"If the Nidaime really was the one who created the system that gives us D-ranks, I don't think I'm proud to be related to him anymore." Naruto punctuated his statement by roughly pulling a weed out of the ground. "These suck. So bad."

"I thought you liked gardening," Kakashi said cheerily, sitting on the steps to the house with an orange book in his hand. "It was in your intro! I figured this mission would be perfect for you, Naruto."

"So it's the idiot's fault we're stuck with this mission?" Sasuke reached down and yanked out a weed, but he accidentally pulled out a small purple flower with it. "Shit. Naruto…?"

"You can't grumble about this being my fault and call me an idiot and then ask for my help," Naruto said, pulling another weed out of the ground just as roughly at the first. Unlike when Sasuke did it, he didn't ruthlessly murder a poor flower. "I'm not gonna do your portion of the work just 'cause I'm the better gardener. It isn't as fun when I can't use my… y'know."

"You can't garden without cheating, then."

"It's not cheating!" Naruto protested. "And I'm gardening just fine now, bastard! It's just way slower!"

"You can use… you know, for gardening?" Sakura asked quietly. At Naruto's nod, she frowned slightly. "But… flowers aren't wood?"

Naruto shrugged. "I dunno why it's called that either. It's more like plants in general?"

"Huh." Sakura stared inquisitively at him for long enough that he felt heat start to rise to his face. "Wouldn't, like, plant style be more accurate than wood?"

"Wood is the main element," Kakashi added helpfully. "The style allows the user to convert their chakra to life, which can help with other plants, but wood is the one that comes most naturally." Naruto stared at Kakashi with wide eyes and Kakashi just looked up from his book with an eye smile. "I know a thing or two."

"Do you know anything else about-"

"Not here, Naruto," Kakashi interrupted. "When we're done with this mission, we'll return to the training ground and get some training in."

Naruto's eyes widened in excitement, and he noticed Sakura and even Sasuke doing the same in the corners of his vision. "Really? We're finally gonna train?"

In the week since they'd become an official team, they'd gone on D-rank after D-rank. It sucked. If Naruto ever had to chase that stupid cat again… They'd painted fences, watched after some elders' grandkids, mowed lawns, and basically done everything that had nothing to do with being ninja. And at the end of it, Kakashi always just sent them home and told them to be at the training ground the next morning even though he wouldn't arrive for hours. Then they'd go on more D-ranks.

"You aren't just messing with us, right Kakashi?" Sasuke asked suspiciously.

Kakashi stared at Sasuke with mock offense. "Me? Messing with my genin?" He dramatically pressed his hand against his chest. "I would never!"

Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke all rolled their eyes at their sensei. "So you're actually going to train us, Kakashi-Sensei?" Sakura pressed.

Kakashi sighed, closing his book to look up at them but keeping his thumb on his page. "Yes, I'll actually train you all." It looked like it pained him to say it. "Your classmates, or, well, the six others who passed, have probably started their training by now anyways."

Naruto still found it crazy to think that only nine of their entire class passed: their team of three, Hinata, Kiba, Shino, Ino, Shikamaru, and Choji. It didn't surprise him that any of them had passed, but he still wondered what happened to the other eighteen students. Would they be trying again next year? Or were they just done?

Regardless, Naruto was excited at the prospect of actually training. Especially with someone as powerful as Kakashi. Despite how he acted, Naruto was pretty sure the jounin was one of the strongest in the village. He'd probably kick Team Eight's and Team Ten's sensei's asses… though Naruto only knew their sensei from when they showed up in the classroom, so maybe that was unfair to assume. That didn't change his opinion, but still.

"What're you gonna train us on?" Naruto asked excitedly.

"Don't worry, I have something in mind for all of you," Kakashi said ominously. "But you're only going to find out what when you finish this mission."

Reinvigorated, Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura all went back to pulling out weeds with a new excitement coursing through each of them.

Standing in training ground three, Kakashi looked down at his three genin.

Admittedly, he'd originally planned on putting off training them until something forced him to. Upon experiencing Naruto and Sasuke's skill during the bell test, his decision had been solidified; good as they were, the best way to teach them would be for them to confront something even they couldn't handle and then train them to handle it. It wasn't entirely fair to Sakura, but he'd decided he would have trained her if she'd come to him for it first. If she didn't, he'd leave her to experience the same wake-up call as her two teammates.

