

"Well, duh. This actually seems interesting." Hitoshi scoffed, crossing his arms in indignation at the question which made Sakura roll her eyes.

"You will forever be the only Hyuuga who I've ever heard say duh." She muttered back, making him scowl before turning to the blond who was smiling at the exchange. He must've noticed her strong gaze, because he suddenly turned pink. "I'm good to go too. Really."

"…Okay." She said after a few moments, after seeing the conviction in his sky blue eyes. "So, what option do you guys think we should go for? The proctor's right, of course, both sides have advantages."

"Yeah, I mean, if we choose to get only one scroll, then we can rest a little easier knowing we only have to hunt for the other scroll instead of having the pressure to guard both." Hitoshi thought out loud with narrow eyes. "Also, right after we capture one of the scrolls, we can directly go to the tower instead of waiting around."

"But with that option, we still have the pressure of finding the exact scroll we don't have. And if you think about it, since no team gets to know the number and type of scrolls the other teams have, the chances of surviving increase for the two scroll teams, unless some other team defeat us and find the two scrolls by luck." Minato mused, superstitiously looking over the other teams with pursed lips. "If we think smart and use stealth throughout, we could have an easier time going for defense than offense."

Sakura was leaning more towards Hitoshi idea, but she couldn't deny the blond made sense. If they were careful and patient enough, they could get out of this without expelling any effort and the least scraps. Mind made up, she nodded in assent.

"I think Minato's right. Defense would be the best option to go for, I think. Especially since we have an advantage here." She proclaimed, her gaze falling to the other teams around her. Seeing them, however, her brows furrowed in thought. Hitoshi, following her gaze, also shifted his stance to a curious one.

"Alright, then let's go get our scrolls." Minato said, collecting the signed sheets from the other two and started walking towards the booth to submit them. Following in a slightly slower pace, Sakura ran through everything she knew about the other teams—Team 3 and Team 9, if her memory was right, which it usually was. Both of them were going to be a problem, she knew, though Team 3—Mikoto's team—wouldn't be too hard to take advantage of since she remembered the Uchiha complaining to her about their less-than-stellar group dynamics. They could be an efficient tracker team if they put their minds to it, however, since the group comprised of the Sharingan, tracker bugs and, surprisingly, a Shimura—who wasn't to be underestimated if his related councilman murderer was anything to go by, she thought distastefully.

However, the other team seemed to be the more dangerous one. It was team that comprised of a Hyuuga, an Inuzuka and a Sarutobi after all, and from what she remembered from this era's academy days, Ren was a top rookie, as was expected of the Hokage's son. Couple that with Tsume's sharp nose and the Byakugan, stealth may be a problem.

She looked away from the completely-at-ease Sarutobi as she ducked under the jute flaps of the booth, in time to see Minato hand in the forms and get the two scrolls in return. Slipping the familiar scroll passed on to her into her weapons pouch just as the blond did the same, she offered a quick bow at the proctor and exited the cramped space.

All the genin stood to attention once everyone had collected their scrolls. The examiner, leaning against one of the posts, cleared his throat. "Now that everyone's decided their play, the exam can start. However, here are the rules everyone has to abide by. First, any team entering the tower has to have both the scrolls with you; otherwise, you are automatically disqualified. Second, if a team enters the tower without all their teammates, or with an unrecoverable one, you are automatically disqualified. And third, you are not to look inside the scrolls until you reach the tower."

"Uh, but, what if you did look? Um, accidently that is." Tsume questioned with a dubious expression.

"Well, you'll find out then." The examiner said mockingly, raising his eyebrow at the tattooed girl.

The Inuzuka only looked more doubtful at that, but let it go.

"The time limit for this test is twenty-four hours. No more, no less. The official exam starts from ten, but you three get to start it thirty minutes early." He said, much to the surprise of the pinkette. That was four days lesser than the previous one. She guessed it made sense, since the number of participants are a lot lesser in numbers than her first and second try, since this was a strict Konoha-only test and no major peace treaties had been signed yet. It was nine twenty-six right now. If the test began by ten, then they had to guard the scrolls till only ten in the morning the next day. This worked out too well in the defense team's favour and from the rise in noise from behind her, the others must have realised it too, a smirk lifting the corner of her lips, though Sakura immediately squashed it down lest any other upstart genin mistake that for overconfidence.

