Chapter 6: Clouds on the First Fine Day

"Now class, before I announce teams there are some things you should know about the teams that have been picked this year, the majority of the teams are unspecialised so far and your sensei's will determine what you become but we have one tracker team, one complimentary-technique legacy team, and a leadership/assault team pre picked for now." Iruka called out to the class, looking proudly out at the graduating class in front of him. He scowled slightly to see Naruto off to one side of the classroom probably due to whatever nonsense was going on before he came in the room. Clearly the room wasn't listening to what he was saying so he quickly moved onto listing the teams before he came to see a grouping that made him smile.

"Now that the non specialised teams are known I'll start on the specialised teams, firstly team seven, the assault team, will consist of Naruto Uzumaki, Sakura Haruno and Sasuke Uchiha." He had to force himself not to laugh when he heard the combination of laughs and groans that each team member made as the announcement was made so instead he focused on frowning wondering not for the first time why the Uchihas had given their daughter a male name. "Team eight will be a tracking team of Kiba Inuzuka, Shino Aburame, and Hinata Hyuuga. Team nine is still active from last year, for those of you that remember them that's Rock Lee and Neji Hyuuga's team. And finally we have team ten our very own legacy team, creating another Ino-shika-cho combination. Again guys congratulations are in order, you're heading out into the real world now, you are military now. Which I guess might not be worth praising but I will anyway. Best of luck to you all." He then quickly moved to the door to let the job in instructors in before departing leaving one final instruction to them all. "Stay here until your instructor arrives."

Watching Iruka walk out of the classroom Sasuke Uchiha felt very little of the trepidation that filled the hearts of her peers. Instead her thoughts were filled with anger and disappointment, firstly at herself for only graduating from the academy at the time her brother was a member of ANBU knowing that at her current rate of growth the revenge she longed for would be long out of reach, secondly at the awful team she had been placed in, with them around her progress would be hindered even more and thirdly she was angry just due to Naruto's presence. The stupid wretch had been in her shadow for as long as she could remember and she didn't like it, no matter how much better she was he would stumble his way into the same points, she had seriously thought she'd gained freedom when she'd heard he'd failed the exam previously. But now she found that he'd once again gotten away with whatever stupid scheme he had cooked up and graduated with her. How could that dead last worthless stain of a human being manage to keep up with her? It was beyond infuriating, especially now that they would have to spend time together again. They had barely talked to each other since the... Incident, she refused to refer to it as it was, as they had been separated, praise the lord, with the council saying something about a demon menace and keeping the last Uchiha loyal to the village.

She watched casually as the jonin present called out for their team, recognising the Sandaime's son Asuma gather Ino, a blonde girl almost as bad as Naruto apart from her clan upbringing, Shikamaru, a lazy asshole who intentionally scrapes through all tests, and Chouji, the only person in their class who could match Naruto's stomach and had the jelly rolls to prove it. Eventually the entire room was clear except for her, Naruto and Sakura, who was looking dreamily at Sasuke, which unnerved the Uchiha to no end, it was possible that either the pink haired girl swung that way or just hadn't realized that Sasuke wasn't a boy despite her name.

Hours passed in this manner with Sasuke sitting perfectly still, revelling in hate for her entire situation, Sakura fawning silently over being so close to Sasuke and Naruto, becoming less and less capable of staying still as time went on, started to move about pacing throughout the room and sometimes trying to start idiotic idle conversation with the pair, Sasuke merely refused to speak to the orange midget while Sakura felt the need to scream at the boy and constantly hit him for his actions.

By the time four o'clock came round their jounin instructor still hadn't shown up and Sasuke was just about to leave much like Naruto had an hour ago when the door opened. Only to reveal the blonde idiot again as he began setting up some stupid prank that seemed to involve a wire at ankle height, a bucket of oil and a tarpaulin sheet stretching to the wall. By the time he was finished, cackling like a raving lunatic the entire time, and gotten to an innocuous seat halfway up the room he barely had time to contain himself when the door opened to reveal their new sensei who had, unbelievably fallen for the fool's prank and tripped on the wire leading to him being doused in oil as he was sent along the tarpaulin into the wall. Small bits of confetti fell from the roof at the impact and a sign unfurled with the kanji for 'that's for being late!' Written on it. For all her hatred of the dobe Sasuke actually nearly laughed at the complete fool the boy had made their instructor look until the still prone body disappeared in a cloud of smoke to reveal a log.

"Ahem. Next time you try to lay a trap, don't giggle like a loon the entire time." Looking up the man was squatting idly in the window looking in at the children. "Great, I hate this team already. Roof in five minutes. Tardy and I introduce you to Ibiki."

