After their sparring matches, which lasted till 12:30 a.m, Sasuke, Naruto, and Lu got some refreshers and headed to their homes, getting sleep for the next day. The next day, all academy students who recently graduated and were going to be assigned genin squads arrived at their classes by 9:15 a.m. Once seated, the students of Iruka's class waited patiently for Iruka to begin reading off the genin squads. As the squads were being read off, however, the boys ignored Iruka until interesting names began being read off.
"Team 7 : Naruto Uzamaki…" Iruka began. As he finished the blonde's name, Naruto's ears perked up, along with Lu's and Sasuke's. They knew that they wouldn't all make the same team, but there was still a pretty fair chance that Lu or Sasuke would be paired with Naruto because of their performances as students in comparison to his. There were many instances of dead-last students being paired with the top performing student, and this could've very well added to the list of squads with the best and worst genin out of the class during the year. "Sasuke Uchiha," Iruka continued, which led to the blonde and noirette smirking at eachother and giving a small thumbs-up, happy with their placement as squad members. "...and Sakura Haruno," Iruka concluded, which led to a very loud screech from the back of the classroom where Sakura was seated.
"ROMANCE STRIKES AGAIN!" Sakura blurted out, jumping out of her seat in a burst of excitement. "I GET TO BE TEAMED WITH SASUKE-KUN! TAKE THAT, INO PIG," she yelled following her previous statement. Instead of letting out a groan of annoyance in unison, the room was dead silent, waiting for the entire situation to settle on Sakura's shoulders. After a short amount of time, the people who were facing Sakura could see her face morph from one of excitement to fear, then rage, as she realized she was also teamed up with Naruto. The students who could see her face began giggling, but only for a short while as Iruka had coughed to get the students' attention once more as the pink-haired kunoichi fumed.
"A-hem… Now if I could continue, that'd be great. Team 7 will be led by jonin instructor Kakashi Hatake, who will hopefully arrive with the other jonin sensei's after the teams are announced,"he finished up, waiting for any questions briefly. After a short period of waiting time, he continued naming off the genin cells. "Next is team 8, which is led by jonin instructor Kurenai Yuhi. The genin in her squad will be : Kiba Inuzuka, Shino Aburame, and Hinata Hyuga," Iruka concluded.
"A team with Hinata? That's pretty cool, eh Akamaru?" Kiba smiled. His resident best friend and ninken, Akamaru barked cheerfully in response.
"The next genin squad will be with jonin instructor Asuma Sarutobi, and will be with the remaining students : Ino Yamanaka, Shikamaru Nara, and Choji Akimichi. This is team 10. Unlike the rest of the squads here, this team has a bit of history behind it formally known as "Ino-Shika-Cho," but that is neither here nor there, you are free to leave once your jonin sensei arrives and takes you for your genin exams," Iruka concluded. For the second time, the room was silent. Iruka patiently waited for questions, but was surprised to hear small chatter between students, indicating they had no more questions for the man. As Iruka turned, he collected his thoughts again and turned to face the class once more.
"So… what about me? Iruka sensei?"Lu called from the back of the class.
"As for you, Lu, you're going to be appointed as a solo genin. This means you get to choose your own missions from D-B rank as long as you have good credentials or a word put in for you from a jonin or above ranked shinobi," he briefly explained, before also apologizing to Lu for his forgetfulness, which was openly accepted.
'It's not like it's his fault, he DID have to deal with the aftermath of the Mizuki situation, he's probably just stressed out,' Lu thought as he left the classroom, heading to the exit of the academy. As far as the boy knew, he should have a b-rank mission on his credentials as a result of Mizuki's treachery. As he continued walking in thought, however, he bumped straight into a noirette woman with ruby eyes.
"Excuse me, I didn't intend to bump into you, I was just lost in thought," he apologized, hoping the woman wasn't upset. Upon a quicker inspection, he could see she had a leaf headband and a vest on, and given the situation, he recognized she may have been a jonin instructor on her way to pick up her students.
"You're fine, but pardon my question, but aren't you supposed to be with the other students right now?" the woman asked in partial confusion.
"I've been appointed as a solo-genin, maybe due to the lack of students, but also maybe due to my performance against the traitor chunin, Mizuki," Lu answered, staring into the woman's eyes. She stared back just as intensely and concluded he wasn't lying.
"I can somewhat tell that is the case, but why didn't you wait on your friends' jonin senseis to arrive? Are you not curious?" asked, leaning forward towards the boy slightly to show she wasn't taking an aggressive position in the matter.
"I just decided I could see them later, besides I want to get some training in because I don't exactly have anything else to do but missions," Lu replied, hoping the woman was done asking questions. To his surprise, she seemed satisfied enough and went towards Iruka's room to retrieve her students, and by the time she'd returned, he was gone.
"Just who was that boy?" she wondered aloud to no one in particular.
"Kurenai sensei, if I may, did the boy have white hair?" her recently appointed genin, Hinata Hyuga inquired.
"Hmm, yes, he did, do you know him?" Kurenai asked out of curiosity.
"Yeah," Kiba pitched in,"that's Lu, he's arguably one of the best students in our academy on par with Sasuke Uchiha," he answered roughly. Suddenly the dots connected in Kurenai's head: that boy was the one Lord Third mentioned had been experimented on by Orochimaru when the jonin sensei were gathered to see the student's they'd be receiving.