But the Hokage had changed his plans for him. Apparently, Naruto and Sasuke both planned on revealing themselves during the upcoming Chunin Exams in Konoha, and the Hokage planned on using them to show off the strength of Konoha's newest generation. The return of the Sharingan and Mokuton would undoubtedly send ripples throughout the nations.

And that meant he wanted Kakashi to train them hard, to make sure they were ready for anything and everything the world threw at them.

Kakashi almost felt sorry for them.

"First thing's first," Kakashi started, focusing on the two students who were making his life unnecessarily difficult, "while we're on this training ground, we won't be training your kekkei genkai. You are only allowed to use them while on training ground thirty-seven. That way, we can minimize the risk of anyone walking in on your training before you're ready for word to get out."

Naruto nodded his understanding, but Sasuke frowned. "I understand why he isn't allowed, considering how… unsubtle his ability is, but if someone walks in I can just deactivate my Sharingan."

"And if you don't notice them until they've already seen?" Kakashi countered. "Or if you're in the middle of something and can't safely deactivate it?" Sasuke's frown remained on his face, but he didn't try to argue. "Alright. While we're on this training ground, we'll be training everything else. Elemental jutsu, basic shinobi skills, teamwork, and non-kekkei genkai combat. We'll be starting with basic shinobi skills."

"But we learned basic shinobi skills in the academy," Sakura argued. "We wouldn't have passed if we hadn't."

Kakashi raised his visible eyebrow. "You're sure about that?" They obviously weren't, because none of them spoke as he casually walked over to a tree. Without even faltering in his stride, Kakashi started to walk up the tree. When he reached the top, he looked down at his students. "What about this?"

"Holy shit!" Naruto shouted. "You can run up trees?" Without waiting for Kakashi to respond, Naruto ran over to another tree and tried pressing his foot against it.

Kakashi raised an amused eyebrow when he saw the bark shift around Naruto's foot until it was securely attached to the tree, and watched Naruto repeat the process with his other foot. When he was done, he was stuck to the tree a few feet off the ground with a confused expression on his face. "Wait… I can't walk like this."

"Hey, idiot, Kakashi doesn't have Mokuton," Sasuke said drily. "That's obviously not how you're supposed to do it."

"Sasuke's right," Kakashi agreed, dropping down from the tree and landing softly on his feet. "Also, you aren't supposed to use Mokuton here, Naruto."

Realization dawned on Naruto's face. "Ohhh, right." The tree bark receded and Naruto fell unceremoniously onto his back. "Ow."

Sasuke sighed. "It's really a wonder someone as moronic as you is related to the Nidaime Hokage." He shook his head turned back to Kakashi. "So how'd you do that?"

"Don't call me moronic!" Naruto shouted, jumping back up to his feet. "But yeah, how'd you do that Bakashi-Sensei?"

Why was Kakashi the one who got the disrespectful little shit students? Oh, right, because one of them had a kekkei genkai only he could train and the other one was his sensei's son. At least these two made it easy to declare Sakura his favorite. "It's a chakra control exercise," he explained. "You gather chakra in your feet and climb up the tree without using your arms."

"Awesome!" Naruto exclaimed. "That'll make it so much easier to move around in my forests!"

Kakashi had already been impressed by how well Naruto moved through the forest during the test, and being able to stick to trees would make him even better at it. But at the same time, Kakashi doubted it'd be easy for Naruto to learn.

Pulling out three kunai, Kakashi threw them between each of the genin's feet. "Practice by trying to run up the side of the tree and mark your progress with those."

With a little more cheering from Naruto, the three genin got to work. Kakashi knew it'd take them a while to get the hang of it; chakra control could be difficult for those like Sasuke and Naruto. Especially Naruto. Sakura would probably have it down in an hour, judging by the reports on her from the academy, though, and Naruto and Sasuke would probably have it by the end of the day if their jutsu prowess meant anything. And that gave Kakashi an hour to read Jiraiya's newest-

"I did it!"

