Naruto 1. The Graduation Exam

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Naruto, and I make no profit writing this or any other kind of fanfiction either.

Tags: Female!Naruto, Good!Orochimaru, Powerful!Kakashi, Realistic!Shinobi World, Team Seven focus, Team Hiruzen focus, AU obviously, NarukoxSasukexSakura, JiraiyaxOrochimaruxTsunade.

**(AN - The King in White):**Welcome to **Deadlock**, formerly **The White Snake** when it was still on the drawing board. The title change comes from the technique Kuchiyose Deadlock which I felt would better reflect the Team Seven nature of this work.

This is more than a little inspired by Eilyfe's** Team Seven's Ascension**. Especially the heavy and mental crutch team dynamics that fic touched on. I'll likely find myself borrowing a bit of it here and there in the beginning, though overall I already have a mental skeleton for the fic right to the ending (although I have no idea how that fic will deal with certain truths about Itachi).

If you're an old reader, consider this **Deadlock 2.0.** After my great enjoyment producing **One Thousand Nights** with Ajax the Great, he has been invited to co-author this work with me. In addition, after each chapter is edited, they will also be posted up over at Ao3. Deadlock is now considered part of the greater Two Realms universe, so over at Ao3 you will also find the appendices with all the associated information about altered common details within the universe, jutsu both original and changed from canon, kekkei genkai both original and changed from canon, as well as original geography like towns/terrain that we chose to add in.

**(AN - Ajax):** Hey everyone, I've been invited to join this project by White after we started working on our other story, as he mentioned, and I'm excited to keep working with him! Check out our other project on my profile page if interested! I'll keep this short, so onward without further ado.

* * *

"_Words are a pretext. It is the inner bond that draws one person to another, not words."_

* * *

A faint buzz of electricity zapped through his right hand, flaring pain receptors to produce a sharp solitary ache. Jolting awake, Uchiha Sasuke rolled about to peer at the darkened sky through his window.

The dim early morning drowned out the stars, leaving the sky a featureless smear of indigo save for a bright white rim along the eastern horizon, heralding the dawn.

Sasuke shook the last dregs of numbness out of his fingers and slipped the banded iron rings from his digits. Tossing the shock-inducing alarm system into the drawer of his night table, the Uchiha rolled from his bed in one practiced motion and immediately stretched.

Popping sounded loudly in the silent house as Sasuke moved through cracking stiffened joints and working muscles tired after a late night training session. The shower beckoned his sleepy mind, and the boy meandered from his room and down the hall to step into the shower.

Nearly scalding hot water pounded down on Sasuke, seeping through raven locks and traveling down pale flesh in searing ribbons. All need to sleep fled from the Uchiha, and staring at needlessly sparkling porcelain tiles Sasuke began to scrub his body with abandon.

Perhaps the house was kept too clean and too empty to belong to a normal twelve year old boy, but Sasuke never claimed to be normal. Not since _that_ night. The night of bloody screams and bloody walls and bloody-

Hands. Pain seared through his palms and dragged Sasuke back from the tide of memory to stare at the white crescents his nails had dug into his flesh.

Shutting off the shower taps with a jerk, Sasuke reached out and snagged a towel from the silvered rack hammered into the wall. Drying his body with swift movements, Sasuke strode from the shower and – carefully – dropped the used towel in a wicker laundry basket lurking by the door.

Sasuke imagined that keeping his home obsessively clean chased away the shadow of _him_. No man and no blood could hide in the stark empty corners and against constantly disinfected surfaces. And if there was a patch of darkened wood in the center of his parents' former bedroom, Sasuke could ignore the stain.

Throwing on a pair of white shorts and a blue high-collared t-shirt, Sasuke shook the water dripping into his eyes out of his face with a quick jerk and sighed at the pangs of hunger in his stomach.

Breakfast was a subdued affair, like it had almost always been since _that night._ A simple fare of a single glass of milk, a sliced tomato, two pieces of toast, and a handful of dry cereal. Sasuke could hardly even begin to care when his elders pointed out the blandness of his meals and the absolute economy of nutrition his diet employed.

Sasuke didn't even know how to begin pointing out to bright eyed young children and misty eyed old adults that the only taste he craved was a steady diet of vengeance with a dash of murder.

So he kept his head down, shoving hands in his pockets and nodding along as overly-concerned meddling coots expressed platitudes for his loss and concerns for his well being, seething all the while at time wasting from training to become just a little bit faster or just a little bit stronger.

Stepping out into the cool morning air, Sasuke took a deep breath and began to jog. Down the steps of his lonely home and through the empty streets of his lonely district, the Uchiha moved at a steady beat.

Sasuke pounded out three warm up laps around the inner walls of the ghostly Uchiha compound before springing out into the streets of Konoha. A few familiar faces gave solemn nods when Sasuke dashed by them, used to day after day, year after year of seeing Sasuke pass along on his morning rounds.

Konoha was large, the Uchiha supposed. His dead run led him to the boundary of the curved southern wall and he turned west to begin a circuit. Though Sasuke really had little to compare to the only village he'd ever lived in and ever seen to distant undiscovered towns.

Trees flashed by on his left as Sasuke ground the dirt roads of Konoha ever smoother. A familiar cry of "Youth!" sounded on his right, and dark eyes widened in horror before Sasuke turned and pressed into the well kept greenery, pushing his steady run into an all-out sprint.

The Uchiha had only ever met Maito Gai once, and that once was more than enough. The green spandex clad jounin was hands-down the oddest individual Sasuke had ever encountered. Unforgivingly exuberant and inappropriately affectionate - if the way he treated a younger green spandex clad genin was any indication.

Still Sasuke may have been willing to forgive or at least forget such glaring faults if the jounin had been willing to take him on and train him. A dedicated taijutsu specialist and high ranking shinobi had to possess a significant degree of skill and ability to pass on techniques that would help him close the gap with _Itachi_.

_I'm just dreaming of tearing you apart._

There was only so much self-directed training could do for Sasuke. The forms taught at the Academy were depressingly basic and pathetically easy to master, good for little but an introduction to self defence and the incapacitation of civilians. It was almost as if he was being intentionally held back.

But the infuriating man had only refused, shaking his head and telling Sasuke to wait for his own sensei whenever he graduated to take him on. And that perhaps the Uchiha might consider attending the Academy more often if he hungered to fan his Youth so desperately.

The refusal didn't stop the cheery jounin from calling out to Sasuke with encouragement when he saw the boy passing by in the mornings before the Academy was scheduled, and scolding him when the Uchiha ran by later in the day during hours when he should have been attending class.

At least the little green clone didn't presume to judge him too.

The Hokage's tower passed in a blur on his right, casting a long cold shadow that hid Sasuke from the dawn and darkened the looming carved faces of the Hokages on the left.

Sasuke had met the Sandaime many times in the wake of the Massacre, boiling inwardly at rage with the soft looks the old man gave him, his persistent apologies for failing to stop the tragedy. It had taken three days for Sasuke to get sick of the platitudes and start refusing to speak to the Hokage.

Never really knowing _why _the Hokage seemed so convinced that he should have noticed something was off about Itachi when Sasuke didn't even scent the monster lurking under his brother's skin struck the Uchiha boy as odd. But old people were generally odd. Always so concerned for his well being and pressing him to do this or that.

Umino Iruka had been the worst of them, constantly chasing him through the streets and dragging him back to classes when all Sasuke needed was to get away from all the desperate incompetence of his peers and the annoyingly pathetic curriculum of the Academy.

Once he'd learned to evade the chuunin and successfully hide from the concerned teacher, Sasuke never returned to the classroom save to complete the tests that were absolutely necessary for him to pass. Apparently his absences were borderline legendary.

Sasuke sneered inwardly as he crossed over a small river, garishly red planks trailing under his feet as his body automatically leapt up and dashed over thin crimson handrails.

