And here's the next chap! This is as far as I have gotten, so apologies, but it will be a while before the next chap is up.

I don't own Naruto, etc

Read, enjoy and review.

Our sensei arrived about fifteen minutes after the rest of the groups had left with their new mentors. I doubted any of them realised just what was awaiting them –even though I knew, I wondered whether we would be able to survive this.

My fists clenched –I couldn't afford any set-backs. The man who had decimated my clan, destroyed any chance I might have once had for a normal life, was still out there. I had to get stronger if I was ever to stand a chance of getting revenge. This had been a personal thing once –now it was far more than that.

Our new sensei was a man with dull black hair tied back in a ponytail entered the room; he had a scar on the right side of his face, carrying a katana horizontally to his back.

"I am Hayama Shirakumo," he said, sitting on the rim of the teacher's stand opposite us. "You can call me Hayama-sensei. So why don't you three introduce yourselves –tell us all your names, goals, things like that."

"I am Osamu Kurama," Osamu said, speaking up first. "I want to prove my value to the world even though I do not have my family's Kekkei Genkai."

The Kurama clan was one of the noble clans of Konoha, but they had steadily been losing influence for several generations. Every few generations, a member of the Kurama clan was born with their genjutsu-based Kekkai Genkai and the ability to make their victim believe that anything that happened to them physically affected their body. This fearsome ability allows the clan member to potentially kill their opponents with nothing but genjutsu.

"I'm Kai Ishikawa," Kai said. "I'm going to master every ninjutsu I can –then no one will be able to call me an embarrassment to the clan anymore."

Kai was the youngest of his family, and all of his older siblings had been Chunin and Jonin for several years. He just didn't have the natural ability of the rest of the clan. But he had put everything into his work, and his enthusiasm couldn't be dampened –I couldn't fault him for that.

"And I'm Hazuki Takeda," I said. "And I am going to restore the Takeda clan to its former glory, and I plan to make the man who destroyed it pay for his crimes."

"OK, so you all have different goals that you want to chase," Shirakumo said. "There's one thing I should tell you three. You've passed the graduation exam, but there is one final test before you gain the right to really be called a Leaf shinobi. You have to complete my test first. Only three squads are allowed to call themselves shinobi –the rest go back to the Academy."

The three of us shared a look –so Kai had been right. We were being plunged into a make-or-break final test, and the odds that we would make it were stacked against us.

"Met me at Practice Field 17 tomorrow morning at eight o'clock," Hayama-sensei told us. "Bring your ninja tool-kits –oh, and you might want to consider skipping breakfast unless you want to lose it."

He disappeared with a Body Flicker technique and a cloud of smoke, leaving the three of us behind. I glanced at the clock on the wall. It was half-four, and I had kenjutsu practice in half an hour.

We arranged to meet at the sweet and tea soup on the main street to discuss strategy at seven.

It was eight in the morning as I walked through the streets in the early morning light. I had my ninja tools secured in a beige pouch on my lower back, a couple of scrolls attached to my left thigh, and my katana strapped to my back.

As I headed for the practice field, I went over what we had decided the night before. Kai and Osamu had both decided that the fact I had gotten the highest results in Strategy classes was reason enough to make me leader, even temporarily. I guess we were about to find out how much test results mattered in reality.

Practice Field 17 was about twenty-five minutes away from the main part of the village and cut into two by a river, a cleared area in the middle and surrounded by trees.

I was first to arrive in the middle of the clearing, and pulled a scroll out of the holder on my leg. I began sketching a rough outline of the terrain, making note of the location of the river and tree-line. It was more for my benefit than anyone else's so I replaced them as I saw Kai and Osamu arrive.

"Hey, Hazuki!" Kai said.

We didn't have long before Hayama-sensei arrived.

"Alright, I see no point in beating around the bush," Hayama-sensei said. He reached into his weapon pouch and pulled out two scrolls that looked exactly the same. "The rules of this are quite simple: the two of you with these scrolls by noon will pass. The one who flunks out is weeded out and sent back to the Academy. Of course, there is also a chance that all three of you hit rock-bottom, in which case you all get sent back to the Academy."

"But there's only two scrolls, and there's three of us," Kai commented. I had to admit it –it was pretty brilliant. By pitting us against each other, we'd forget about working together as we focused on individual ambition –which would mean none of us would get anywhere near a scroll.

"Not my problem –those are the rules," Hayama-sensei said. "You can use any techniques you like, and any weapons including shruiken. If you're not prepared to kill me, then you won't get the bells."

"Now, if you're ready…begin."

He vanished from view as he used the Body Flicker technique.

"Where'd he go?" Kai asked. I noticed his fists clenching at his sides as we looked around for the Jonin. "That's it –I'm going to find him!"