Honestly startled, Kakashi looked up in the direction of the voice and found Sakura sitting on a branch at the top of her tree. She hadn't even fallen once. The academy's reports might have been underselling her chakra control. "Good job, Sakura!" he praised. "Now walk up and down the tree until you can't anymore for practice!"

Her face fell and he offered her an eye smile. Her chakra control was truly astounding, but she also had relatively low levels even for a genin. Exhausting her reserves during training while making sure she had the ability down flawlessly would be ideal training for her.

Deciding to check how the boys' first attempts went, Kakashi looked over at them. And stared.

On Sasuke's tree, there were foot-shaped burn marks with cracks that made it look like lightning struck it. Sasuke was sitting on the ground underneath, cross-legged and staring at the burnt-off soles of his shoes with a frown at Sakura's tree.

Naruto's tree was… somehow weirder. It had marks in the shape of feet too, but rather than burn marks or cracks, they were footsteps raised from the tree. Branches grew out from them at abnormal angles, and the tree around it seemed to warp towards the raised steps like a plant towards the sun, making it what had to be the weirdest looking tree Kakashi had ever seen. And he'd seen Tenzo's face sticking out of a tree. Naruto was laying spread out in front of the tree like he'd just slammed onto the ground, also staring at Sakura's tree.

That wasn't supposed to happen.

Those two… definitely should have learned the tree climbing exercise years sooner. Kakashi had never seen or heard of it happening, but it seemed like they were so practiced with nature transformation that they automatically performed it just by expelling chakra from their body. For Naruto, that meant automatically converting his chakra into a source of life that caused spontaneous growth in the tree. For Sasuke, it meant converting his chakra into fire and lightning and expelling that from his feet.

Reluctantly putting his book away, Kakashi walked over to the boys. "You're both using elemental chakra instead of non-elemental chakra," he explained bluntly.

Naruto and Sasuke's heads turned to him in unison. "Huh?" Naruto frowned. "Non-elemental chakra?"

"How long have you two been training elemental jutsu?" Kakashi asked in lieu of explanation. "Years, right?"

Naruto sat up and rubbed his back while Sasuke nodded. "We've mastered a lot of elemental jutsu since we started training together a few years ago," Sasuke confirmed. "How is that causing this?"

"You're too used to expelling your chakra in elemental form." Holding up his hand, Kakashi channeled a small amount of Raiton chakra and lightning crackled along his hand. "Like this, instead of just expelling it as chakra."

"So…" Naruto raised his hand and a dull orange glow enveloped it. The effect wasn't as immediately obvious as the lightning crackling along Kakashi's hand, but the grass around him seemed to be angling toward his hand like a plant to sun. "How do I, uh, not do this?"

Kakashi rubbed his mask thoughtfully. Sasuke was staring at his own hand too, lightning crackling along it like Kakashi's but with fiery sparks added in. If nothing else, the boys were prodigies when it came to nature transformation; Sasuke would be an ideal student to teach Chidori, and Naruto… well, Kakashi could only imagine how his prowess with Mokuton would continue to develop.

But first, he had to figure out how to work around their natural instincts and teach them what their teammate had figured out instinctively.

"I'm assuming both of you know the academy three?" Kakashi asked, letting the Raiton chakra fade from his hand.

"I do," Sasuke said, also letting the Raiton and Katon chakra fade from his hand. "But Naruto can only use transformation and body replacement. He can't make non-solid clones."

"The Clone Jutsu takes too little chakra!" Naruto complained. "And it's stupid anyways. Water clones are-"

"Okay, then both of you need to practice those until you can recognize how it feels to use non-elemental chakra." Kakashi wasn't surprised to hear Naruto's complaints about the Clone Jutsu, and he agreed, to an extent. He'd only ever found the standard clones useful when mixed in with solid ones to keep an opponent off guard. "When you think you have it down, try running up the tree again. Sasuke, you should probably just abandon your shoes."

Sasuke grunted in typical Uchiha fashion, pulling off his shoes and tossing them to the side.

Under Kakashi's watchful eye, even though he'd rather be reading his book, the boys started to perform transformations and body replacement jutsu. He noted that Sasuke didn't bother with the Clone Jutsu either, probably agreeing with Naruto's assessment of it being useless.