A pale-skinned man with golden eyes gave him a blink as the Uchiha moved to avoid collision, passing out of Sasuke's mind before he even touched back down on the grass on the opposite side of the river.

Time was wasting, and as much as Sasuke loathed the thought he needed to actually attend the Academy later on. Missing his own graduation would be a disaster.

* * *

Orochimaru shook his head with amusement as the red-faced, puffing younger brother of Itachi passed him without a word. The Sennin recalled whispers of that boy, lurking alone in his clan compound when the rest of that decimated family scattered to the corners of Konoha. Breaking some important politician's son's jaw when the lad had the gall to call him '_dobe'_. Hiruzen had laughed about it for days.

Perhaps Itachi's brother would amount to something interesting one day, though Orochimaru loathed the thought of losing such a well placed spy as the S-rank pseudo-nukenin. Still, it was ultimately up to Itachi how he wanted to go out of the world. And if he wanted to die at the hands of his obviously broken younger brother, that was his choice to make.

It wasn't as if Itachi's bloody and secret services for Konoha didn't deserve at least the dignity of choosing his own death.

The Sennin shuddered to think what would have become of the Uchiha clan if he hadn't intervened on their behalf, pointing out that while it was necessary to destroy all adults that could be linked to the coup, it would be a waste to slaughter children too young to know anything.

In another world perhaps Sasuke would have truly been the last of the Uchiha clan, target of all the hopes and adoring legends associated with their legendary dojutsu. As it was, the boy was merely one of a dwindled family and most importantly to the public _that traitor's_ brother.

Imagining a world without the Sharingan sickened the scientist. It would have been an extravagantly terrible waste of valuable data and samples.

* * *

Yawning awake, Naruko trudged through her morning ablutions with all the grace of the walking dead. Stumbling over numerous piles of dirty laundry, well-read scrolls, and braces of kunai, the Academy's Top Rookie managed to tug on her signature orange jumpsuit and make her way to the kitchen.

Naruko yanked open her creaky cupboard, dancing fingers longingly across stacks of cup ramen before tugging out a box of oatmeal with a grumble. As much as the blonde would have loved to eat the food of the Kami for her Graduation Day breakfast, she had a feeling that Ero-Sennin would have kicked her ass for it. Like the old perv had the first time he'd visited her in the morning and found her happily slurping down the salty noodles.

Making a face at the bland grain, Naruko shoved a kettle on her stove and folded her arms to wait for the water to boil. The blonde's mind wandered, idly considering her various classmates for the likelihood that she'd be assigned to a Team with them. No real preference came to mind, save for a desperate hope that Sakura would find herself on any team but her's.

If her rival had the same placement as her, Naruko might just have to the girl herself. Or preferably the pink banshee.

A low whistle signaled her water was done, and with another frown the blonde poured it into her waiting bowl of oats. Sugar and milk followed, and Naruko scarfed down the meal without waiting to deal with its lack of taste or even sit at her small table.

Casting one last glance at the cupboard containing her beloved ramen, Naruko slipped on a pair of zori. The door stood shut, cutting out a world of cold eyes and foreboding whispers, and the blonde found herself sucking in a shaky breathe.

Naruko slapped her cheeks, screwing on a bright fake grin and muttering "Another day, another Ryo. You'll make it... Always moving forward..." Some days were better than others, requiring the blonde to spend less time psyching herself up to take her lonely world.

Graduation day cut into her mantra, and the jinchuuriki gave a truer grin at the door before yanking it open. "Today's the day I'm going to be a real ninja, dattebayo!"

Blue skies without a cloud in sight arched overhead as Naruko shuffled from her apartment. Casting a quick, wary look at the clean streets around her, the blonde stifled the instinctive dissonance. Adapting to a well-policed, well-maintained, and wholesome district of Konoha was taking a lot longer than Naruko would have liked.

Growing up in the slums left its mark, and if not for Ero-Sennin finding out just where she'd been subsisting and insisting she moved Naruko was sure she'd still be wandering those dirty streets. Somehow she doubted she'd ever grow out of the instinctive need to look around for wandering thugs and thieves.

Hebi-jiji just laughed and told her that it was the mark of a good kunoichi to be so suspicious. Naruko wondered if that meant that all ninja were paranoid wrecks.

The jinchuuriki took off down the road at a light jog, hopping around bleary eyed civilians that were trotting off to their jobs. Excitement bubbled up from her toes, and Naruko didn't bother containing the grin fighting to rise on her lips.

Indulging in a touch of idle fantasy, Naruko imagined the kind of missions she and her team would be taking as real ninja. Stories of bright heroes fighting slimy villains in a thousand different tales flashed through her thoughts, and Naruko cast herself in dozens of roles.

Perhaps she could be the one to save the Daimyo's daughter. Or the one that crushed a criminal gang. Maybe she'd become famous for being the most powerful kunoichi to ever live?

But first, Naruko had to make genin. Easy as pie.

Trailing through the Academy gates just as the morning bell rung out in a dull clang, Naruko swore and doubled her speed. The blonde shoved through classroom door just as Iruka-sensei moved to close it.

Naruko smirked up at the instructor, looking with undisguised longing at the hitai-ate strapped across the man's tan scarred chuunin gave Naruko a knowing look before turning back to slide the door shut.

Only to have a pale hand grasp the edge of it and force it back open to admit Uchiha Sasuke.

Iruka blinked, restraining the inner surge of pity and annoyance. Pity at the circumstances that had changed Sasuke so much from the generally good natured boy his early enrollment records spoke of. And annoyance at the boy's insistence of skirting the rules at every turn.

Giving a quick scan for any other tardy students, Iruka closed the door and strode back to the front of the classroom. The chuunin observed Naruko and Sasuke trailing quietly up to settle in the seats at the very back row before clapping his hands and roaring over the chattering class.

"Quiet down!"

Silence reigned instantly, the children straightening up at the stern gaze Iruka pinned them with. A heartbeat passed, before a warm smile crossed the chuunin's face.

"As you all know," Iruka began seriously "Today is the last day the Academy will be in session until September. We will be hosting your Graduation Exams in short order. For those of you who have taken the test twice already and failed, another failure will lead to your expulsion from the Academy."

Brown eyes turned sharp and faint concern touched into the instructor's tone. "Therefore if you are not confident in your ability to succeed in all aspects of the exam, I strongly urge you to consider opting out and signing up for another year of instruction. Please note that no child over the age of fourteen will be admitted to the Academy."

"There will be a written exam, followed by a taijutsu demonstration. After a short fifteen minute break, we will proceed with a test of your ability to resist basic genjutsu and finish with a testing of your mastery of the Kawarimi, the Henge, and the Bunshin."

Staring pointedly at Chouji, Iruka felt compelled to add that under no circumstances were students permitted to leave the Academy until all exams were finished. Not even for lunch.

"Mizuki-sensei will be passing out your written exams now. The written exam will double as a yearly final for those who choose to return next year. Just notify myself or Mizuki-sensei during the taijutsu demonstration if you wish to be excuse." With a nod to the silver haired chuunin, Iruka motioned to the nervous students.

Mizuki gave a reassuring smile before stepping forward with the thick booklets of paper.

* * *

Haruno Sakura sucked in a steadying breath as Mizuki-sensei dropped an exam booklet on her desk. Gripping a pencil between delicate fingers, the pink haired girl tossed a quick glance around the room before flipping the papers over and signing her name on the dotted line.

Green eyes flashed down the first page of the exam, and Sakura felt a great surge of relief and confidence as she realized that all the questions were very simple and basic knowledge of the Shinobi world.

_Please name all to hold the office of Hokage of Konohagakure._

Sneering slightly at the thought that anyone in her class wouldn't be able to answer such easy question, Sakura scribbled out the four names of Konoha's Hokage. The girl paused briefly as she considered if additional details would earn bonus marks, and decided to chance it.

