Chapter Six

AN: changed it to first person pov, from Narutos perspective.

I closed my eyes and let out an irritated sigh while leaning against a tree.

It was a sunny morning, birds were chirping their morning songs and the wind gave a light caress against my face, in any other instance I would revel in such a beautiful morning. However all I could feel at this moment was irritation, the reason? Kakashi was late again.

It was the day after I had been placed in a team with Sakura and Sasuke and we were currently waiting for Kakashi to arrive so we could begin our last evaluation before we were officially genin.

Thinking back to yesterday I remembered feeling the same irritation, Kakashi had been three hours late and after he finally showed up he told them meet him up on the roof, further increasing my irritation. Having walked up to the roof with my teammates we went through a quick introduction with our new teacher where we stated our names, like, dislikes and plans for the future. Me being in a foul mood copied Kakashi and only said my name and that the rest were unimportant, granted after calming down afterward I did feel a bit childish. Sakura basically only told her name and that she wanted Sasuke, while Sasuke told his name and that he wanted to chase down his brother he also mentioned wanting to restore his clan.

After the introduction were over Kakashi told us that our final evaluation was going to be tomorrow and that we should avoid eating breakfast for some reason.

Opening my eyes I looked at the cloudless sky and sighed. Hearing a growling noise I looked towards the source, which happened to be my teammates. Seeing them hold their arms across their stomach and looking uncomfortable I assumed they had skipped breakfast this morning.

"Naruto," Sakura said as she looked at me questioningly, "aren't you hungry too?"

"Nah Rea practically force fed me this morning," I told her smiling at the memory of her mumbling about growing children needing to eat their breakfast and wondering what their teacher was thinking, "she refused to let me go without eating."

Having her question answered she grumbled about starving or something and sat down on the ground.

Seeing that she didn't want to talk anymore and me not having anything better to do I decided to get some training in. Going over the options in my mind I decided to work on my sensory abilities. Closing my eyes and focusing my mind I felt the chakra of my teammates, focusing even more I tried to feel the chakra of the bugs and birds in vicinity.

What felt like two hours later I felt another chakra presence enter my sensory range looking towards the direction of the presence I soon saw Kakashi entering the clearing. He raised his right arm into the air looking as if he was about to wave but before he could start saying anything, a shout rang across the clearing.

"Where have you been Kakashi?!," Sakura stomped her right foot, "we've been waiting for two hours."

"Well Sakura," Kakashi lowered his right arm and rubbed his neck in a embarrassed manner, "I was on my way when a-"

"We don't want an excuse Kakashi," I crossed my arms and glared at him, "can we just get this evaluation started?"

I saw Sasuke nod in agreement with me while Sakura gave a small sigh.

While this had been going on I had once again taken in his appearance he had gray almost silvery hair that was forced up by his head band, which was tilted downward so it covered his left eye, he also had a face mask that covered his lower face basically only leaving his right eye visible. He wore the standard Konoha jounin attire which consisted of dark blue and dark green, on his torso he had on a flack jacket that had a bunch of pockets and a raised collar, I sutbly took in the red whirlpool on his upper left arm feeling a sense of pride come over me.

Kakashi shrugged and started to explain the last evaluation.

"Alright then, the evaluation is simple you three just have to take two bells from me," Kakashi pulled out two small bells from his pouch, showed them to us and attached them to his waist with strings, "note that there are only two bells meaning only two of you will pass the evaluation, we will go on until the clock rings," he pulled out a clock, set the time and put it down on a nearby stump. He crossed his arms and finished with, "and come at me with the intention to kill."

I was worried when he said that only two of us would be able to pass but I quickly resolved to be one of the two to pass, looking at my teammates I saw them looking worried as well, more so Sakura than Sasuke. We looked at each other then towards our teacher and gave him a nod to signal that we were ready. Seeing him give a short nod of acknowledgement he then pressed the button to start the timer.

The moment his hand lifted of the button I dug into my pouch and grabbed a couple of round pellets and threw them on the ground. The pellets quickly started spewing out smoke and by the time they hit the ground they had created a smokescreen that enveloped all of us, using that as cover I left the scene as fast and silently as possible.

I was moving through the shrubbery, finding a good hiding spot I crouched low to the ground to stay hidden, I could still feel Kakashi's chakra presence were it last was meaning he hadn't moved.