Looking at each other the group appeared just as shocked as one another at how the man had so casually acted after appearing over five hours late. Gathering their wits the trio hastily made their ways up the building,only to find the man leaning against a rail reading a little orange book.

"eheheheheh... Oh! Yo, you made pretty good time. Take a seat. I'm Kakashi, I'll be your instructor for the foreseeable future. Let's start by introducing ourselves eh? Pinky, you go first." The man said leisurely, barely looking up from his book as the group took a seat on the low wall across from him.

"Uhhh... Well I don't know how to start this sensei. Why don't you go first to show us how it's done?"

"Fine I guess, no skin off my back. Let's see My name is Hatake Kakashi, I like things, I also dislike things, I have a secret, I don't feel like sharing my dream nor my hobbies. Now you go... Maybe a bit more information."

Despite being slightly put off by Kakashi's less than informative introduction Sakura started.

"Um.. Okay then, my name is Haruno Sakura, I like strong kunoichi, Sasuke-chan and the latest fashions, I dislike a certain orange clad idiot. I'd rather not share my secret as it's silly at best. I dream of being worthy of Sasuke-chan's praise and my hobbies are shopping, and trying to get on Sasuke's good side."

Kakashi was mildly disheartened to hear that the girl was such an airhead, especially for one considered smartest in her class, "They just don't make them the same these days" he thought before saying, "nice and informative, thank you Sakura, how about you Other-Girl?"

"How dare you call me that, I am Sasuke Uchiha, I like tomatoes and training, I despise two things; a certain man and the loser sitting next to me. My dream is to defeat that certain man. My secret is that I am not sure I ever will complete my dream and my only hobby is training."

The silver haired jounin wasn't surprised by the girl's response having received the report the council sent when they demanded he focused on her training; 'she might be worse than anyone knew... Fuck.' Was all that came to his mind, "Okay and the Orange Monstrosity Midget?"

"I'm Naruto Uzumaki, Konoha's number one unpredictable ninja, I like Ramen and people who don't treat me like shit for things that were beyond my control. I dislike the stuck up mesu beside me and the villagers who attack me almost every day. My dream is be strong enough to protect my precious people and their precious people. I don't really have the opportunities to do hobbies but I like to practice calligraphy when I get the chance because aniki said I could find it useful in the future... ack" he was interrupted by Sasuke jumping on top of him yelling:

"You don't get to call him brother! You were never a part of our family! You hear me loser!" Kakashi quickly dragged the girl of Naruto explaining to the confused Sakura,

"Naruto used to live with the Uchihas before the..." He quickly looked down at the still fuming Sasuke." Incident. Now is there anything else you'd like to tell us about yourself Naruto?"

"I do have a secret... But I'm still not sure if I should tell you guys... Sensei you know it right? Should I tell them?" the boy shuffled nervously

"Oh yeah, I know, you might as well tell them now, better to hear it from you than some other source." The masked jonin said jovially, "The villagers are idiots anyway, if they were right why would the village still be standing hmm?" This peaked Sasuke's interest and seemed to quieten her down. The dobe had a secret that most people knew about? Their sensei knew about it?

"What are you two talking about dobe?" Sasuke asked gruffly.

"Ha... You guys know the story about the Kyuubi right?" Hardly waiting for their nods he continued, "Well it turns out you can't actually kill a being of pure chakra, so instead the Yondaime in his dying moments sealed the beast inside a newborn child. That was me."

"What. The. Fuck." The group turned to look in sheer surprise at the only person who'd stayed silent during Naruto's introduction, Sakura. "So you mean to tell me that you have a demon inside you, killed the Yondaime and not satisfied with your work so far drove Itachi mad and made him massacre his own clan? No wonder the villagers treat you like they do... You're a monster!"

Too late Kakashi reached the pink haired girl to take her away, calling out behind him, "Dismissed, meet at training ground seven at six hundred hours." Sasuke turned to look at the boys reaction from her stalkers words to find the him without his usual 'bright as a spark' smile to have been momentarily replaced with a look of pain and sadness that looked unnatural on his face before he'd noticed her looking at him and brought back up his mask.

"Well, that was... unpleasant. But now you know why I was living with the Uchiha." Naruto said turning towards her, his smile wilting slightly as it struggled to stay put. "What? Don't consider me even worth talking to now? Afraid I'll corrupt you with my 'Demon's Presence?' Come on, throw another stone. I've faced worse."