_'The Sandaime Hokage returned to lead Konoha after the death of the Yondaime in the Kyuubi attack. Uchiha Madara also briefly held the position of Nidaime Hokage Kouho before his betrayal of Konoha.'_

Sakura would love to see the look on Uzumaki's face if she managed to steal the class' top spot in the final exams. It still rankled when she remembered how the former dead last of the class became suddenly competent shortly after they turned nine and ousted her from her position as Top Rookie and the kunoichi with the highest grades.

_Name the five elemental chakra natures._

Scribbling out the five elements, Sakura even scribbled in a brief diagram of their strengths and weaknesses in relation to each other and added a quick note about certain kekkai genkai enabling advanced chakra natures combining two or more of the basic ones.

Sakura chanced a glance to observe her rival, scowling at the utterly relaxed expression on the blonde's face as she filled out her test. Crossing Uchiha Sasuke with her gaze, Sakura turned back her pages and frowned. If she had any choice she wouldn't want to be on a team with _either_ of them. Uzumaki being her rival, and Uchiha being an all-around arrogant tardy laggart.

Breezing through the rest of her written exam, Sakura filled out questions on topics such as, what are the names of the Five Great Villages? How many Shinobi World Wars were there? Which of Konoha's Clans were Noble? And on and on, tracing out three pages of general history and chakra theory.

Writing down the final answer – _Who are the Densetsu no Sannin? _\- Sakura tossed her pencil down and leaned back in her chair. Short pink locks tickled around her ears as the girl wondered vaguely if Ino would do well in her exams. Her best friend would probably cry and demand they eat a tub of ice cream if the she failed.

Lost in her idle musings, Sakura jumped in surprise when Iruka-sensei stepped by, sweeping up her exam booklet with a smile and proceeding down the row of desks.

A low chatter rose up as the last set of papers was collected, nervous students anxiously comparing the answers they could remember and speculating about what kind of test that teachers had constructed for their Taijutsu exam.

Iruka gave another thunderous, chakra-enhanced clap and ordered the students to line up in single file by the door to a separate exam room.

Sakura blinked before scanning the classroom and setting green eyes on Goto Kasumi. Sidling across the room, Sakura spared a confident smile for Ino and the blonde's nervously wringing hands before filing into the rapidly forming line.

Ignoring her brown-haired classmate as Kasumi began bouncing in anxious tension, Sakura folded her arms across her chest and stared out the window. It was a clear blue day, and the girl let her mind wander.

Once she graduated and had her team assignments, Sakura would have to break the news to her parents that she'd actually become a member of the shinobi forces. The green-eyed girl wasn't blind, and had played witness to more than one argument between her parents as Sakura's enrollment in the Academy became less and less an indulgence and more and more a reality.

Kizashi and Mibuki were civilian merchants, wealthy enough to sate their daughter's curiosities about the world and even pay for shinobi training. Sakura's parents had long since expected their daughter to drop out of the Academy, and the notion that the girl might actually manage to become a silent killer more than terrified them.

Yet in Konoha the Hokage's word was law, and once a student was signed over the the Academy they belonged body and soul to the Konohagakure government. Parents gave up the right to withdraw their children from shinobi education once enrolled, and only the student in question had the choice to drop out.

Even dropping out didn't herald an end to Konoha's interest in them, however, and Sakura recalled gossiping whispers in the market about how even dropouts were never free from surveillance. No matter what Sakura chose to do with her life, the shadowy world of shinobi would always have one foot in her door.

"Haruno Sakura!" called Mizuki-sensei, ticking off her name on his list before setting a hand on the girl's shoulder and steering her into the next room.

The room was small, four white walls and two doors. One led back to the classroom with her peers, and one led onward – either to the next stage of exams or into the open world if she chose to opt-out. Painted into the floor, taking up a full third of the space was a bright red ring.

Iruka-sensei sat behind a desk in the far corner, drawing out two sheets of paper.

Iruka beckoned her over, "Sakura-chan," nodding slightly when the girl blinked and began trotting over. "I have two forms for you. One is for you to sign if you're opting out of the exam this year." Dropping a significant hand on the form to her left, he continued. "This one is for you to sign if you're going to continue. It says you recognize that you might be injured in the testing."

Sakura bent over the desk, narrowing green eyes as she scanned the pages and powered through the legalese. One waived her right to compensation for injury, noted that she recognized the exam as a black mark on her record if she failed, and that success would be graded on record available at a later date by request. The other waived her right to privacy if she failed to return to the Academy, noting that she was opting out of the examination.

She inked her name to the form on the left in a large, flowing script.

"Come here Sakura-chan." Mizuki-sensei called out, motioning for the girl to stand opposite to him in the ring. "The test goes on for two minutes." the chuunin explained with a lazy glance to Iruka. "You'll be graded on how well you fight. Don't worry about the Academy forms – we don't grade on them because a lot of our students come from clans with their own taijutsu styles."

"In ten seconds." Iruka called out absently as he began filling out the grade sheets with Sakura's personal information.

After a beat, Sakura darted her gaze to the floor and she fell into the basic Academy stance. "Do I have to stay in the ring, Mizuki-sensei?"

"No." Mizuki disagreed, "But you'll lose points if you get knocked out. Or gain a lot if you knock me out." the chuunin after with a mischievous grin.

A chime jingled as Iruka reached zero, shaking a small hand bell and barking out "Begin!"

Sweat began to bead on Sakura's pale forehead as seconds ticked past, Mizuki-sensei standing casually with his hands at his sides and a bored expression on his face.

"Thirty second mark." Iruka-sensei murmured, brown eyes focused on his student.

Sakura moved, leaping forward with both fists drawn to her sides before letting out a right hook. A hand rose up to slap her fist away. Undeterred, the pinkette threw her left hook to the same result. The pair traded a short repetitive set of blows before Sakura leaned back and drew her knee to her chest. Lashing out with a kick, she grinned when the chuunin brought his arms up and was forced to block the blow.

"One minute mark."

Mizuki shoved her back, moving into an offensive gait and trailing lazy blows. Dodging under and around the man's swinging fists, Sakura took a glance at the utterly bored expression on her sensei's face and burned with humiliation.

The chuunin was utterly toying with her!

Gritting her teeth, Sakura stepped under and into Mizuki's step and drove an angry fist into the man's knee. "Contact!" she shouted in glee. Said knee snapped up a moment later and pushed the pinkette away, bringing her dangerously close to the red line.

"One and a half minute mark."

Sakura dove and rolled, dodging between a marginally surprised Mizuki's legs and spinning to leap onto the man's back. Wrapping her arms around his throat in a chokehold and legs around his waist to keep from being thrown, Sakura hung on for dear life. Mizuki began to twist in sharp movements, growing more exaggerated as he attempted to throw off his surprisingly tenacious student.

Then the ground slammed into her, driving Sakura's breath from her lungs and leaving her staring up at the ceiling with a confused expression. The man had simply collapsed backwards, crushing the girl between his body and the wooden floor.

"Two minute mark."

Mizuki stepped into Sakura's line of vision, stretching a hand down to help her up.

Iruka stepped forward once Sakura regained her bearings, an encouraging look as his face that gave the girl hope for her performance.

"You did well Sakura." Iruka began. "You managed to stay inside the ring for the full two minutes, and even managed to score a strike on Mizuki-sensei. Which is more than some of the students today have been able to do." A odd expression grew on her instructor after a pause. "Keep in mind that this isn't taijutsu class though Sakura-chan. You shouldn't yell out 'contact!' in the middle of a fight, especially against a deadly enemy."

The man's voice rose with a vague pitch of lecture. "Also, you froze up for the initial thirty seconds. Understandable if you have a taijutsu style based on counterattack and defence - unlike the Academy Basic. But possibly fatal if you don't. You should never hold off combat for that long unless the terrain favors you or you're on a defensive mission. If you had never engaged Mizuki, the point of your 'mission' today you would have failed the exam."

Face burning with shame, Sakura nodded wordlessly.

"Good," Iruka grinned. "Now head on through that door, and I'll see you after lunch for the rest of the exams."