After about an hour, the boys deemed themselves ready and walked back over to their respective trees, bickering back and forth all the while. It was a little amusing. Kakashi had long gone back to reading his book, but he still looked up to watch them try again.

This time, they both made it a few steps up the tree before nature transformation seeped into their steps. Kakashi breathed an internal sigh of relief; he honestly hadn't been sure how to help if that hadn't worked, and tree and water walking were too important for them to miss out on learning it.

"Bakashi-Sensei, we managed a few steps!" Naruto cheered.

"I can see. Good job Naruto, Sasuke," Kakashi praised, giving them both an eye smile. "Now you just have to catch up to Sakura!"

At once, Naruto and Sasuke turned to look at Sakura's tree and grimaced. She was still walking up and down it, sweat practically pouring down her face. If it was just walking she would've been fine; the academy made all of the students develop at least some stamina. But she also had to infuse a constant stream of chakra into her feet and consciously keep herself horizontal rather than vertical. She'd already practically mastered the act of sticking to a tree, but it was still good chakra reserve and stamina training once the skill was mastered.

Granted, that training wasn't something Naruto or Sasuke needed. Kakashi doubted there was anyone in the village with larger chakra reserves than Naruto, and from what he'd seen, Sasuke had chakra reserves jonin would envy. Both were born with naturally high chakra reserves, ones they'd both expanded for years by training to use as many jutsu as they could.

They were going to be monsters when unleashed on the world. Kakashi almost felt bad for the massive headache the two would cause every Kage. Almost, but not quite.

The boys got back to work trying to climb up the trees without infusing elemental chakra. Knowing them, they probably wouldn't stop until they'd mastered it completely. Kakashi chose to take pity on Sakura, putting his book away and walking over to her tree.

"You can stop now," he told her when she walked down to the bottom again.

Relief instantly dawned on her face. She swiped the back of her hand across her forehead, flicking sweat onto the ground. "Thanks, Kakashi-Sensei," she managed between breaths. "That was-"

"Don't thank me yet," Kakashi said with an eye smile. Relief immediately turned to apprehension. "We've only been training for an hour, there's still plenty of time left in the day."

"So what's next?" Sakura asked suspiciously.

Kakashi gestured for her to follow him and started walking towards the river that flowed along the training ground. In hindsight, it was probably good the bell test hadn't taken place here. He really didn't want to imagine how many clones Naruto would make with access to an entire river. Shaking that thought off, he casually stepped onto the water and turned to face the once-again surprised Sakura.

"The water walking exercise is the next step after the tree climbing one," Kakashi explained. He noticed Naruto and Sasuke were staring at him too, but they quickly got back to work when they saw him staring back at them. Naruto had already seen him walking on water during the test anyways. "It's much more difficult because you have to constantly adjust your chakra output, but once you've mastered it it becomes second nature."

"Woah…" Sakura muttered, openly staring at where his feet stood effortlessly on the water. "That's… wow."

The novelty of water walking wasn't lost on Kakashi, even if he'd never really felt it himself. He'd learned it when he was a young genin, when the loss of his father was still fresh enough that nothing was really cool, but he'd seen Rin and Obito's amazement the first time Minato-Sensei taught it to them. He could sympathize, if not empathize, with it.

"You'll probably pick up on it pretty quickly, judging by your advanced chakra control," Kakashi admitted. Sakura smiled at the praise, which was when he chose to add, "And when you do, I'll up the difficulty by making sure you don't lose your footing when being attacked!"

Her face fell.

"Now why don't you get started?" Kakashi suggested, stepping back onto the ground. Without giving her the chance to react, he shoved her with just enough force to push her into the river.

Unprepared, Sakura fell right into the water. It wasn't deep enough that she'd have to swim, but it did have a steep slope, and her inability to find her footing led to her head dipping under. When she resurfaced and pushed her hair out of her face, it was with a glare that might've been threatening if she wasn't a fresh-out-of-the-academy genin. "Kakashi-Sensei!" she shouted.

Kakashi just eye smiled. "I figured you'd want the refresher after all that sweating," he said with faux sincerity. "And now you won't have to worry about getting soaked if you fall in!"

"Because I'm already soaked," Sakura grumbled, standing up and walking back up to the shore. "You didn't even explain what to do!"