'how should I go about this?' I thought to myself 'I could try and use the same seal I used against Mizuki,' sighing I knew that was close to impossible 'nah that won't work Mizuki was a chunin Kakashi is a jounin and he probably know what happened during the exam.'

All of a sudden I heard a dull explosion and saw a brief flash of light in the direction I had come from. I also noted that they were now two chakra presences and they were clashing against each other, I knew that it was Sasuke, I had gotten familiar with his chakra presence over the years in the academy.

The two chakra presences clashed for a short moment then the one I knew to belong to Sasuke moved away while the other one remained. A short moment later I heard a female shriek, feeling confused I once again checked Kakashi's chakra presence, it was still at the same place as before.

'hmm weird' I thought and decided to figure out what was going on.

Moving towards the direction of the shriek I soon arrived and saw Sakura on the ground unconscious, spreading my senses I tried to feel if there was any other chakra presence around, not feeling any I tried to spread it further and felt one approaching however this one belonged to Sasuke and the one belonging to Kakashi hadn't moved.

Deciding to check on Sakura I moved next to her and put my fingers to her throat, feeling a pulse I breathed a sigh of relief and tried shaking her awake.

After a minute or two Sasuke arrived at the scene, I saw him look at me confused.

"Naruto what happened?," he asked while moving closer and eventually crouching next to us.

"I don't know Sasuke," I told him while shaking Sakura, "she was like this when I found her," I gave her cheek a few light slaps.

After a moment we heard a low moan, the kind you make when just waking up. We saw Sakura flutter her eyelids open and then close them again due to the sun.

"What happened," she asked nobody in particular while rubbing her eyes, "all I remember is seeing Sasukes dead body," then she looked at Sasuke and tilted her head to the side and let out a huh sound.

"Well I'm not dead," Sasuke said while extending a hand to help her up, "maybe it was an illusion," he said after a while.

I also extended a hand to her, she took both of them and we pulled her up.

"That would make sense," she dusted herself off and started rubbing her neck.

I had prepared to head of now that I knew she was okay and I saw Sasuke do the same but Sakura stopped us before we could go anywhere.

"Wait," she grabbed our hands, "I've been thinking," she said while letting her hands fall to her side having managed to stop us from leaving, "I think we're doi-.. thinking about this evaluation wrong," she finished

"What do you mean," I asked confused seeing Sasuke with a similar expression, "to me it seems pretty straight forward, take the bells and pass," I finished.

"What I mean is," she started pacing back and forth, "this evaluation doesn't make any sense, how are three genin supposed to best a jounin on their own, furthermore have any off you two ever heard of a team in Konoha made up of two genin and one jounin? because I haven't, every famous team in Konoha are made up of three genin and one jounin unless you have an apprenticeship with someone like the fourth Hokage who trained under the toad sage," she stopped pacing and looked at the two of us,"I mean we even have the famous ino-shika-cho, hell we even have the three legendary ninja who were trained by the third Hokage."

Hearing her reasoning I started to see what she meant it was indeed weird, looking over at Sasuke I could see he thinking it over too.

"Okay assuming you are right about this," I looked at her, "how should we go about it?."

"Obviously we need to work together," Sasuke said putting his hands in his pockets.

"Yes Sasuke-kun we do, I think the true objective of this evaluation is teamwork," she said putting her hands on her hips then she looked towards me, "Naruto do you have any seal that can be of use?."

"well that depends," I told her while giving her a grin, touching a seal on my arm guard several scrolls poofed into existence, "what do need?."

Each scroll contained seals of different natures I had a scroll for explosive seals and another for restriction seals and so on.

She gave of a small grin when she laid her eyes on the scrolls.

"Good, good," she nodded her head slightly and clapped her hands together.

Having made up a plan we split up to do our parts. I had given Sakura a couple of sealing tags.

Sneaking in the direction of Kakashi's chakra presence I soon saw him, I was hidden in a couple of bushes some ways away from him. He was still reading his book, giving off the occasional snicker every now and then.

Feeling the chakra presences of both Sasuke and Sakura, Sakura's being slightly elevated most likely taking up a position in a tree, circle Kakashi until we had him surrounded I waited until they had made their move.

It didn't take long, from Sasuke's direction a ball of fire went rushing towards their teacher which hit its mark. As the smoke cleared Kakashi was nowhere to be seen but he soon came out from the shrubbery looking completely fine, looking in the direction the fireball had come from.