* * *

Lunch was ramen. Delicious, salty noodles soaked in broth with pre-packaged seasoning after three minutes over a hot stove. Naruko loved it, gobbling down every succulent bite with furtive glances around the playground.

Ero-Sennin had told her that the blonde was free to eat all the ramen she liked for lunches only on school days, and only if she actually showed up at the Academy. It had only taken three times of attempting to sneak around Jiraiya's rules before Naruko adhered to them with all austere gravity of a police officer upholding the law.

Soaking for hours in a frog's stomach – covered in drool and fly guts and other assorted nasty substances tended to make an impression. Even on the stubborn Uzumaki could realize that sometimes it was better to cut her losses

Ino laughed, a bubbling sound of relief and happiness that drew Naruko's blue eyes to watch the Yamanaka and her best friend chatting amiably at a picnic table. Years had passed since Naruko realized that she couldn't force people to want to befriend her through loudness and constant bothering, as well as some advice from her two father-figures.

Churning under her skin was a familiar mixture of loneliness and jealousy. Naruko tore her gaze from the pair and took in the rest of the students through glazed blue eyes. Forty-nine kids puttered about the Academy grounds in groups with their friends, telling jokes and comparing stories.

The fiftieth student was Uchiha Sasuke, sitting alone under the shadow of a tree and slowly sharpening a kunai with a whetstone as he waited to be called back in for the next part of the Graduation Exam.

Naruko sighed, shoving apart the instinct that made her want to wander over and talk to the boy. More than once the broody raven had rejected her overtures of basic friendliness, and the Uzumaki had long since given up on waiting for Sasuke to get his head out of his ass.

"Break's over! Everyone line up!" Mizuki shouted through cupped hands, ignoring the hateful burn that crossed his chest when the Kyuubi jinchuuriki rose from her seat in the grass and silently sidled over. The remainder of the blonde's classmates formed a bulky trail behind her, and with a shrug Mizuki ushered them back into the classroom.

Greeting the returning examinees with a disarming smile, Iruka launched right into an explanation as soon as the final student found a seat. "We're going to proceed with the genjutsu exam in short order, followed immediately by the ninjutsu exam. If you pass, you'll be awarded your hitai-ate on the spot and sent to room 136 down the hall until the rest of the students are done."

"Good luck!" Iruka told the class brightly, before calling up Aburame Shino as the first to take the test.

Naruko tapped a staccato beat on the top of her desk with her elongated nails. Ignoring the annoyed glares of a few of her more nervous classmates, the blonde only stuck her tongue out and considered what she'd need to do to pass the genjutsu portion. Probably just dispelling something, since she didn't recall the class being taught any actual genjutsu in the Academy.

Bunshin didn't count, even if it was an illusion.

"Uzumaki Naruko!" startled her, and the blonde looked up to laugh at a slightly peeved looking Iruka-sensei. "That's the third time I called you, Naruko! If you don't pass today I won't buy you ramen tonight."

Naruko snorted. "Of course I'm going to pass, Iruka-sensei! I'm the best ninja in the whole Academy."

Giving an exasperated but fond smirk, the chuunin shuffled his young charge through the door and giving a wordless thumbs up to the last student waiting to be examined before shutting out the classroom.

"First thing's first." Iruka-sensei began as he crossed the same room used for the taijutsu exam and settling on one edge of the red ring. "The genjutsu portion is pretty simple – I'm going to cast a weak illusion on you, and you just have to recognize it and dispel it."

Agreeing with a barked "Sounds good!" Naruko turned a blue gaze on Mizuki before she strode to stand opposite Iruka-sensei.

Forming three slow hand seals, Iruka sighed out a low "_Kasumi Juusha no Jutsu!_"

Naruko waited, staring at the chuunin with discerning eyes before darting a quick gaze around the room. Just three white walls...

A hand settled on the blonde's shoulder and she dove to the side, rolling about to face against a shadowy figure. The amorphous blob with indistinct, only retaining the basic hints of human shape. With an amused snort, Naruko brought her hands together in a ram seal and flared a portion of her enormous chakra.

Wordlessly the wiggling blob dissolved away into faint trails of mist before fading completely. Naruko quickly spun about to confirm there were no other dark bodies reaching from the shadows and nothing else obviously different before nodding to Iruka-sensei. "It's done."

"So it is." the chuunin agreed mildly. "I felt the illusion break well enough, so you pass that part. What did the illusion look like?"

Naruko shrugged nonchalantly."A blob. Human shaped, but just a blob."

Humming in agreement, Iruka-sensei returned to take a seat beside Mizuki-sensei and signed off as a witness to her genjutsu grade.

Naruko bounced in place until the silver-haired chuunin shot her a vaguely irritated look. "Now for the ninjutsu portion of the exam. You have to demonstrate the 'Academy Three'."

"Those being the Kawarimi, the Henge, and the Bunshin." Iruka-sensei clarified, reaching down to drag up a log set under the instructor's' desk and heave it across to their student.

Naruko never even made the effort to catch the flying piece of lumber, merely rolling her eyes before disappearing in a puff of smoke. Wood clattered to the ground, followed by the soft pad of Naruko's heels making contact with the polished floors.

Raising a cocky brow, the blonde laughed. "Next?"

Tightening an easy smile on his lips, Mizuki motioned over at the instructor beside him. "Now transform into Iruka-sensei, if you can."

Naruko formed a slow series of seals, carefully committing everything she could observe about Iruka-sensei to memory before calling out "_Henge no Jutsu!_" Smoke billowed up to cover the short girl's figure.

Reaching a tanned hand out, Naruko brushed aside the lingering smoke and revealed her imitation. Towering at almost twice the blonde's height, a clone of Iruka turned on the spot. Showing off an identical green flak jacket, the same dark black zori and even the odd bandage twining about the man's right leg.

"Looks good." Mizuki confirmed, ribbing his colleague in the side with an elbow before smirking. "Show us a few clones now."

Puffing back to her true form, Naruko absently straightened a wrinkle out of her orange jumpsuit before lazy forming a cross seal.

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" she roared, a blaze of chakra swirling around her. Smoke exploded in the room, clearing to reveal the small space filled to the brim with grinning blonde Naruko's. One reached out and poked a finger into Iruka-sensei's shoulder, confirming the technique's solidity.

Naruko had the strong suspicion that for the rest of her natural life the blonde would never be able to accomplish the original Bunshin no Jutsu. Even before Hebi-jiji told her about the dirty furball rolling about in her gut and got his ass kicked by Hokage-jiji years back, the Uzumaki had struggled to even measure such a tiny fraction of chakra out to use.

Malformed clones were all Naruko was able to form with the original technique, until Ero-Sennin taught her the Kage Bunshin in a fit of inspiration. After confirming with the Hokage that the Kage Bunshin would satisfy all graduation requirements, the blonde promptly gave up on attempting to master the Bunshin and never tried the technique again.

Zeroing an expectant gaze on the row of hitai-ates gleaming on the table, Naruko dismissed her Kage Bunshin with a word and strode boldly across to snatch at one.

Iruka got there first, offering it up with a proud smile. "Congrats Naruko, I guess I'll be taking you out to ramen tonight."

"You bet!"

"Congratulations to you all!" Iruka called out, striding into the classroom shortly after the last student tried and failed to pass the exam. Taking in the diminished group that made it through the first and easiest trial of their shinobi careers, Iruka crushed the feeling that he'd signed them up for death by passing them.

"You are as of today official genin of Konohagakure. However, I'd like you to remember that it's a dangerous world out there." Casting an imploring gaze at his graduation students, the man continued. "Some of you may even die, but I have faith in you – all of you, my students – and I know that all of you will uphold the _Hi no Ishi_ as proud shinobi of Konoha for the rest of your lives."

Mizuki gave Iruka a commiserating pat before stepping forward and folding his hands behind his back. "Please rise." the chuunin ordered softly, all playful mocking absent. "And repeat after me."