"Oh shut up you fucking melodramatic idiot" Naruto looked at the girl in surprise. " unlike The Great Pink Stalker I don't blame you for that... That was all on him. And clearly she isn't the 'smartest kunoichi in our year' as people claim, especially not if she can't tell the difference between a prison and a prisoner. Hell all you've done is explain a lot of stuff I wasn't interested in anyway. Just... Don't get in my way, yeah?"

"Hn" With that the girl leapt away across the buildings leaving the boy to his thoughts. Unsure of what to do now the blonde decided to head home, smiling as he did so at Kakashi's assessment of his situation, clearly the man wasn't interested, which by extension meant he had at least earned his place on the short but ever increasing list of people Naruto would definitely fight to protect.

Three hours late Kakashi turned up to the training ground to find a situation somewhat similar to the one he'd found the day prior only Naruto appeared to have been beaten up and bound to a tree this time and Sakura was noticeably sitting as far away from as she could while still fawning over the smug looking Sasuke. Sighing inwardly he decided to have some fun,

"Yo, my cute genin, sorry about how late I am you see a green beast decided it wanted to have a competition with me just after I'd left the house and it then made me help out in some of its ... Penalties" Kakashi said warmly before shivering on the final word. Before letting them make any complaints he continued, "Now then we're going to finish off your examination, you've proven your capability to be ninja, now let's see if you deserve to be one. I have in my possession two bells, you must take them off me by noon, whoever doesn't get a bell gets sent back to the academy."

Setting down a clock on one of the wooden poles present in all the training grounds Kakashi set the alarm before turning and saying,

"Now come at me with the intent to kill, you'll need it if you even want a reaction out of me. Begin!" As he shouted two of the trio tossed smoke pellets to cover their escape while the last one sat still looking slightly confused.

"Not going to try and hide to think up a plan Naruto? You can't honestly believe I'm on the same level as Mizuki do you?"

Struggling to his feet Naruto replied "No, no nothing like that. It's just... You said a lot of stuff just then that didn't really see to sit right with me about this test, so I figured I'd let the smart pair figure out whatever it is while I act as a distraction and hope that you might be able to tell what I need to really train in," before silently continuing to himself "the most." While Kakashi stood staring nearly dumbfounded at the boy, for being so incredibly close to the test's true meaning, Naruto charged at him making the clone seal with his hands and dispelling his chakra across the newly formed twenty or so shadow clones. Which proceeded to to charge at the cyclops in order to begin what was supposed to be an all out brawl. This would have been the case had the Narutos just been fighting amongst themselves rather than aimed at the silver haired man, the lack of space to actually attack him as they tried to gather around him, when due to infighting the numbers had thinned down to about eight. Sweat dropping slightly at the comical display Kakashi reached down to one of numerous pouches he kept strapped to his legs and in an intentionally provocative manner he pulled out the copy of his favourite novel: Icha Icha Paradise and started giggling to himself, only to stop as the remaining and now organised clones leapt in to attack.

Now with attacks coming at you from eight sides even with a broken mix of attacks so widely telegraphed you would literally have to be the drunkest man at a bar room brawl not to see and sloppily executed basic taijutsu forms, it should be impossible to dodge effectively and keep your concentration on a single fixed point, and yet Kakashi seemed to be able to do just that, even worse he was using the tiniest of movements seeming to know exactly where in his body the clones would theoretically hit at all times and was able to move out the way. The flurry of failed attacks continued until Kakashi grew bored of the activity and decides to remove Naruto from the equation. Ducking under another horribly telegraphed attack Kakashi whipped his book wielding hand up through one of the clones chins as he bounced back up, this caused the clone to be sent flying into the trees, where Kakashi presumed it dispelled before he turned to the next clone, who would have charged at the man had it not been met by a foot that had whipped round with it's owner, before they could react to these new movements two others found themselves with kunai sticking from their throats before also disappearing in a puff of smoke. Pausing to survey the field and despair slightly at the boy's poor training again, he found that the four remaining Naruto had formed up on each other in a diamond formation, not wanting to waste anymore time he launched three shuriken and disappeared. While the shuriken flew true and caught their shadow clones leaving Kakashi to appear crouched behind the real one, intending to use one of his sensei's lesser known and less deadly techniques, one which him and his teammates had fallen for on multiple occasions,

"Leaf Village Hidden Secret Finger Juts-"

Now had Kakashi been paying full attention as he removed the clones from combat he would have noticed that the clone he sent flying never actually dispelled. This is important because he might have been able to prevent the surprisingly potent kick that Naruto whirled round with aiming for the man's kidney that forced Kakashi to cancel his planned embarrassment of the boy to defend. This was caused by the clone seeing Kakashi appear behind its creator and in a show of instinctual self awareness caused itself to dispel, triggering Naruto's instinctual reaction. Recognising the small advantage he now had Naruto pressed the attack now finally able to score some blows against his tall instructor. They continued to fight like this for some time, Naruto constantly launching barrages of clones, while Kakashi would avoid these blows before systematically destroying the clones and then responding by attempting to prank his young charge. However time wore on and the Jonin's endurance began to wain, deciding that he needed to check on his other two charges Kakashi took the next opportunity presented to him and knocked the orange clad boy out cold before tying him to one of the posts that stood to the back of the training ground.