"Wait!" I shouted, grabbing his arm. "We have to work together, otherwise we don't stand a chance against a Jonin."

"Oh… yeah, guess I forgot," Kai said. He took a deep breath, calming down. "OK, what do we do?"

I formed an idea of the resources at our disposal –Kai was brash and impulsive, but he was almost as good at taijutsu as I was. Osamu was a master of chakra control, and I had a variety of both ranged and close-combat skills.

Mapping out a strategy took us fifteen minutes. We spread out, dashing through the trees but keeping in formation while we searched for the Jonin. After running around for about half an hour, we finally found him leaning up against a tree. When he saw us, he pulled a stop-watch out of his pocket. "Not bad. So, are you ready for your first lesson?"

We didn't have a chance to even respond or brace ourselves –he moved so smoothly and effortlessly that we missed the movement in the blink of an eye. His palm slammed even into my chest, throwing me off my feet. As I flew through the air, I wrestled a kunai out of my hip pocket and released it. He easily dodged it and it sunk into the bark of a tree moments before I collided with an unforgiving trunk.

I blinked stars out of my eyes to see him easily pounding the hell out of Kai and Osamu. I slowly pulled my feet, drawing a deep breath into my lungs. I send chakra throughout my body, deep into my nerves and muscles. It was one of the simplest techniques in the Takeda arsenal –it was a way to maintain my calm and focused state in battle, and to enable us to make more accurate strikes. It was called Kokyuu (1), and it had been taught to me as a mediatory method. I had never thought that I would be using it in an actual combat situation.

I sprang forward to rejoin the combat –Osamu was knocked onto his backside as I joined the battle. If Hayama-sensei wanted this to be a round of taijutsu, I would show him what set the Takeda aside from the average shinobi.

I pushed off from the tree-truck and brought my kunai up to guard against one that was in his hands. Kai and Osamu raced in, coming from his blindsides, and I noticed Hayama-sensei's attention pivot away from me for a brief instance. In that moment, I pivoted, moving away from the kunai and under his guard. My hand reached for one of the scrolls that he had hung on his waist with string. My hand closed around one, and my kunai slashed through the string.

"Yes!" Kai shouted, noticing that the first of two scrolls was in my hand. "Let's finish this!" He threw a shuriken at Hayama-sensei. I was expecting him to dodge –he must have seen that one coming a mile away –but the shuriken embedded itself in his chest, sending him flying. Kai looked horrified –I don't think any of us had seen that coming, and he hadn't been expecting one shuriken to hit so hard.

As Hayama-sensei hit the ground, there was a puff of smoke and the shuriken was embedded in a log rather than a person. Of course –Substitution Jutsu! He had waited until the last moment to switch places with a log so that our eyes were fooled by an optical illusion into thinking we had hit him. And he had done it so flawlessly and effortlessly.

"Wind Style: Vacuum Sword," we heard from behind us. We turned around to see that Hayama-sensei had his sword drawn and felt the wind pressure from the swing of his sword increase. In fact, the force of the wind became so great we couldn't stand and were bowelled over like skittles. We ended up on our backs (or face-down in the dirt in Kai's case) several hundred metres from where we had started.

"Was that ninjutsu?" Osamu asked as he pushed himself up.

"At least we're half-way there," Kai said. I looked at my watch –it was half-nine in the morning. But something told me it was just going to get harder from here on in –I wasn't going to take him by surprise with E-level techniques anymore. I look at the single scroll in my hand.

"We got this because we all worked as a unit," I said. "But now…"

Petals suddenly surrounded us in a tornado, and I looked around in surprise. Osamu and Kai were suddenly gone. But I could have sworn I felt something…

I heard footsteps from behind me, and I swung around to see…no…no! It couldn't be… it wasn't possible.

But the figure of the man was unmistakeable. The Sharingan fixed on me was cold and dark, blood splattered his face and clothes. As he moved towards me, it felt like I was suffocating. I dropped to both knees –it felt as though there was a hand wrapped completely around my throat, but I was unable to even lift my arms.

Osamu…Kai… where were they? But as soon as the thought formed, I banished it. I had already lost too many and too much to this man –I wasn't about to lose another two.

A hand landed on my shoulder –the figure began to swim and shift as though made out of smoke that was dispersing. What the…don't tell me that whole thing had been genjutsu! I landed on all fours, gasping deeply and feeling myself on the verge of tears. That had been too realistic for me.

"Hazuki, are you alright?" I heard Osamu ask. He was kneeling beside me as I fought to keep the bile and the tears inside.

"I am now, thanks to you," I said, drawing a deep breath. There was no sign of Kai. "Where's Kai?"