Before he could do or say anything three kunai flew from Sakura's direction each with three seals attached to their handle. As they had expected their teacher dodged it with ease by jumping and twisting in the air so that the kunai just missed him.

The moment the three kunai had impacted the ground near Kakashi they started spewing smoke in large volumes, Kakashi getting caught in the smokescreen.

Knowing it was now my turn I quickly took the three kunai I had prepared, flew through the necessary hand seals and let them flew towards my teacher.

The three kunai multiplied to thirty mid air, entered the smoke and a heartbeat later exploded into a mass of fire and smoke.

After what felt like several minutes and having nothing happen I got slightly worried that we had accidentally killed our teacher. However that worry was for nought as all three of us was soon simultaneously kicked out of our hiding places and landed in the middle.

Scrambling to get up I drew my ninjato getting ready for a fight seeing my teammates do the same, both of them taking up kunais Sasuke had one in each hand while Sakura opted for one. Holding my ninjato in front of me, my eyes darted everywhere trying to locate Kakashi, I only just now noticed that I could no longer feel his chakra presence.

'He let me locate him' I thought my eyes widening slightly at the horrifying realization.

"Quick back to back," Sasuke said while backing up towards us.

All three of us stood with our backs against each other looking around everywhere searching for our teacher.

Out of nowhere we heard a dark chuckle as the sky started to gradually turn a dark gray with lightning arcing around the clouds.

Feeling my heart beat faster and faster I started to feel genuin fear.

All of a sudden the air around us cracked and shattered like glass and in front of us was Kakashi, his hands in the ram seal.

Seeing us look scared and confused the corner of his eye crinkled slightly, I assumed he was grinning.

"You pass," he said while releasing the seal he was holding.

Us being in a state between confused and scared looked at him and then fell on our asses.

"What!?," we all said loudly.

"But….we didn't even catch a single bell," Sakura said with a shiver to her voice.

"No but you figured out the true intent behind the evaluation," he said crossing his arms over his chest, "I'm proud of you, especially you Sakura you really came through seeing the real purpose of the evaluation," he looked at her and then looked to me and Sasuke, "and I'm proud of you boys for placing your trust in your teammate despite not knowing if she was right or not."

"She gave convincing arguments," Sasuke said in his usual grumpy voice while looking slightly embarrassed.

'I guess he is as embarrassed as me for not figuring out the true meaning behind this evaluation' I thought while looking over at Sakura. She had a brilliant smile on her face.

"She did indeed," Kakashi said while giving a light chuckle, "as you know by now the intent behind the evaluation was teamwork, I wanted to see if you all could work together without me having to tell you too," he looked at us seriously, "I want you to remember, those that abandon missions are trash but," he paused, "those that abandon their teammates are worse than trash."

Hearing that I looked at him with a new found respect.

"Congratulation," the corner of his eye crinkled once again, which I now know meant he was smiling, "you are now officially genin."

A month had passed since our evaluation.

We spent most of the days running d-ranked missions which consisted of, well basically chores. The afternoons were spent training working on our teamwork, we also got individual help from our teacher he had helped Sakura with basic hand to hand combat and had given her some illusionary techniques to work on, with Sasuke he had helped him with his fire techniques and bladed combat using kunai.

Kakashi had also helped me with my sensory abilities, turned out when we had planned how to take down Kakashi during our evaluation he had been listening the entire time. So I had gotten help with developing it further which mostly consisted of Kakashi hiding his chakra presence until I could barely feel it and after getting used to that he hid it further then it was pretty much rinse and repeat, of course we had all also worked on various things on our own time.

Outside of that I had also spent time with Anko, Hana, Kurenai and Yugao when they had time, although my time with Kurenai had been shorter than with the other women due to the fact that she had her own genin team.

As we were giving the Hokage a report of our latest mission, which was repainting a civilians house, I decided to voice my displeasure about our current situation.

"Hokage-sama," I started while giving a light bow of my head, "I want to request a….. more exciting mission," I said not finding a better way to say it.

Hiruzen gave of a small smile of pride when he saw my formal request. I also saw my teammates give small nods of agreement.

"hmmm...well you're progress have been quite good," he said while rubbing his chin, "why not."

Hiruzen started flipping through a bunch of different scrolls after a while he seemed to find what he looked for.