Kakashi cocked his head. "Didn't I? It's the same principle as tree walking, only you have to constantly adjust the chakra output. I'm sure you can figure out the rest."

Ignoring Sakura's protests, Kakashi pulled his book back out and walked a short distance away to sit down. Usually he might have given her more instruction, water walking wasn't an easy ability to master and Kakashi wasn't that cruel, but Sakura had learned the tree climbing exercise in one attempt. If she managed to figure out water walking quickly and with minimal help, finding out the difficulty most people had when learning it would be a significant confidence boost. One she would definitely need, considering her teammates.

She was making pretty good progress every time Kakashi chose to look up from his book. Currently, she was standing atop the water looking moderately more dry with her hands in a seal to focus her chakra. Not bad for only half an hour's practice. It wouldn't be long before Kakashi started throwing-

"Bakashi-Sensei, we did it!"

A surprised look back over at the boys showed them both at the tops of different trees than they'd started on. Naruto was waving excitedly in Kakashi's direction from his newest tree, the white of his grin visible even from the significant distance. Sasuke had his arms crossed on his, a smirk most likely on his face even if Kakashi was too far away to see.

The other trees looked like ones that'd be found in a warzone, something Kakashi would know better than many. A few had clearly been doused with water at some point, large burn marks spreading from cracked foot-shaped indents, and others looked unbelievably misshapen and overgrown. Naruto and Sasuke had obviously had to switch trees a few times, and Kakashi was wondering if he maybe should have chosen the other training ground for the activity. At least then Naruto would probably be able to fix the trees.

"Not bad!" Kakashi shouted. "Now keep doing it until you can go for an hour without slipping up!"

Where most would have grumbled about it, the boys seemed to take it as a challenge. Kakashi was too far to read their faces or clearly hear their voices, but the way Naruto pointed a finger at Sasuke before they both started running up and down their trees didn't leave much to guess at. Both were extremely competitive, and all forms of training turned into friendly competitions. They probably even had a running count on who was winning.

Eternal rivals.

Kakashi shuddered at his own comparison, banishing the thought from his mind and turning back to his third student. He was only a little surprised to see Sakura walking across the water like she was on dry land, having dropped the hand seal while Kakashi was looking away again.

"Well done, Sakura," Kakashi praised, putting away his book. A look of horror crossed her face when a kunai replaced it in his hand. "Now for the fun part!"

"Kakashi-Sensei no!" Sakura screamed.

Kakashi ignored the protest, flicking the kunai vaguely in her direction. There wasn't even a chance of it hitting her, he wasn't going to actually put her life in danger, but the shock of it was enough that her chakra control slipped and she plummeted down into the water. Since she'd dared to venture further into the river while walking on the water, she fell deep enough that she had to swim up to properly glare at him.

Smiling, Kakashi readied another kunai. "You'll need to learn to push yourself back up too," he added. "You won't always have solid ground to rely on."

Sakura continued to glare at him and grumbled, but she managed to apply the principle behind water walking to allow her to climb back up on the first try. Even if she was a little unsteady and a lot slow doing so, Kakashi was impressed.

But that didn't stop him from sending the second kunai sailing in Sakura's direction. She managed to dodge it, if unsteadily, and her feet didn't even slip into the water. "Better," Kakashi acknowledged, another kunai appearing in his hand. "But we're just getting started."

As he sent the third kunai flying at Sakura, Kakashi questioned whether 'swim practice' would be an adequate excuse for forcing Naruto and Sasuke to retrieve his kunai for him. With the amount of water Tobirama Senju was rumored to produce with little effort, it'd probably sound reasonable to the minds of overachieving twelve-year-olds. He could just clone one kunai and let them dispel when he was done, but… forcing Naruto and Sasuke to swim to the bottom of the river did sound appealing.

"I can't believe you figured out tree climbing and water walking in one day!" Naruto exclaimed. "Sasuke and I only managed to get tree climbing done! And even that's barely." He groaned. "I didn't think tree climbing would be so hard."