_"I swear to my ancestors this most sacred oath."_ After pausing to confirm the low drone of recitation and giving all the newly minted genin a sharp look, Mizuki pressed on. _"That to the people of Konoha I shall render unconditional service and that I shall strive to the uttermost end of my strength to uphold the Hi no Ishi. I shall be prepared to give my life for this oath, or else become faithless and accursed."_

Naruko mumbled along with the rest of the graduating class, dropping down into her chair as soon as the solemn speech was finished and tugging at her ear nervously. Watching as Mizuki gave a last significant nod and strode from the room, Naruko gave Iruka-sensei a shaky grin when the man stepped forward.

"You may request to see your individual test scores at any time after today. But first, before dismissing you I'd like to offer further congratulations."

Confused mutterings met his words as Iruka swept up two bronze plaques. "First to Uzumaki Naruko, I'd like to officially recognize you as the Top Rookie of this year's graduating class. You did well." Tossing the engraved award across the room, Iruka's eyes warmed when Naruko caught it and blushed.

"Secondly, for scoring both highest overall exam mark and a perfect score, I'd like to award this to Uchiha Sasuke. You did well."

The raven contemptuously snatched up the plaque and shoved it into the pocket of his white shorts.

Iruka frowned instinctively at the rudeness before giving a genial shrug. "You're all dismissed for the day. Report back to this room tomorrow at 0900 for your team placements."

* * *

One step closer to _him_ Sasuke decided as he glided through the doors and took his seat at the back of the room the following morning. A small step, and a late one considering how young his brother had been when _he'd_ made genin. But then Itachi grew up the favoured elder child in the household of Konoha's premiere clan leader, learning directly under his father's tutelage as a boy.

Only Okaa-san consistently spent time with Sasuke, being the one to gently teach him the proper way to hold a kunai, how to throw a shuriken, how to use wire as a weapon… The only thing Sasuke had learned from his father was his prized Goukakyuu, at the very end of his childhood, before Itachi destroyed his innocence.

Sasuke wondered if his father had never suspected there was something off about Itachi, whether he'd ever have bothered to teach his younger son anything at all. Ironically Sasuke's greatest teacher had been Itachi. It had been the elder brother that smoothed out his childish hands and taught him real lethality in his movements, refining Okaa-san's affectionate teaching into skills more deadly than any of his peers.

When he killed Itachi, Sasuke dearly hoped the man regretted ever teaching his younger brother the right way to kill.

A huff cut into his thoughts, and Sasuke turned to glare at the Uzumaki girl when she flopped down next to him and plopped her feet up on the table. "How… elegant," the Uchiha murmured sarcastically, smirking at the annoyed scowl Naruko sent him.

The bell rang at the stroke of nine, quieting the tittering children into anticipatory silence. Even Sasuke found himself tracing an absent finger over his hitai-ate when Iruka stepped into the classroom with a clipboard in hand.

"Hello again." the overly friendly chuunin greeted, smiling at the group and beaming particularly affectionately as Sasuke's neighbor. "This class is lucky to have fifteen graduates, so we don't have to have any squads with extra members or any squads short of members."

"Now I'll announce the teams starting from the top with Team Four..."

Tuning out the low drone of Iruka reading off the list, Sasuke folded his hands under his chin and waited. He had no real team preference, just as long as his jounin-sensei was strong enough to get him to the next level, that was all that mattered. It wasn't like Sasuke intended to stick around with his peers, he had a man to kill.

"...Uchiha Sasuke, and Uzumaki Naruko will form Team Seven under Hatake Kakashi."

Sasuke blinked in surprise before glaring. He'd missed who would complete his team besides the blonde idiot, and he knew that there was someone else since Iruka said all the teams were three... to ask Uzumaki or not to ask?

On the one hand, he hated appearing unknowledgeable. It would definitely make him look like a fool to have missed his own team placements. But did he hate not knowing more?

"I wasn't paying attention. Who else is on our squad?" Sasuke grunted after a moment, leaning an ear closer to his obnoxious blonde teammate.

Blue eyes narrowed in confusion before Naruko shrugged. No water off her back. "Haruno."

Muttering an "I see." Sasuke fixated on the door and waited, reluctantly listening as Iruka paired off the so-called Ino-Shika-Cho trio under the Hokage's son. Chatter started back up for a split second before the classroom door slid open.

"Team Eight?" A dark-haired woman called out, scanning the room with red eyes and settling on the quiet Hyuuga girl rising from her seat to hurry across to the jounin. Joined a moment later by Aburame and the shaggy Inuzuka, the three students filed out after their new sensei.

A few more teams went out to three more non-descript jounin, and Sasuke sneered inwardly. One was a feeble-looking man with glasses, another was a redhead woman in a lab coat, and the third was to a bald brawler with an undoubtedly soft head. Weak – stronger than him at the moment perhaps, but no where near Itachi's level.

The Hokage's son came and picked up his three little clan heirs in a stink of tobacco, the first jounin sensei to really move with a sense of lethality and Sasuke was briefly jealous. The first woman had seemed more skilled than the other three, but the Uchiha was quite sure that whoever this Hatake was he'd be nowhere near as good as having a _Hokage's son_ as his sensei.

Minutes ticked into hours, and Sasuke grew ever more irritated. Sakura gave in after the first hour and began to peruse a textbook left abandoned in her desk. Naruko was worse, fidgeting more and more in her seat as the hours rolled on.

The clock struck eleven with a loud chime, and Sasuke finally snapped at her "Would you stop that!"

Blue eyes shot back at him, glaring in a dark fury. "Well excuse me for getting bored because we've apparently got a lazy-ass sensei who's probably face down drunk somewhere."

"Maa, I don't know about _drunk_." interrupted, and all three genin turned to face the door in a whirl.

An easy-going jounin grinned at them. Or at least Sasuke assumed it was a grin from the way the man's only visible eye crinkled over a mask hiding the rest of his features.

"I just got lost on the road of life." the jounin mused, shoving hands in his pockets. "I'd have to say my first impression of you guys is that... I hate you. Meet on the roof."

Then Hatake simply vanished, and Sasuke's eyes widened unwillingly. There was no smoke, no technique, no dash. Just pure unadulterated speed.

"For a jounin he doesn't seem very reliable." Haruno pouted before the trio trudged out of the room in search of a stairwell.

Kakashi hadn't been lying when he told his new team that his initial impression of them was terrible. It may be slightly unfair of him to expect them to be perfectly happy waiting around for him, but the infighting spoke of a dislike that could be fatal in a team.

This would be the first team he'd truly be _forced _to accept. If he had to, Kakashi was more than prepared to beat them bloody until they figured out they were a team unit. Obito would expect nothing less, and the Hatake wondered if he'd even be able to forgive himself if a team – his first team at that, even if he'd been made to take them - died on his watch.

Shuffling onto the rooftop, the three children observed him through silent eyes and Kakashi found himself recounting a little bit of his initial dislike. Those were strong eyes, and maybe this team could amount to something in the end after all.

"Take a seat and introduce yourself. Your likes, dislikes, hobbies, dreams for the future. That kind of thing." the jounin ordered, waiting as the trio scanned the roof before shrugging and settling down on crossed legs. "First you - pinky on the right."

Sakura opened her mouth, darting green eyes about before closing her jaw with an audible click. "I have no idea what to say." the girl admitted. "Perhaps you could introduce yourself first sensei?"

"Me? Well, my name is Hatake Kakashi." Squinting up at the sky in mock thought, the jounin drawled, "Things I like and things I hate? I don't feel like telling you that. My dreams for the future? Never really thought about that. As for my hobbies... I have lots of hobbies."

"So all we learned was his name?" the blond on the left muttered, pinning him with a mutinous glare. Kakashi grinned back at his sensei's daughter.