"ah here we go," he said holding up a scroll, "its a c-rank mission," he had opened the scroll and looked it over, "specifically an escort mission…..to the land of waves."

"We'll take it," the three of us said, anything was better than painting houses, walking dogs or gods forbid catching tora.

"Alright, alright," Hiruzen said chuckling, "Iruka go get Tazuna, tell him we found a team to take on his request," he told Iruka, who had been standing next to the Hokage.

"Yes hokage-sama," he said then he was off to get the client.

After what seemed like 30 minutes Iruka returned with the client who was an older man who seemed to be in his late 50's he had gray hair and goatee and he was wearing a pair of glasses that hang low on his nose, he was also carrying a bottle of sake.

"Are these the people that are supposed to protect me?," he said with a slurred voice, "they're children," he said sounding disappointed.

"I assure you Tazuna-san, they're fit for the job," Hiruzen said forcing a smile.

Looking at us Tazuna gave a light glare, "alright, alright if you say so," taking a deep breath he shifted his gaze to the Hokage, "when do we move out?."

"Early tomorrow morning," Hiruzen told him.

"Fine, fine," Tazuna said.

He soon left going back to whatever lodging he had.

With that we were dismissed, Kakashi told us to meet him by the gate tomorrow morning at around seven.

'Knowing Kakashi he's probably going to be three hours late as usual' I thought to myself rolling my eyes.

After we had split up I decided to go to my favourite ramen stand, not knowing how long we were going to be gone for, I wanted to at least get one bowl of the delicious noodles.

Walking along the streets I noticed that the villagers were still giving me awkward glances whenever I walked by, parents were even subtly guiding their young children away from my path.

'I know they aren't doing it out of hate' I thought while giving a small sad sigh 'but it still hurts, like I'm a stranger in my own home'.

Seeing the familiar ramen stand up ahead I decided to shake off the negative thoughts.

Looking up at the flaps hanging down I read Ramen Ichiraku. Guiding one of the flaps to the side I entered and gave a greeting to the chef and his Daughter.

Ichiraku was run by Teuchi a man in his early 40s he had black hair that was starting to fade into gray and his eyes seemed to almost always be shut. His daughter Ayame was a cute young woman with long brown hair, she was 17 and she had made it a habit to pinch my cheek every time I came here. They both wore white clothing, Teuchi had a white cap on his head while Ayame had a white bandana she used to tie her hair back. They were also some of the few that didn't fear me, after years of wondering why I finally found out the reason about a month ago. It had turned out that they knew my mother while she was alive and me having the Uzumaki surname, well it didn't take a genius to put two and two together.

"Hi old man, Ayame-chan," I said as I took a seat.

"Hello Naruto-kun," Ayame said while leaning over the counter and pinching my cheeks smiling softly.

"Hello Naruto," Teuchi greeted from the kitchen in the back while giving a short laugh. Only Naruto could get away with calling people old.

"Do you want the usual?," Ayame asked after she was done torturing my cheeks.

"Yes please," I said while rubbing my face.

Some minutes later and after some idle conversation a steaming bowl of ramen was placed in front of me. Taking hold of the chopsticks, I broke them apart clapped my hands together gave my thanks and started eating slowly savouring every bite.

Because Rea had forbidden me from eating ramen whenever I wanted I had taken to savouring every bite whenever I finally got to eat this heavenly dish.

As the minutes ticked by customers came and went. When I finally consumed all there was I picked the bowl up and drank the broth. Setting the bowl down, now completely empty except the slight gleam of grease.

"Teuchi," I started turning to look at the man, "it was heavenly, as always," I told him grinnig widely.

"I aim to please," he said while tilting his head forward in a slight bow with a large smile on his face happy his dedication to his craft brought such pleasure to the young man.

Saying my goodbyes to the two I decided to head home.

Walking towards the entrance of the orphanage I noticed there was still some children out in front in the small courtyard playing, giving them a smile and a wave, getting smiles and waves in return I opened the door and entered the building. Inside I saw Rea sitting on a couch in the living room with a bunch of children around her reading a story to them. Not wanting to interrupt the story time I stood in the doorway making sure to catch her eye, once I got it I gave her a smile and a wave to let her know I was home which she returned, then I moved upstairs to my room to work on some seals wanting to stock up before the mission tomorrow.