"Didn't Kakashi-Sensei say you two were only messing up because you're too used to elemental jutsu?" Sakura asked, glancing at a grumpy-looking Sasuke. They'd just finished training for the day and Naruto convinced them to get food together, though Kakashi disappeared before he could be convinced. Sakura was, luckily, more or less dry by now, but her hair was still a little damp. "You'd probably be fine if you'd learned it sooner."

"Hn," Sasuke grunted, eyes on the ground. Probably to make sure he didn't step on anything, since his shoes were gone. "We should've, but you still figured it out impressively fast." He looked up at her and Sakura blushed a little. "You need to train a lot more, but your chakra control could be useful."

Sakura blinked. Was that a…?

"Wow, Sasuke, that almost sounded nice!" Naruto made a fearful face. "Oh, no," he muttered, eyes wide. "You know what this means?"

Sasuke scowled. "Naruto-"

"It's the end of the world!" Naruto shouted, throwing his arms up in the air. "Sasuke Uchiha said something nice!" He suddenly stopped and grabbed Sasuke by the shoulders. "Are you okay? Did you hit your head? Are you dying? Do you have a-"

Naruto jerked his hands away like he'd been shocked. "Stop being an idiot," Sasuke muttered with an eye roll. "Next time I'll hit you with enough electricity to fry your brain."

Naruto scoffed, shaking out his hands. "Yeah, right. You couldn't fry my brain even if you used an actual jutsu."

Sasuke hummed in agreement. "Right, your brain would have to actually be working in the first place for lightning to fry it," he remarked. "The electricity might even kickstart it." Smirking, he added, "You want me to try? You might actually live up to the Nidaime's intelligence if you have a working brain."

"So, uh, where are we going to eat?" Sakura cut in, before the boys could devolve into a physical fight. Over the past week she'd learned that it didn't take much for that to happen. For Naruto and Sasuke, there was a very thin line between verbal sparring and physical sparring. "Not Ichiraku again, right?"

"Of course Ichiraku again! It's the-"

"Not Ichiraku again," Sasuke agreed. "We've gone there for literally every outing since we became a team."

Naruto pouted. "You guys are no fun."

"Not everyone likes ramen as much as you, Naruto," Sakura said, more amused than anything. Ramen was pretty good, even if it wasn't something she'd want to eat every day. "What about Yakiniku Q? Ino's team apparently drags her there a lot and she says it's good."

Naruto's face brightened up. "Shikamaru and Choji? Ya think they'll be there too?"

"Maybe?" Sakura shrugged. "Ino says their teacher basically has them doing teamwork exercises, playing shogi, or doing D-ranks all days so they might be finishing around this time."

Naruto grinned. "Then we should go! I wanna know if they've learned anything cool!"

"I doubt it," Sasuke said. "If they have learned anything, it's probably limited to their clan jutsu. Not anything that'd be useful to us."

"And?" Naruto asked. "Maybe I just wanna see what they've learned, y'know?" He paused. "Well, what Choji's learned anyways. I bet Shikamaru's as lazy as ever."

"He is," Sakura confirmed with a sigh. "They both are. All Ino did when I last saw her was complain about Shikamaru and Choji being lazy and eating all day."

Sasuke raised an eyebrow. "Is she training any more than they are?"

Sakura frowned. Now that she thought about it… "I don't know," she admitted. "Ino didn't talk about any new training. But it's only the second week!"

"Hn." Even after a week where she'd seen Sasuke every day, Sakura still wasn't sure what half his grunts meant. "She shouldn't be complaining about them if she isn't willing to put in any more effort than they are."

"Well, not every team can be as awesome as ours!" Naruto said cheerily. "With my chakra reserves, Sakura's chakra control, and Sasuke's…" He furrowed his brows at Sasuke "What is it you're best at again?"

"Beating you," Sasuke retorted quickly. "Did you forget I was in the lead again?"

"In the-" Naruto's face froze. "What? The tree climbing didn't count! We're tied!"

Sasuke raised an eyebrow. "You're the one who made it a competition. You can't take that back just because you lost."

"But the score is who wins the most spars!" Naruto protested. "That wasn't a spar!"

"But I still managed to go an hour without slipping up first, which means I won."

"That doesn't-"

"Score?" Sakura asked, both out of curiosity and once again to prevent a physical fight. Being their teammate would be tiring if it wasn't so funny. "What score?"