"I'm Haruno Sakura." the pinkette piped up after a moment. "I like my friends, reading, and playing trivia games. I dislike Naruko." Green eyes glared at blue as both girls scowled. "My dream for the future is to become the strongest kunoichi in the world!"

Not a bad ambition, even if it was a high place to aim. After all, Tsunade of the Sannin had been a giggling little girl once upon a time. Though the animosity towards her teammate was worrying.

After a moment, Kakashi sighed "Now you blondie."

"I'm Uzumaki Naruko. I like ramen, Iruka-sensei and Ero-Sennin and Hebi-Jiji and Hokage-jiji-" Naruko paused for a breath before frowning. "I dislike the three minutes it takes ramen to cook and _Sakura_. My dream is to be acknowledged by everyone."

A silvery brow climbed up at the wistful tone Naruko finished her introduction with, filing away the fact that the animosity in his team was two-sided. "You're up, broody."

Glaring at the nickname, Sasuke growled "My name is Uchiha Sasuke. I have a lot of dislikes and don't really like anything. I hate the word 'dream' – it suggests that what you want won't become reality. I have an ambition to restore my clan and... to kill a certain man."

The fixation on Itachi and the overall negativity wasn't unexpected, but Kakashi couldn't help but wish his team was one that wasn't going to be saddled with so many issues. An inferiority complex, a vengeance fixation, and a stubbornly antagonistic girl if her sneers to the other two teammates were anything to guess by.

Kakashi had his work cut out for him.

"Well that's enough for today." the jounin decided. "Report to Training Ground Three tomorrow morning at 0700 for your genin exam."

"Didn't we just do that?" Sakura pointed out, wrinkling her brow in confusion.

"No. That was merely to decide which of you in the class had the potential to become genin. It's an extremely difficult exam with a sixty-six percent failure ratio. If you fail the test tomorrow I'll have you sent back to the Academy for remedial training."

Finishing with a cheerful "Oh, and I recommend that you don't have anything to eat tomorrow for breakfast, you'll just throw it up."the jounin vanished in a swirl of leaves.

"This sucks." Naruko muttered after a long moment.

* * *

**(AN - White):** The edited version of this chapter clocks at just past 8000 words. Keep in mind though, that the chapters of Deadlock are written around a certain main event or idea. Hence the lengths will vary.

As you can no doubt see already, a 'good' Orochimaru has had significant effects even on the backstory of this world. He intervened in the Uchiha Clan Massacre to save the lives of children and uninvolved elderly, thus the clan is diminished but still exists scattered to the corners of Konoha.

Because of this, Sasuke is not the Last Uchiha, only the traitor's brother and the last of Madara's 'cursed' house. Without the Last Uchiha appeal none of the girls of the Academy fangirl after him, leading to a stronger and smarter Sakura that actually kind of dislikes him for being an absentee and "dobe".

Which leads me to another interesting reversal of canon, where Sasuke is dead last and Naruko Top Rookie because without a bad Orochimaru Jiraiya is around quite often and actually has gotten involved in Naruko's life training her a bit. Not a lot, since he's lazy and wants to leave that for her sensei, but enough to vaunt her to top spot in the class.

Which also had the effect of altering her dreams. Before anyone cries BUT MUH HOKAGE DREAM – I have to point out that until **Shippuuden** Naruto doesn't give a fuck about actually being Hokage. He doesn't pursue the position for the power or influence or a desire to protect the village. He does it because the only person nice to him (the Hokage) is loved by the village and he desperately wants that.

But here, Naruko knows Jiraiya and Orochimaru, who are both immensely respected despite not being Hokage. They're just really strong ninja, and as such Naruko realizes she doesn't need to be Hokage to be acknowledged – it's something more intangible and outside of a magic Hokage hat.

So we have a stronger team seven in comparison to their canon counterparts. Naruko actually payed attention and did well in class, Sakura actually wanted to become a kunoichi and isn't totally useless, and Sasuke skipped out on lessons that he was ahead of and spent the extra time training (As you see, he attended just enough to pass and studied constantly so he was the only student to get a perfect exam score despite being the dobe).

But it's also a more dysfunctional Team Seven, since none of them like each other and a few of them even hate each other.

Orochimaru is not Hokage because he doesn't want to be. Like all of the Sannin, he never wanted the position for itself. Even canon Orochimaru only wanted the power associated with it. If Orochimaru is essentially a good guy, he doesn't have that motive and thus is more than happy when Minato becomes Yondaime. Orochimaru knows his responsibility, and might take up the hat if there was no one else, but there was someone else the first time, and Hiruzen loves him enough not to force it on him just like he never forced it on Jiraiya or Tsunade, even in canon.

Bonus points to those who noticed the fascistic overtone of that oath I put the kids through. It was a deliberate comparison to the Hitler Oath - Konoha is a military dictatorship, and I'm going to have this shinobi world act like it.

**(AN - Ajax): **I'm a newcomer to this story, but me and White are systematically picking through this story and editing a great deal. The feel of this chapter is much the same as how White originally left it, so I've done more beta-work than anything else, with the exception of changing a few major plot points concerning the Uchiha, and some things in store for the future of the fic. Me and White are both enormous fans of **Team 7's Ascension: Blood Wings**, and references to the world that Eilyfe created will be apparent in the multi-story universe that we are creating to go along with all of our collaborative works. Our emphasis is on a much more realistic take of Naruto that ends up fixing a great deal of the plot-holes in canon, as well as making some overall quality of life changes to promote natural story growth. I heavily recommend you take a look over on Ao3 to see our appendices on what exactly we're changing, as it contains a lot of juicy worldbuilding information! It's not jam-packed with the ridiculous amount of information that me and White have decided over, as we simply need to copy over our observations, but it should be rapidly filled in over a short amount of time.

There's not too much more to say this early in the process of rewriting **Deadlock**, that White hasn't covered, so I'll leave it here. Review with any questions or comments on the story or our projects!


	2. The Bell Test

**Disclaimer**: Don't own Naruto. Don't make a profit writing this. Never will make a profit writing this.

Let's continue on with chapter two, and I hope that by the end of it I remember to put in the jutsu list. Here's the one for last chapter:

Kawarimi no Jutsu – Body Replacement, Users replace their own body with some other object. E-rank.

Bunshin no Jutsu \- Creates an intangible copy of one's own body, without any substance. E-rank.

Henge no Jutsu \- Used to change into people other than oneself, but one also has the ability to change into animals, plants, and even inanimate objects. E-rank.

Kage Bunshin no Jutsu – creates a tangible clone from chakra with with an equal distribution of the user's chakra. B-rank.

Kasumi Jūsha no Jutsu \- Creates black ninja illusions that multiply when attacked. D-rank genjutsu.

* * *

_"To be part of a family, or any community, is to have duties and responsibility, to be bound by the rules of that group."_

* * *

Sakura yawned widely, rubbing at a dry eye as Naruko sidled up through the early morning chill and silently joined her other two teammates in waiting for their sensei.

Tugging her red cheongsam a bit straighter and passing her fingers to count the brace of kunai strapped over her compression shorts, Sakura scanned out over the dew-covered field and sighed.

"Why do I have the feeling he's going to be late again?"

"Probably because we could all see he's a lazy bum yesterday." Naruko snorted, folding her arms and craning up to look at a cloud rolling by overhead.

A faint curl of a smile pulled at the corner of Sakura's lip before she remembered who exactly she was talking to and frowned with a huff.

Leaning back into a tree, Sasuke shoved his hands in his pockets and idly counted over the handfuls of shuriken in both.

"I suppose if I pointed out that I wish I was on a different team," Sakura began with a poisonous green gaze at Naruko. "That you'd agree with me?"

"Damn straight." the blonde nodded without any real bite, blowing her bangs her of her eyes with a huff.

"Shut up." Sasuke cut in, ignoring the irritated gazes the two females shot him. "Teams are broken up when a shinobi makes chuunin anyway, so let's just get there and never have to look at each other again."