Even if that was what it was.

"The teams will enter the forest based on your ranking from your previous test in spans of ten minutes, which means Team—" at this, the examiner pulled out a sheet from his back pocket and went over the contents, "—10 will go first."

Realizing it was her team that was being called out for coming in first—she couldn't stop the burst of colour on her face even if she wanted to; her team was first! Hell yeah! —she quickly followed her teammates through the massive gates, but not before seeing the flash of veins protruding around the eyes of the Hyuuga.

Damn it.

"That other Hyuuga most probably knows we carry both the scrolls. I saw him activating the Byakugan just as we entered." Sakura informed her team as they ran through the thick foliage, trying to make as less noise as possible as they jumped from tree to tree.

"That's fine." Hitoshi said casually, making Minato raise a sceptic brow at their own Hyuuga. "Is it?"

"Yeah. I mean, it's only fair since I used mine to figure out what the other teams have. Can't let my stupid cousin win, after all."

A sharp laugh escaped her as Hitoshi grinned at her. "Why am I even surprised?"

"What were they then?" Minato questioned, turning his head slightly from the front of their formation to look at him.

"Team 9 has one scroll while Team 3 has two, like us."

"That means Team 9 is an offense team, which means they'll be the ones we have to worry about." Minato said, increasing his speed slightly, making Sakura huff. All of them knew he was the fastest, yet he still liked to assert that fact way too much.

"They're especially worrisome since they probably already know that Team 3 and us have both the scrolls—"

"—which means they'll actively hunt for us for their missing scroll."

"Exactly." Sakura stated in slight annoyance. The foliage around them wasn't clearing out, not in the slightest. If anything, the greenery was getting thicker, and now they had to expel a little more chakra to stick to the tree branches due to the copious amounts of moisture clinging to them. More than that, she could already feel the dense humidity of the forest getting to her, the sweat dampening the back of her top in an uncomfortable manner. The hissings and other sharp whistling noises accompanying their breathing wasn't really something favourable either.

In a way, it was a good thing she didn't see Sasuke before the exam started—locking eyes with him in this forest would only bring out unwanted memories of a day she desperately never wanted to think about; of melting faces and spreading black marks and purple fumes of chakra and an unconscious Naruto and whirling red eyes and a lost Sasuke. Of hopes and disappointments and pale hair fluttering in the wind and blood staining teeth.

"…This place is kind of creepy, isn't it?" Hitoshi said, mouth already set in a sneer of disgust as he narrowly dodged a shimmering blue beetle way too large to be normal.

Minato's agreement came in the form of a kunai sliding cleanly into another insanely large insect, it's translucent blood gushing out noisily through its wound onto the ground. He frowned in mild revulsion as he regarded his bug-insides-covered-weapon still lodged into the insect.

"Yes, it is. Let's go to the nearest water source and set up our plan. We have approximately eight minutes until Mikoto's team enters the forest, and even if they may not be actively searching for us, I don't want to take that chance." Sakura cut in, not willing to go near the bug and take the kunai out. It may be strange—after all, she was perfectly fine plunging her hands into human bodies and restarting an organ manually, or doing gruesome surgeries that leave her with red blood on her hands for hours on end—but there was just something so inherently gross about an insect's colourless blood and squished bits that was just too hard to ignore.

"I would take the kunai back though, if I were you. We'll be too easy to track if we leave it there." Hitoshi said, looking as reluctant as he sounded.

She couldn't help but look on in sympathy, even if a violent shudder passed through her at the sight of an equally reluctant Minato wiping away the blood with his hand in one swoop. Shaking her head rapidly, she turned towards the direction of where she vaguely remembered the river passing through the forest to be.

Sasuke better be a stress-free component for the exams, this time around. No pale freaks with elongated necks sinking powerful poison into flesh or turning into a violent sadist or staring at death in the eyes or anything of the sort.

He would be a stress-free component, Sakura thought to herself wryly, if only she could just stop thinking about him.

.

.

.