Naruto and Sasuke's heads turned to her in unison with surprisingly similar looks of confusion. They looked nothing alike, yet Sakura couldn't count the number of times she'd seen them and had the striking feeling they looked like brothers. It was weird; she didn't even know any brothers well, but that felt like the most accurate way to describe them.

"Oh!" Naruto said, breaking the spell. "We haven't told you yet?" He sheepishly scratched the back of his head. "Whoops. Me and Sasuke-"

"Sasuke and I," Sasuke corrected, and then immediately had to dodge a punch from Naruto. "Hey, idiot, you're gonna have to learn some grammar if you want to be Hokage!"

Naruto glared at him, raising a fist in warning, before turning back to Sakura. "Anyways, me and the bastard have a running count of who has the most wins between us," Naruto explained. "We reset it when we became genin, though, 'cause spars between actual shinobi are more important than between academy students, y'know?"

"And because I had an insurmountable lead," Sasuke added. "The idiot couldn't beat me at first because he sucked at pretty much everything. Now we're on fairly even ground, so whoever's in the lead is just better." He smirked at Naruto. "And after I beat him at tree climbing, that's me."

Naruto narrowed his eyes. "Y'know what, sure," he conceded, but his voice had an edge that sent shivers down the spine of anyone who'd experienced his pranks. "If non-spar competitions count, then I challenge you to see who can eat the most at dinner!"

Sasuke stared at him blankly. "No."

"You scared?" Naruto challenged.

"No, I'm just not an idiot," Sasuke said drily. "The challenge is pointless and wouldn't show who's better at anything but eating."

"Nah, I think you're scared."

"No, I'm not."

"Are too!"

"Am-" Sasuke groaned. He actually groaned. Sakura couldn't believe her ears. "I don't know how you manage to drag me into that all the time."

Naruto grinned cheekily. "So you're in?"

"Yeah, fine, whatever," Sasuke muttered. He shoved Naruto's arm hard enough that Naruto stumbled. "We'll see who can eat the most at Yakiniku Q."

"Woohoo!" Naruto cheered and pumped a fist in the air. "I'm gonna re-tie us, believe it!"

Sasuke scoffed. "Yeah, ri-"

Before Sasuke could even finish, Naruto bolted off in a blur of orange and yellow in the direction of the restaurant. Sakura rolled her eyes, opening her mouth to say something to Sasuke, only to blink a second later when she saw a streak of black, blue, and white running after Naruto.

Sighing, Sakura ignored her screaming muscles and bolted after her teammates. For some reason she couldn't really explain, she wanted to see who won.

A/N:

Hey! It's been a while since I last posted (nearly a year, whoops). I sadly can't promise it won't happen again, just that I hope to always come back to continue whenever I do take a long break. For whatever reason, I habitually go months at a time without getting any real inspiration to write for a specific idea, then I'll get slammed with enough inspiration to write a ton all at once (and that's ignoring irl stuff I won't get into), so I apologize for the consistent inconsistency

As of finally posting this, I'm in another writing binge and have a clearly plotted path from here through the Chunin Exams (and a little more vaguely plotted beyond), and I'm working on chapter 15 rn. I hope I'll stay in this writing binge for a while longer, but if not, I'll still probably be posting for the next few weeks. Hopefully by the time I post everything I have written now, I'll have more to post (this is how i try to compensate for ADHD)

Onto actual chapter stuff:

For the tree walking exercise, I figured I'd give Naruto and Sasuke a unique issue because of them focusing on entirely chakra nature for all of their self-training. If the logic throws anyone off and you think it goes against canon, sorry, but their unique talent for nature transformation and difficulty with "normal" chakra isn't going to end here

For a bit longer an explanation of my reasoning behind it, Naruto and Sasuke here have trained almost exclusively in jutsu involving nature transformation for years, save for the academy three (two for Naruto) and genjutsu for Sasuke. Naruto especially would've needed to start working on nature transformation to start inventing Mokuton jutsu, and for every time he had to fix their training clearing, so it's pretty much second nature to both of them.

Huge thank you to MarvelMatt for correcting me on it being Shodai instead of Shodaime! As of posting this, I hope I've fixed all of them, but pls lmk if there are any more or any similar mistakes