Blinking in surprise at the taciturn boy, Sakura shrugged "We just became genin. It'll probably take a while to get that far."

"I know someone that became chuunin when he was ten, so it can't be that hard."

That drew Naruko's attention, pulling the blonde away from her bored cloud-watching to stare at the Uchiha with a curious blue gaze. "Oh yeah? Who's that?"

Sasuke clammed up, turning away from the girls with a grunt and burying memories of Itachi into the silent corners of his mind where they belonged.

Irritated at the dismissal, Naruko clawed out at the boy's indigo clad shoulder and spun him about. "Don't ignore me! I asked you a question _teme_!"

A sneer crawled over Sasuke's face as he violently shook off the blonde's hand. "Don't touch me _usuratonkatchi_."

"Well then don't ignore me, _dobe_!"

Rage lit in black eyes and Sasuke drew out his fists, stepping into Naruko's personal space with murderous intent.

Heaving a long-suffering sigh, Sakura glared at the bickering pair. "Idiots the both of you."

Naruko didn't even turn away from the Uchiha, meeting him sour look for sour look. "Shut your mouth forehead!"

A long languorous clap cracked through the air as Kakashi interrupted the impending squabble. "Well done." the jounin pointed out in sarcastic tones. "Unable to go even half an hour without tearing each other apart – you three are really shaping up to be one of the most efficient squads in Konoha's history."

"You're late!" Sakura and Naruko barked in twin indignant shouts.

Kakashi shrugged, more than a little annoyed to be drawn away from his typical early morning grief to babysit a trio of selfish brats. "Half an hour." the jounin agreed, not even looking for a ridiculous excuse. "Though with a performance like that I'm not sure you three should even be out of your diapers, much less here waiting for me."

The three genin glared with outrage, but subsided into sullen silence at the upheld hand of their jounin sensei. "I hope you three didn't eat breakfast." Three stomachs gurgled hungrily and Kakashi smiled, crinkling up his eye with amusement.

"Good." Drawing out two slightly rusted silver bells, Kakashi shook them in emphasis and nodded at the dull jangle of metal. From sensei to sensei the bells had passed to him, and Kakashi always adhered to the tradition handed down.

"Your test is to take these bells from me before lunch. Anyone who fails to get them will get tied to a stump and I'll eat lunch right in front of you." Dark frowns crossed the three genins' faces as they realized exactly why they'd been commanded not to eat, and Kakashi surprised the nostalgic laughter bubbling from his core. "You only need to get one bell, and there's only two. So someone will definitely get tied to a stump, and that person will be the one to go back to the Academy."

Sakura paled as she shot a darting green look at her two teammates. One of the three of them would fail? Determination hardened her face, and Sakura stepped into a taijutsu stance. Well it wouldn't be her!

"Pinky has it." Kakashi noted with approval. "You won't succeed if you don't come at me with the intent to kill."

Leaning away with an intent look, Sasuke drew his hands from his pockets and dropped into his clan's hereditary taijutsu style. Defence was minimized in exchange for raw power and explosive speed, depending on the Sharingan to be truly effective in combat.

Naruko drew her hands up in a cross seal, banking chakra in a low blue surge under her skin that generated a soft wind ruffling her orange jumpsuit.

Shrugging in a nonchalant motion that belied that interest gleam in his single dark eye, Kakashi clapped sharply. "Okay, let's start!"

Smoke exploded in the clearing as Naruko fired off her Kage Bunshin, filling the surrounding space with identical blonde doppelgangers.

Without missing a beat, Sasuke launched forward in a blur of black and blue movement. Fists swinging out at perceived openings in the jounin's lazy stance.

Sakura leapt in a split second after her male teammate, ducking low and punching a textbook fist at Kakashi's gut.

Determined not to lose to the others, Naruko's clones surged forward in a tide of orange and blonde. The majority leaping at Kakashi with abandon, targeting limbs to wrap around and weigh down. A couple of them reached out to tackle Sakura, downing the girl in a whirl of red and smoke.

Kakashi frowned and turned, lashing out with a swinging heel to dismiss the descending clones. Sweeping back overhead, Kakashi drove the sole of his boot into Sasuke's shoulder and drove the Uchiha into the grass.

All without withdrawing lazy hands from his pockets.

Sparing a dark glance at the squabbling blone and pinkette, Kakashi dove forward and grasped the Uchiha by the collar. Kakashi yanked the boy up, whirling him around with a flourish before throwing him into the crowd of confused blonde clones.

Vanishing in a swirl of leaves, Kakashi reappeared in the boughs of a tree and looked down, watching over his genin. Cursing immediately arose when Sasuke shattered Naruko's clones into smoke with his flying body.

Sakura shoved away the clones gripping her limbs, thrusting a violent fist through one's forehead before swinging out at the other. The blow surprisingly connected with the real Uzumaki's face, cracking into her nose and bleeding warmth as a nosebleed began to run down Naruko's face.

Jingling his bells significantly over the noise of the trio, Kakashi sighed before jumping off into the forest.

* * *

Sasuke spat out red froth, seething over the bloody fat lip he'd earned after Kakashi threw him into a pile of his stupid blonde teammate's clones. It was simply unfathomable why the girl seemed to take every action so personally and was more than willing to fight over it.

Fleeing into the trees had been easy enough after he dispatched the surrounding enraged clones, and with nary a glance back at the two bickering girls Sasuke had done so. He had the feeling that neither of the so-called 'rivals' cared all that much what he did in either case, and Sasuke curled a disgusted sneer.

_"Those two foolish little girls don't deserve to be kunoichi." _Reverberated between his ears, and the Uchiha fond himself nodding his head in agreement. Warm breath puffed against his earlobe "Isn't that what you're thinking, Sasuke-chan?"

Sasuke dove, hands whipping out in a black blur of shuriken against the jounin that had snuck up on him. Dark steel hammered into Kakashi's flesh with hollow thunks, the man's relaxed countenance wavering through smoke into a worn log.

Darting his gaze about in paranoia, Sasuke pushed through leaves and fled at his top speed. Heart hammering between his ribs at the thought of being so desperately outmatched that he couldn't even perceive the jounin when the man came near him.

Exactly like his brother.

A wordless snarl bubbled through Sasuke's lips and the boy twisted in midair. Hammering down on a branch and launching back in the direction he'd come from, the Uchiha clenched a kunai in his murderous grip

_I won't be that weak again. _

Green leaves brushed past his face as Sasuke burst through the canopy. The jounin sensei's single visible eye widened minutely at the Uchiha sudden reversal, but the almost mad hatred shining in those dark eyes spurred Kakashi into movement.

It was over almost before Sasuke could even perceive it, face shoved in the dirt with the weight of a contemptuous shinobi sitting on his back. A kunai slammed into the ground inches in front of his eyes, and Sasuke twitched.

"Maa, Sasuke-chan." Kakashi mused lightly. "If those two little girls don't have what it takes to be a ninja, what makes you think you do?"

Growling "I'm different from them!" through a clenched jaw, Sasuke renewed his struggles to break free.

"Is that so?" came the jounin's voice, light and airy before it turned dark. "Then show me."

The pressure on Sasuke's back vanished, and the dark-haired boy vaulted up in a whirl of limbs and regained his feet.

Kakashi stood several yards away, one hand lazy in his pocket and the other holding open a bright orange book that the jounin was reading with an expression of vague interest. So contemptuous and dismissive of the genin's skill that the man wouldn't even bother to pay attention.

Rage exploded through Sasuke's veins, and with a roaring in his ears the raven flew through a familiar sequence of hand seals. _Snake. Ram. Monkey. Boar. Horse. Tiger. _Air filled his lungs, coiling with chakra in his gullet._  
_

_The manipulation of fire. The mind of an Uchiha..._

"Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu!" Fire flew from his lips, a stream of heat and light the coiled inward and swelled into a giant rolling ball of flames.

Kakashi's eye widened unwillingly, the jounin shoving his porn literature away with shock. Murmuring "A genin shouldn't have enough chakra just after graduating for that jutsu."the jounin sunk under the flying fireball.