Kushina grunted at the force with which she leaped from the tree branch, but no one could really blame her for being distracted, could they? Not when the bastard's been looking as if the end was near ever since they'd entered the forest for the second stage. Of course, the expression wasn't so explicitly painted on his face—he was still Uchiha Extraordinaire after all, emotion is a disease for them, blah blah—but in the catalogue she'd made in her head pertaining to his different expressions—grumpy, scowling, frowning, mocking, that occasional scary smirk and that even scarier rare small smile—this was completely out of the blue.

Paranoia.

That was the word to describe his peculiar skittishness. He was paranoid about something, and it started from the moment they entered the forest. Actually, this behavior started even earlier, now that she thought about it. From the moment they entered the training grounds itself, she'd say. But why was he behaving that way? For as long as she's known him—and it was a long time, sadly enough—grump's never acted less than confident; arrogant ass was the term she'd use, but since the redhead was trying to be objective, she'd refrain herself.

There was a constant frown on his face, and this wasn't a normal frown, but one with pursed-lips-and-muscle-twitches-in-the-cheek kind. Another thing that was weird was the way he wasn't disgusted by the humongous snakes just slithering around here, like, at all. If anything, they made his cheek-twitch relax fractionally.

Snakes. He gets paranoid about the forest, but then relaxes at the sight of the very same thing that makes everyone else paranoid. Just how weird can a guy get?

Also, he hadn't turned his sharingan off since the exam began, which is just…suspicious. And plain stupid, really; doesn't it drain chakra really easily?

"Hey, bastard, why the hell are you wasting chakra with that sharingan, dattebane? It's only been an hour or so since the exam's began!" Kushina said, annoyance tugging at her at her usually level headed teammate's stupidity.

"It never hurts to be vigilant, idiot." Sasuke muttered lowly, not bothering to look at her, "Of course, I don't expect you to understand that."

The redhead's eyes widened slightly at the tone he used. There was actual vehemence in that enunciation. Her eyes narrowed right back as she glared. "You're just draining all your chakra, you know. That is stupid, and you know it. Just because you're scared of this forest or something—"

"Shut up, loser," he snapped, turning abruptly to shoot her a blood red glare, making her almost step back in its abruptness, but she stood her ground glaring right back, not ever wanting to admit the small tinge of unease she felt at those eyes being directed at her so intensely. "That's not what this is. And I think I'd know my chakra limits, not you, so stay out of it."

The stunned silence only lasted for a second before the Uzumaki felt anger fill her at his words. "I'll stay out of it, bastard, when I know that you won't just drop dead sometime or the other just because you wanted to act all tough here!"

"Someone has to pick up the slack in this team anyway, so I'd—"

"You're trembling." Risako's voice cut through the argument, rendering Sasuke silent at the interruption.

"I—what?" Muted bewilderment passed through his eyes at those words, erasing the prior frustration completely.

"Your hands." Risako elaborated softly, nodding at the appendages.

Kushina looked at him in confusion before her gaze fell to the Uchiha's pale hands; hands that were noticeably shaking. It wasn't apparent, but obvious when paid attention to. The angry snarl on her face melted away to puzzlement as she looked up at his irritated face. Just what was making him behave this way?

…Had he ever been here before?

The brief, clear emotion that had passed over his face at the sight of his not-so-steady hands vanished as Sasuke retreated back under that emotionless mask of his; however, Kushina could still see the small vestiges of how shaken up he really was. At first, she'd thought it to be some stupid ego complex, or unnecessary paranoia, but now she was starting to think otherwise.

It was starting to unnerve her now.

Without another word, Sasuke leaped forward, leaving the other two to stare dumbfounded at the rapidly fading Uchiha crest as it got swallowed up by the darkness the further he moved away. Sharing a quick look with Kagetsu, who looked as equally unnerved as she, they quickly followed. Kushina would never admit it, but as she increased the flow of chakra to her legs to give her that extra burst of speed, she couldn't help but feel uneasy at the thought of her broody teammate wandering around in these woods alone without them beside him, especially after seeing how affected he was with the area. Glancing to the side through strands of hair, she could see Kagetsu catching up too.

A glint caught her eye at the last moment and her eyes widened—the sharp end was shooting towards her face! —but another kunai—Sasuke's kunai—deflected it right at the nick of time. She turned in time to catch him throw another blade to his left, his sharingan gaze already locked on the direction.