"I take it you got a vision of your worst fear," Osamu said.

"I'd rather not talk about it," I say. Osamu nods in understanding. "So how'd you get free so easy?" I ask him.

"I could tell it was a genjutsu from the first moment –one of the first things any member of the Kurama clan is taught is how to repel a genjutsu if we get trapped in one. I broke free before my worst fear even had a chance to raise its head, but by that time, I'd lost track of Kai," Osamu says. "I came for you first –I think you might have had it the hardest."

"OK, let's go find Kai," I say. I check my watch –I had been trapped in that illusion for ten minutes.

The two of us jumped into the branches of the trees and set off looking for our missing team-member.

"So, once we find Kai, we're going to find Hayama-sensei as well," Osamu said. "Any ideas?"

Finding a way to outwit a Jonin now was going to be a tall order –he had seen some of our jutsu, knew all the basics we had been taught before graduating for this test, and he had an advanced set of jutsu to counter anything we might come up with. Being the highest level of ninja and with presumably decades of experience under his belt gave him even more of an unfair advantage.

I kept calm –this was actually far from over. I still had two Kekkei Genkai under my belt, and Osamu had broken through his genjutsu as though it had been melted butter.

"Someone's coming," Osamu said, and we pulled to a stop, pulling out our kunai. We were expecting Hayama-sensei, so when Kai landed on the branches ahead, we were surprised.

"Hi, guys, what took you so long?" he said cheerily, waving a hand.

"Man, we were worried!" Osamu said, putting his kunai away.

"Hayama-sensei used the genjutsu to capture me, but I managed to escape," Kai said.

"How did you escape?" I asked. I felt that there was something off about this whole thing, but I couldn't quite place it; nevertheless, I remained on-guard.

"It was simple –I used the escape jutsu. I didn't get the best scores in it for nothing," Kai said. That was a bone-faced lie –Kai had only ever gotten average grades. The top two had always been Neji and I, although who got the higher mark varied from one class to another.

I couldn't believe a Jonin would make such a mistake with his facts –surely he had researched us more thoroughly than that. Regardless, I threw the kunai I had been holding at him. He blocked it –but it wasn't a Kai-style move. Even Osamu noticed the difference in style, and we sprang back several feet, on guard.

"I have to admit I wasn't expecting you to figure it out so soon," the imposter said. A puff of smoke cleared to reveal Hayame-sensei. "What was it that gave me away?"

"The fact that Kai didn't get top grades in the Academy," Osamu said –brutal, but true.

"There was also the fact that when you moved to block that kunai, you blocked it was you did in the clearing," I added. "Kai could never have been that smooth."

"Impressive," Hayama-sensei said. "So what now?"

He held up the scroll –our target. "You can either come after this, or you can go and get your friend."

Nice try –he was trying to veer us away from our team-mate, trying to make us abandon a team-member and weaken our own strength. I shared a glance with Osamu –he nodded to show that he had come to the same conclusion that I had. I could imagine that Kai would have made the opposite choice.

We ran; we found Kai tied up to the trunk of a tree, looking really perturbed as we jumped down from the heights.

"Hayama-sensei used the genjutsu to tie me up!" he shouted as I cut him free. I clamped a hand over his mouth –I could sense Hayama-sensei coming towards us. I motioned for the others to split and take cover. They dived into two separate bushes, while I sprung back into the uttermost top branches of a tree. Moments later, Hayama-sensei came to a stop near the base of the tree.

"Well, at least you lot know how to hide well," Hayama-sensei said, speaking to the general vicinity. He must be able to sense the boys' presence –I had been trained so long that concealing my presence was second-nature to me. "It's one of the cardinal rules after all –a ninja must learn how to hide and conceal his movements. But now what do you do? You've spent too long running around. You only have a little over an hour left. And while we're on the subject of that…"

I couldn't see what he was doing, but I caught the flickering of his hands, even though I was behind him –he was preparing a ninjutsu! It made sense –so far, he had subjected us to a taste of taijutsu, genjutsu, even a little of how excellently he welded ninjutsu with kenjutsu.

I closed my eyes, focusing my chakra into my eyes as I removed my headband and signalled for Kai and Osamu to relocate. They did so, jumping into trees. Hayama-sensei stopped his hand signs without releasing the chakra that he had been building up. We retreated thicker into the forest.

"Now what?" Kai asked. And then he saw my eyes, the Sharingan had spread to both of my eyes. "You have Sharingan?"

"I thought only the Uchiha clan had the Sharingan," Osamu said.

"It's difficult to explain –I can't remember my family," I tell them. "But the way I heard it, one of my parents can from a branch of the Uchiha that broke away and changed their name to Tamiko. I figure that's where it comes from."