It had been thirty minutes since Kurenai, Asuma, and the other senseis had retrieved their students, and Sasuke, Naruto, and Sakura were getting impatient waiting on Kakashi.
"Once sensei gets here, he's gonna get a piece of my mind, I stand by it," Naruto complained. Although his peers never said anything outright, they agreed on the notion to themselves, already planning how they'd get their sensei back for his lack of time management even if it took years to do so. As if their thoughts were being read by some unknown force, their sensei entere the room to greet his students. Unfortunately for the jonin, he'd fallen victim to Naruto's classic "wheat flour on an eraser atop the door" trick, and had been covered in a white mist of flour. This led to Naruto laughing hysterically, waiting for the jonin to react.
"Well, my first thought of you is that…" the jonin paused,"You're incredibly stupid," he said blandly, smiling through eye smiling after he made his comment. This clearly got under Naruto's skin, but to save face, Sasuke just shot him a glance that said "not now," which calmed him down enough for Kakashi to give his instructions. "You've got 10 minutes to make it to the rooftop," he said as he shunshinned away from the room onto the rooftop. As he sat down, he saw a white haired boy walking towards a nearby training field with a scroll of some kind, most likely a ninjutsu scroll. By the looks of it, the boy sensed someone watching him and quickly threw a smoke bomb down, vanishing.
"What's up with the jonin around here," Lu sighed, all he wanted was a bit of privacy.
5 minutes after the instructions were given by Kakashi, both Naruto and Sasuke were on the rooftop, eyeing their sensei as he read an orange book through his one visible eye.
"My sweet little genin finally made it up here," Kakashi said as he stood up, closing his book and pocketing it. After his comment, both Naruto and Sasuke looked at eachother concluding that not only was he late, but Kakashi was a bit odd. Kakashi noticed that among his students, he was missing one, meaning Sakura had fallen behind.
"I see it's not all of my genin," he remarked as he sat on the rooftop, a couple feet away from his students while facing them, waiting on Sakura. Within 2 minutes of waiting, Sakura, while panting, had finally arrived.
"Ok, that concludes the wait," Kakashi eye smiled, "I think it's time we introduce ourselves. Seeing as I am your sensei I'll go first, I'm Kakashi Hatake, I'm a jonin and my hobbies are…" he paused. "None of your business. My goals are…" he paused again, "Also none of your business. My favorite food doesn't actually concern you as of now. What I dislike doesn't matter to you three all that much," he finished, surprised that he hadn't heard any comments at his lack of a description. "You, blonde kid, you're up next," he instructed sternly, although there was no sense of Naruto being alarmed by his sudden change in tone, again, much to Kakashi's surprise.
"Yeah, sure, sensei…" he began, standing up in preparation for what he was about to say. "I'm Naruto Uzamaki. I'm an orphan as far as I know, but I'm not concerned with having a family at the moment. The reason for this is because I have two very close friends, Lu and Sasuke. I aspire to be hokage in the future, I enjoy ramen, training, and I despise being called the "demon brat" or other names that follow a similar description. Once I'm hokage, I'll be respected and treated equally, trust me on that," he announced with excitement, although he did manage his volume better than he usually did.
"If it's okay with you, sensei, I'd like to go next," Sasuke said, standing up as Naruto sat back down. After a short moment, Kakashi just nodded in affirmation that he could go next and cleared his throat before beginning. "I am Sasuke Uchiha. My goal as a shinobi is to get strong enough to defeat a certain someone and to revive the Uchiha clan. I think my favorite food doesn't matter very much as I eat it more as a "snack" not a full meal. I enjoy spening time with my two closest friends and training. I strongly dislike people who use their "weakness" as a means to seek pity rather than changing themselves to become a better person, and once I revive my clan, I hope that the spirits of my slaughtered kin can be relieved of their regrets in the afterlife," he said, concluding a somewhat heartfelt speech, not at all what Kakashi expected from Sasuke according to his description; however this also applied to Naruto, who also gave a far more mature speech than what he expected to see based on his file. As Sasuke sat down beside Naruto, Sakura stood up and waited for confirmation. Once she was given the green light to introduce herself, she began speaking.
"My name is Sakura Haruno. I enjoy shopping, taking care of my hair, and also reading in my spare time at the library. I like spending time with…" she paused as she blushed, staring at Sasuke "I wish to have a future with…" pausing again, she blushed in Sasuke's direction, " My goals as a kunoichi is to get strong enough to be recognized by those who haven't seen my potential yet and to help those in need. I strongly dislike Naruto's disruptions and Ino pig's remarks about my forehead, but aside from that nothing else too serious," she summarized, taking a deep sigh as she sat down.
"Okay…" Kakashi said as he stood up, "My first thoughts of the blonde and emo have been altered as a result of their introductions, and pinky… you need work," he said before dismissing the genin, letting them know to meet him at a training ground around 10 am the next day and to skip breakfast, then leaving by shunshinning to the hokage's office. As soon as Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke left the academy, they all began thinking: 'What's up with Kakashi sensei?'. Naruto found him extremely weird based on his appearance, Sakura found him weird due to his lack of etiquette, and Sasuke found him weird because of the way his tone kept shifting in their interaction with Kakashi. None of the genin were exactly opposed to him, just weirded out.
Author's Note : Sorry for the wait, I ended up travelling and just recently got home this week. I can't promise more consistency, but I'll try every 1-3 weeks to update the story. Thanks for all the support (even if it's just a little bit, I'm glad to see people interacting with my story).