"Paranoia doesn't seem so unneeded, does it?" Kushina heard Sasuke mutter lowly as she shakily took her own blade into her hands, shaking her head once to get rid of the tremor. The thumps of feet hitting wood simply established their first challenge of this stage. However, she couldn't really help looking at the dark haired boy that was looking at Sasuke so nastily.

"I'm glad I ran into you, really." He spoke directly to Sasuke, a smirk pulling at his lips, "I've always been way too curious for my own good about the prodigy rising form the dumps in our clan." As his eyes bled red, Kushina understood and couldn't help but roll her eyes at it. Clan rivalry. Dear God.

"Heard you also got into the Police Force training. Under Fugaku-sama too. Che." The unknown Uchiha scoffed. "I wanna know how a measly kid with maybe a tenth of the Uchiha blood in him, from a rundown low-class family, ever dared to achieve that."

At that Sasuke's eyes flashed. But he still did nothing! In fact, he just looked slightly confused at what was happening, as if he'd never heard of the concept of trash-talk, especially from his family, extended as it may be. This guy was trash-talking his family, and all of them, especially grumpy, was simply standing there looking content enough to keep on listening, even though she could clearly see he was feeling something? What the hell?

"Hey, bastard! Are you just gonna stand there and let this no-name Uchiha say all that?!" Kushina yelled with wide eyes, her grip tightening on the cool metal in her hands. "You have paranoia but no guts, huh?"

Something seemed to click at that, and she restrained a grin at that all too familiar look passing his eyes. The one that she always hated, but always proved to be the start of a challenge anyway.

Cockiness.

As if the smirk now on his face wasn't enough already.

"Why don't you stop talking and find out?"

Not waiting for a reply—well, obviously—he dashed forward in a speed faster than the other Uchiha was prepared for and slipped past his defences to do an uppercut, one that was avoided just in the nick of time, but instead failed to block the roundhouse kick from his left. The—yet unnamed— Uchiha skid past his surprised teammate from the force of the kick but eventually crouched down in a stance, his eyes just fractionally wider than before making the red of his bloodline limit seem even more bright.

Ironically, Sasuke's eyes changed back to onyx, his smirk now a bit more pronounced, the insult clear. Kushina was torn between smiling and rolling her eyes at the familiarity. She stuck to the latter. The Uchiha's teammates now realizing it was a full-fledged attack, changed their stances to the offensive, the other boy running towards Risako. She immediately turned to provide back-up but then the girl—Rieka, the redhead recollected, one of the girls who used to make fun of her and her sister's hair—rushed towards her with weapons in hand. Having only a vague idea of the girl's skills, Kushina blocked the first punch, wanting to get this over with quickly. Getting tired of being on the defensive, she brought her leg around the dark haired girl, and anticipating the counter quickly brought her other leg for a quick kick to the ribs, being nicked on the arm from the kunai in the process. With the space that provided, Kushina quickly grabbed a seal tag from her pouch—a simple nerve numbing seal, small enough to hide in her fist, before charging forward with a yell.

The girl was good at hand to hand, that was for sure, and taijutsu was never Kushina's main forte and those kunai's in her hands were only making this more dangerous. But luckily, fuuinjutsu always was. Ducking the moment a foot swung at her, she twisted quickly and taking the small opening from the momentum of Reika's kick, she slapped the small tag on the girl's right leg, making Rieka loose feeling in that limb. The redhead could see the exact moment the confusion and fear hit her at the loss of feeling, but Kushina didn't give her the time to investigate and rip off the piece of parchment—which would effectively recover all feeling in the leg and render her party trick useless—quickly rushing forward and hitting the back of her head harshly with the handle of her kunai, effectively knocking her out and making her fall like a limp noodle.

Letting out a sigh of relief, Kushina ripped the seal off of the leg and promptly stashed it in her pouch again after checking for any tears or ink smears—she only had a few of these, after all. It'd be stupid to leave them, and they were handy in situations like these. After that, she set out to rummage through the girl's pouches and pockets only to find absolutely nothing.

Figures. They wouldn't be so lucky.