"So you can read Hayama-sensei's hand signs and movements?" Kai asks, and I nod. Sure, I could follow them, but he was so much faster that having Sharingan was not a guaranteed method to stop him.

My only hope was the jutsu Itachi had taught me before he had defected. He had been the only Uchiha to care that I had Sharingan, the only one who would teach me. And on the morning after he had left, I had found a set of scrolls on my window sill. They were scrolls on the Sharingan. Of course, I had hidden them away.

"I've got a technique we can use to distract his attention," I say. "While he's focused on me, use the opening to go for the last scroll. If both of you tackle him at once, and come from behind, we should have a good chance. Remember, this is our last shot."

Kai and Osamu nodded as I outlined the plan in slightly more detail. After that, we split up. We found Hayama-sensei in the same place as before, just leaning against a tree. I checked the others were in position before I jumped out of my tree and landed in front of Hayama-sensei.

"I was wondering when you were going to stop scurrying around like rabbits," Hayama-sensei said, straightening up. "I was starting to get bored."

"I'm not like the others," I say as I blink, allowing the Sharingan to activate before I build chakra up in my chest this time. My hands began to move…horse, snake, ram…

"That's impossible!" I heard Hayama-sensei say. I knew it was unlikely, that I was using up reserves of chakra no Genin should have –but I was no ordinary Genin. I had additional reserves from my navel, although there was a limit to how much I could use before I reached the point at which I risked letting the thing inside me out.

Monkey, boar, horse, tiger… "Fire Style, Fireball Jutsu!"

I expelled the chakra I had kneaded within by body, not bothering to shape it and letting it become a flamethrower-style attack that covered a wide area. The flames engulfed Hayama-sensei, and I panted as I waited for the flames to die down.

As the jutsu died down, I saw the hole in the singed ground, but no sign of the Jonin. The hair on the back of my neck twisted, and I turned to see our sensei standing a couple of metres away.

"Not too bad –you are different from the others, but that doesn't necessarily mean you're better," he said. Good –he obviously hadn't picked up on Kai and Osamu's alert readiness. I ran at him, jumping and aiming a kick at his head, but the Jonin was fast, and caught my ankle with one hand, stopping me inches from getting the hit. I swung with my right fist, twisted to strike with my foot from another angle –both blows were caught effortlessly. Still, he had all of his hands tied up now; I had one free arm and two comrades who lost no time in leaping from their hiding places and charging.

Hayama-sensei saw them coming, realised our plan… next thing I knew, I was pinned on the ground, his knee in my lower back and kunai against my throat. Kai and Osamu skidded to a halt.

As we were locked in a stare-down, a bell rang. We looked around to see an alarm-clock set at the foot of the tree, its hands showing that it was noon exactly.

"Alright, the test is over," Hayama-sensei said. That left a bitter taste in my mouth –all that time, all our planning…wasted in the last seconds –even as he released me and turned off the alarm. "What are you so glum about, you three?"

"We just failed," Osamu said. To our aggravation, Hayama-sensei began to laugh.

"What's so funny?" Kai snapped, back to his usual self.

"It's been a long time since even one scroll has been taken from me," Hayama-sensei said. "You don't think like a bunch of little kids, always vying for personal attention –you're a new squad, and you came close –very close –to securing both scrolls. So…you pass."

"Huh?" Kai said.

"But sensei, if this was a real mission, we would have failed it," I said.

"That's why this is a practice session," Hayama-sensei said. "Tell me, did you even stop to think about why we put you through this test –you must have done since you performed so flawlessly together? What is the point of a three-man squad? Why do you think I tried to pit you against each other?"

"It's teaching us about teamwork, isn't it, Hayama-sensei?" I said.

"Exactly," Hamaya-sensei said. "A ninja squad must put the success of a mission above everything else. A group that argues and fights each other while on a mission is one that is slated to fail. That is the reason that so many in the Academy fail this final test –they think about proving themselves, not about the team. Teamwork is also the reason we make teams of three, and the reason there is a balance of skills in a group.

"You have passed –from now on you three are officially my students. And we should head back before your families start worrying."

We left the clearing together with Hayama-sensei. He took us out to lunch at the barbarque restaurant to celebrate. It was starting to sink in as I headed through the streets –I was now truly a kunoichi in training.

Hayama-sensei arranged for us to meet at the entrance of the building where our missions were distributed the following morning. Something told me that the last easy day of my life had just passed me by. Our first mission was tomorrow, and there was a lot of training ahead of us all.

Still… I briefly wished that I could see B again, even for an instant, so that I could tell him that I had found someone I wanted to defend, that I had a place where I belonged.

(1) Breath