Taking a deeper breath than he had expected to need Kakashi looked around the clearing slowly tracing the area out with what little chakra sensing abilities he'd managed to copy over the years. Noting where the two girls' chakra signatures were he turned back to Naruto and considered him for a moment, 'hmm, clearly life hasn't been good to him. I still wish I'd had the opportunity to spend some time with him before this. He's strong though, that's for certain, I doubt I could make that many shadow clones, especially not if I wanted to retain as much stamina as he does. I think I might need to restart Gai's workout programme.'

Sasuke had, having found a suitable hiding place, watched the battle between the new instructor and the insufferably impressive done. While it had been clear that for most of their battle Kakashi had been messing with the boy, he'd never seemed to take the exercise seriously either, intent only on showing his abilities to the man and never once reaching for the bells that had on a few occasions come close to his grasp. When Kakashi had suddenly disappeared from the clearing after staring at Naruto for an unnaturally long time, the black haired girl was relieved to hear the shrill shriek of her other teammate before realising, with no small amount of fear, that obviously he was coming for her next. Moving from her selected spot quickly the girl headed to the patch of clearing just behind the logs that Naruto's body was slumped against, all the while calmly throwing out kunai with wire attached to them and various tags or bombs ready to go off when the wires lost their tautness. Eventually she'd set herself up a well defended position from which she could could strike as necessary and take on the Cyclops when one of her tags went off.

Catching himself before he sighed again Kakashi shook his head before he walked away from Sakura who was now rolling on the floor blubbering over the genjutsu she'd been placed under. 'Well that was disappointingly easy, I thought she was the next top kunoichi for their year?' He asked himself before heading towards Sasuke. When he found the intricate pattern of wires blocking his path Kakashi merely smirked before launching multiple kunai into the trees, angled to bounce and given the necessary chakra to force them to travel further than the simple throw would allow, the blades split the wires at multiple points before Kakashi launched himself through the explosions that followed to enter the clearing that had been prepared by his final student.

Despite the surprise caused by her trip wires being set off in multiple locations simultaneously Sasuke was able to launch herself from her hiding place to face off against the jonin. The moment she landed she inhaled deeply as she made the necessary motions for the great fireball jutsu, releasing the searing heat from her lungs she forced the man onto the defensive as she launched into the Uchiha's signature taijutsu style. She was incredibly pleased to find herself faring much better than Naruto had and was actually pushing the jonin into needing to fighting back and paying the utmost care to what he was doing. In fact the short haired girl* was so euphoric over being once again proven to be better than her, as much as she might deny it, rival that she failed to notice the clear signs of exhaustion that Kakashi exerted just fighting her after taking on the overly energetic Naruto for too long. Finally, as Sasuke drew agonisingly close to grabbing the bells the clock Kakashi had placed earlier chimed signalling that time was up for the young ninjas.

Leaping backwards before Sasuke could continue her attack Kakashi said,

"Well nice try, go sit down near Naruto and try to wake him up, I'll fetch Sakura then give you your results"

When he had returned to the stumps he found that Naruto was still not awake Kakashi laid down Sakura and used a water jutsu to wake the pair of them up.

"Huuuuhhh, well team, that was awful. In all honesty to say you fail is putting it lightly, if I had my way, nine of you would ever become ninja. Sakura, it literally took me a minute to deal with you and fifty seconds of that was finding you. Sasuke, you showed good form and technique but you didn't use your brains properly to figure out what this test was all about. And you Naruto, well you are sub-par in everything but your stamina, even if you came the closest to figuring this test out, you didn't even try to communicate with the others, let them know what you were doing or thinking. You may have had the right idea but you essentially abandoned them. This test was all about teamwork, an extremely essential skill in all ninja, now hear this; Those who abandoned the mission are trash, but those who abandon their comrades are less than trash. Here Sakura and Sasuke, you get a meal, if I find out you've shared it with Naruto then all three of you fail, not just one of you at my discretion." He said disappearing in a flurry of leaves.