The sudden appearance of the other guy of the team—Yotsuki something, who looked a little worse for wear, but nowhere near done—startled Kushina, her grip on the kunai slipping slightly. Cursing herself, she slipped into a defensive stance, but the guy simply picked the girl up and stood back, not even sparing her a glance, as if her presence didn't even register in his radar, which ticked the redhead off.

Hello, does he not realize just because of whom he was carrying his teammate like that, exactly? Can't be that much of an idiot, she scoffed internally.

"Setsuna. Enough. We're already down a teammate. We need to retreat."

It was only then she realised that there was an Uchiha showdown going on as well. Glancing at her dark haired teammate, she pursed her lips. Then she outright stared. It may have not been obvious to Setsuna, but Sasuke was so clearly toying with him. He wasn't even the slightest bit out of breath, while the other looked like he was fighting one of the toughest battles he'd ever fought, the wildly spinning sharingan contrasting sharply, insultingly, with the clear obsidian of Sasuke's eyes. One was the picture of cool, calm and composed while the other was valiantly trying not to show it, but had trembling limbs all over as they both stood at a deadlock, both kunai's glinting. Only, one was still and the other was buckling under the pressure.

Just how much force was Sasuke exerting?

And more importantly, another disturbing thought entered her head. Just how much exactly had Sasuke been holding back during team training sessions? Had he ever gone easy on them? What all did he learn in his extra police training? Because, while she may have knocked out her own opponent, it was still a match between sort of equals.

This. This was a blatant show of power.

Too quick for her to make out, something sparked and then the other Uchiha was a good distance away, his face scrunched up in obvious pain as he dropped his blade and stared at his palm. Her brows furrowed; what exactly had happened? It was too fast for her to follow, but then she saw it. The sparks of electricity curling around the length of Sasuke's kunai. As soon as she saw it though, it died out, only leaving a faint scent of ozone and a gleaming blade behind.

When the hell did Sasuke learn how to control lightning?

She was sure he didn't learn it form Sakumo-sensei. After all, it was sensei's decision to only start elemental training after the second stage and while she though it was unfair since she knew Sasuke already knew fire jutsus, sensei vetoed that call since apparently it was tradition for Uchiha's to learn a fire technique when they were really small, or something like that. But now, he can control lightning? Since when could he use two elements like that?

"We could easily take you out, but we'll let you go. For now," Sasuke said, words thickening the tenseness between the two teams. Then he turned his glance to the still grimacing Setsuna with a raised eyebrow. "To showcase goodwill between Uchiha. Or something like that."

The mock in his tone was clear. Plus, his eyebrows always were expressive as hell.

And apparently, he did know the concept of trash-talk. She was only sort of proud.

Setsuna growled at that, but the hand on his shoulder stopped him from doing something utterly stupid—probably like confronting Sasuke again. For an Uchiha, he sure was emotional, Kushina thought, slightly baffled. Nah, it must've been the pride thing. Sasuke also gets his feathers ruffled whenever Sakumo-sensei thrashed him completely.

He looked like he was going to snarl something, but at the last moment, turned sharply and leaped into the trees, red eyes still spinning. After a moment, only team 6 was present.

Kushina had a lot of questions ready at the tip of her tongue as Sasuke turned around to face them, but she asked the most obvious one at the moment. "Why'd you just let them get away like that? We could've been outta here already!"

"We can get a scroll easily. What's the rush?" The Uchiha retorted, placing his kunai in his pouch and already scanning the area with his eyes.

"…Besides, he already said it. It was for goodwill." Risako muttered from beside her, rolling his eyes at the last word. Kushina snickered, nudging the annoyed boy. Man, he must've been pissed if he was directly mocking Sasuke like that.

"It was a lesson." Sasuke said, glancing at them in irritation. "Class doesn't matter."

"Yeah? then why do you look like even you don't believe that?" Risako asked rhetorically. It was true, too. She also saw a look pass his face a moment after he said it—like he was almost hesitant to stand by his own words.

At that, Sasuke sharply turned away from them and started walking, opting to ignore the question. Heaving a sigh, Risako simply picked up his backpack and followed, nudging Kushina forward as well.

However, her eyes kept flickering to Sasuke's fingers, where she saw blinding blue sparks flickering about in that fight. Just what else was her teammate hiding?

.

.

.

"That was seriously embarrassing. How did this happen to us?"

"I was taking a piss! I couldn't exactly do anything, you know! If anything, its Sakura's fault for telling me to go far away and do it." Hitoshi whisper-yelled, looking as red as anyone had ever seen him.

"Sure, blame me for not wanting to be scarred for life!" the pinkette whisper-yelled back, rolling her eyes so hard she was half-sure they'd fall off. "And you should've known anyway! You have your almighty Byakugan! What use is it if you don't even use it?"

"Who the hell uses the Byakugan in the bathroom?!" He exploded, not bothering to keep quiet anymore as he looked incredulously at her, throwing his hands in the air.

"But you weren't in the bathroom were you?" Sakura yelled back, dropping any semblance of stealth as well, "You were in the Forest of Death, you idiot! And now we lost our Earth scroll!"

At that, he looked abashed. It was quite funny actually, the way indignation warred with embarrassment and anger on his face. Actually, the whole circumstance, if seen from an outsider's perspective would've been funny, but Sakura couldn't find it in her to laugh, especially since she was just as riled up as he.

"Guys, guys! Stop already!" Minato finally spoke, pushing himself into the small space between his two teammates, not at all caring about personal boundaries. He could hear Sakura sputtering right behind him—most likely due to the mouthful of blonde hair she got—and his extremely close presence immediately made Hitoshi back away with a disgusted face.

Minato rolled his eyes.

"Listen. What's done is done, there's nothing we could've done in that situation anyway." He reasoned, and valiantly ignored the 'the idiot could've not gone to pee' that followed. And the offended scoff that followed that. His team was seriously dramatic.

Breathing in, he tried again. "Also, it was Shikaku's team, and they took advantage with a good plan, embarrassing hostage situation or not. And anyway, with Hitoshi caught up in his shadow jutsu, with Yamanaka right there and Chouza waiting to clobber us, there wasn't anything else we could do but give up the scroll. We couldn't leave a teammate behind, anyway."

"I'm pretty sure we could've left him behind."

"You're gonna die pretty soon, pinkie. Just vanish without a trace."

Breath in. Breath out. "—And good news is, they thought we only had one scroll. So we still have one scroll. Positive outlook, guys."

Silence. And then—

"You would've already been dead, Hyuuga, if it was a real hosta—"

"Okay, that is it! Both of you just shut the hell up!" Minato exploded, eyes narrowed and cheeks flushed as he finally had enough of all the stupid, ridiculous bickering. "None of you are doing anything useful at the moment other than expelling unwanted energy! What's done is done, so we move on, and if you both keep on continuing this, then so help me God, I will obliterate the both of you, exams be damned!"

Only his harsh panting filled the air as both his teammates looked at him in muted shock—wide eyes, open jaws, the works.

After a few moments when the staring still hadn't stopped, Minato could feel the uncomfortable heat he hated with a passion creeping up on his cheeks. He always did blush too easily. "…What."

Sakura smirked. "I think you'll be a great Hokage."

"Oh, Shut up."

.

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Author's Note—

Just a few clarifications, if you didn't get it. You may, you may not, I'm not sure. So.

The whole chapters filled with forest of death references. And I'm pretty sure everyone gets why Sasuke's so paranoid. And why he relaxes at the sight of snakes, but if not, it's because he had a summoning contract with snakes before.

As for his confusion when his cousin trash-talks him, is because it's a situation he'd never been through before—seeing as he didn't have a family and all that—and also the added fact that it's a person from his own clan, rather than someone else whose jealousy would be—according to him—pretty much warranted.

And at the end, his hesitance at admitting that there's no difference in class, is because truthfully, he may have thought the same before, when he was the son of the head of the clan. I'd hinted upon this on a previous chapter, when Sasuke thinks about how different it is to be in a low born family in the clan than a high born one, so this is a connected train of thought. When people in his clan behave the way they do to him because of his current status, it just makes him wonder if he would've been the same way, is all. This'll be an ongoing thing, the status business, because in Narutoverse, in the high clans like Hyuuga and Uchiha, status is a big deal.

Hope you liked it!