"What did he mean you came closest to figuring it out, Kitsune-Baka?" Sakura said turning slightly towards Naruto whilst unsurreptitiously backing away, clearly not over the prejudices she'd had ingrained in her about the nine tails from a young age.

"Well I thought there was something weird about what he'd told us but I'm not smart enough to figure it out by myself and let's be honest you two would hardly listen to me anyway. So I decided to not go along with it and just act as a distraction for him while I figured you guys would figure out what I couldn't and use my distraction to your advantage in some way." Naruto said as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Ugh, of course, it's so stupid, no wonder we didn't catch onto it." Sasuke groaned as she turned to look at Sakura, "How often have you ever heard of genins operating in teams of two? Never right? This was meant to turn us against each other and see if we could overcome it and act as a team, huu-uh." The Uchiha sighed outwardly as she explained the whole thing to them.

"And Naruto figured this out almost immediately but didn't tell us? Goddammit Naruto if you've cost me a chance to become a ninja I swear to the sages..." She said as she leapt towards the tied up jinchuuriki only to be knocked back by Sasuke. Before she could ask why she was cut off by Sasuke squatting down and opening her lunch to share some with the boy.

Without turning her head Sasuke said, "Jeez Sakura lay off him a bit ehh? No he didn't figure it out, he barely caught onto a trick and couldn't do much else, so he put his faith in us to do better than him. Here Naruto eat up, if we get another shot at this you are going to need your stamina, you held him up for most of that session after all. For gods sake Sakura don't just sit there looking like I'm crazy going near him, he's too stupid to truck someone into doing anything evil." When Sakura finally closed her mouth and sat up slightly also offering some of her lunch to the orange clad kid she looked away abashed for a moment before finally saying,

"Okay so if this is a teamwork exercise clearly we all have some trust issues with each other; I, for no good reason, don't trust Naruto to not be the demon everyone claims he is, Naruto needs to trust that we'll listen to his input and you Sasuke need to trust that-"

"The pair of you aren't totally useless." Sasuke interrupted, "Sure I can get behind that, we need a plan for next time though."

When Kakashi returned he found the three would be genin huddled together murdering to themselves and Sakura moving towards the tied up jinchuuriki with some of the food from her bento for him to eat

"Ah hah. Insubordination, clearly I was right, you children are nowhere near ready to become ninjas, you might as well go now, I won't stop you." Kakashi said trying to intentionally rile them up

"Well sure under actual circumstances I'd agree, but today you're going to try and claim insubordination? Hah, I, no, We think not, and we'll do anything to make sure we're in peak condition." Came Sakura's impassioned reply.

"Oh? And what is so special about today, you're first day on the job, that is so special that you can disobey direct orders from a superior?"

"Duh, it's because today you're not our sensei, today you're the enemy! Dattebayo!" Naruto shouted

"And now, we have a plan." Sasuke smirked as she ran left arm upwards, splitting the ropes tying Naruto to the log. Who proceeded to remove his ungodly bright jacket and throw it to Sakura with a brief nod before once more pushing himself towards the instructor.

* When imagining Sasuke's hair think of like a messier version of the girl who restarts the dancing in the crowd from the video for Perfect Situation by Weezer

Omake: Where Kakashi went

Maito Gai had just returned from reporting on another gloriously youthful mission with his young charges when his long term eternal rival popped into existence mere meters in front of him and in a stark contrast to his usually cool demeanor nearly collapsed into the green beasts arms.

"Kakashi, are you alright? Talk to me, is there anything I can do?"

With what little strength the silver haired man had left he proceeded to make a series of strange and to the genin with Gai incomprehensible hand signs that Rock Lee would maintain to this day was a secret form of communication only available to those who knew the true passions of youth.

"What? You say that when inflicting your hideously un-youthful bell test on your latest team you were driven to the point of exhaustion because one of your genin decided to forgo any team tactics and in a display of the most burning youth imaginable decided to act as a distractionary sacrifice for the good of his team? And you go on to say that if you, one of Konoha's two most youthful and powerful ninjas are in this kind of state after facing mere genin, that you would be happy to support my requests to the hokage to reintroduce the mandatory stamina training from the third shinobi war for all ninjas ranked chunin and higher?" Came the overly dramatised translation followed by Kakashi giving a thumbs up before sinking into a nearby seat to sleep.

"Come my youthful charges," Gai said casually sweeping the children up into his arms and then over his shoulders, " Let us away to the hokage tower so that we might give Kakashi some room, and so that I might submit my proposal again!"