Wood crackled at several trees went up into merry flames, smoke flying up to curl into the azure sky.

Sasuke sought out the form of the jounin, scanning the trees and grass for the man's tall form or for a charring corpse. And that thought that he might have overdone it and actually killed the man sent a frission of panic through him.

"Below you." came the voice with amusement as a firm hand settled around his ankle and dragged the Uchiha into the earth. "Doton: Shinjuu Zanshuu no jutsu." Leaving only Sasuke's head poking out of the dirt like an absurd pustule, Kakashi rose up and settled a hand to ruffle dark locks.

"You're not bad." the jounin admitted before giving a shrug. "Well you know what they say about an exposed nail – it should be _hammered down_. "

An unforgiving fist slammed into the crown of Sasuke's head, reducing his vision to a churning mess of stars and filling his ears with ringing.

* * *

Sucking in a surprised breath, Naruko stared at the crackling horizon with wide blue eyes. "What the _fuck_ is that?"

Naruko only weighed her thoughts for a moment before rushing across the field and into the woods in the direction of the burning trees.

Flashes of light through the canopy passed overhead as the blonde drew near to the conflagration. The heat it gave off able to be felt from a significant distance away. Contemplating what she could possibly do to end the forest fire – because _damn the test she didn't want to be blamed for burning down the woods –_ Naruko was only able to choke on her spit when a huge twisted dragon made of water crashed through the trees.

The heat was extinguished in an instant before the elemental beast lost form and simply rolled in a tide directly at the blonde. Waves crashed over her and Naruko found herself gurgling and twisting through dark muddy water in an effort to gain the surface and just _breathe_.

Pain radiated through her spine when Naruko crashed into a might oak, splaying over the trunk like a rag doll as the water trickled away. Falling into the mud with an inglorious splat, Naruko spat out the mush coating her face and rolled woozily onto her back.

Kakashi towered over her blocking out the light of the sun through the trees, and the blonde drew in a shaky breath. "What the fuck was that for _b-bastard_?" Naruko croaked, shoving her elbows into the ground and lifting to a sitting position.

Huffing a sigh, the jounin cast a dark glance back through the woods. "Oh just Sasuke-chan getting a little frisky."

Naruko gaped. "That was _Sasuke_? Where the hell did he learn to burn down the woods? What kind of irresponsible jackass does things like that?"

Snorting with amusement, Kakashi settled a hand on the girl's shoulder and pulled her to her feet."An Uchiha one."

The two stood in silence for a long moment before blue eyes turned intent. "I don't suppose I can bum one of those bells off of you?"

"Not on your life."

"Well damn."

Chakra pulsed, a familiar swell as Naruko fell back into her most familiar and effective technique. The amount of energy the blonde could summon was greatly dimished after her earlier efforts against the jounin and the lengthy tangle with Sakura, but it was still enough to fill the trees with clones of the battered girl.

Yelling in unison, the clones descended in a blonde and orange wave to surround the jounin. The real Naruko reached out a flashing hand to grasp toward the pair of rusty bells adorning Kakashi's waist only to be slapped away with a casual backhand.

Crashing back into the mud with a twinge that echoed through her sore ribs, Naruko grit her teeth and rose with a determined expression. Watching with a careful gaze as Kakashi whirled about, Naruko searched for an opening.

The jounin moved at a fraction of his true speed, slapping away Naruko's clones with contempuous lethal ease. Some were dispelled by the careful thrusts out of his arms and legs. Other perished through over-extension – legs or arms seized after a failed strike and snapped with the practice of an established killer.

Naruko repressed the shiver in her spine at the deadly blank look drinking in the light in Kakashi's dark eye. Shattering the last clone with a puncturing thumb through an eyeball, the jounin merely dropped his hands to his sides and stared at Naruko.

Shoving aside the intimidation, Naruko forced her hands to hold steady as she formed another cross seal. Clones again descended on the man, spurring him back into the killing motions and the blonde drew on every ounce of her tactical acumen.

Chakra reserves growing lower and lower, Naruko knew she wouldn't be able to wear Kakashi down through keeping him constantly engaged with waves of clones. She's tire long before he did and be totally useless.

Naruko didn't know any explosive or overly powerful jutsu that could take Kakashi down either. Simply what they'd learned in the Academy and the Kage Bunshin she'd learned in order to pass the exams.

That left trickery.

Flushing with the effort of dragging chakra up from her depleting reserves, Naruko released another waves of clones with a shout – the smallest group yet – and waited. Waited for Kakashi to whirl back into his destructive dance, not concerned with the touching of clones because they were harmless and destroyed at a touch from the jounin.

Waited until the man turned away to dispatch another clone and Naruko flashed her hands. Soundlessly switching with a clone with even a hint of smoke, Naruko blinked at the sudden closeness of the jounin's back and reached out with desperation.

A bell jingled.

Red exploded in the side of her vision as Kakashi's fist swung back faster than she could even perceive, slamming into the side of her face like a speeding wagon and sending the blonde flinging through the trees.

Concern faintly flashed in Kakashi's eye as the jounin stabbed through the last clone and flung through the trees after his injured student. He hadn't been really expecting a switch with her clones, since the girl didn't come across as a very intelligent thinker.

Still, she was the Rookie of the Year and Naruko never would have attained the title if she'd been stupid.

Touching down on a limb, Kakashi peered down as the blonde curled into a ball and spit blood from a split lip. When she stumbled back to her feet, the jounin was satisfied the girl wouldn't need medical attention and vanished to seek out his last assigned student.

* * *

Sakura rolled to her feet with a groan, pressing a pale hand over her swelling cheek and seething with rage. What a fine teammate the blonde was turning out to be, getting into a fist fight with her not minutes into the exam that determined if they'd truly become genin or flunk back to the Academy.

Well it was irrelevant, Sakura only had to get a bell for herself in the end. Kakashi-sensei had said at least one of them would have to return, and the Haruno would be more than pleased if it was the blonde shrew that had to spend another year studying.

Stupidity was not one of Sakura's traits. Unlike her headstrong teammates, the pinkette had a vague conception of the sheer vast difference between the meager skills of Academy genin and the near mythical figure of accomplished jounin.

Kakashi-sensei had probably slain dozens of men in his time, and with a shudder Sakura knew that she had no chance of defeating the man in hand-to-hand combat or with her limited ninjutsu skills.

Casting a considering glance around the abandoned clearing they'd begun their exam in, Sakura chewed her lip and set to work. The instructor had to return at some point – for all his talk about them seeking him out, Sakura theorized that it would more likely be him seeking _them_ out. No genin could realistically hope to track a jounin, so the instructor would track them out and test their mettle in an effort to force them to show skill and take a bell from him.

When flames leapt on the edge of the horizon with a distant roar, Sakura flinched and began to hurry her motions. Apparently their instructor wasn't above using ninjutsu to drive them off, which further drove home the point that she had absolutely no chance in beating him in open combat.

Water rushed through the trees minutes later, extinguishing the blaze and causing Sakura to frown as she retreated from the edge of the trees and began to spread out her work. It was probably Uzumaki causing the man so much trouble, since Sakura had sincere doubt the dead-last of the class could really force such a fight from their sensei.

It stung Sakura to admit that for all the blonde's obnoxious ways and general oddness that the girl may really deserve to be called the Top Rookie of their age group. Sakura had proudly held that position for several years after enrolling, only surrendering it to Uchiha the first year they'd been classmates and before the Massacre. And then having it stolen by that weird orphan girl her parents always warned her away from...

Unclenching her fist, Sakura smoothed down her cheongsam and turned to face the trees. And waited. Waited as sweat began to bead down her brow from the sun's heat pounding overhead. Anxiety thrilled through her. What if her sensei never came?

Kakashi did come, melting from the underbrush like a grey ghost. Settling an impassive look on the pink-haired girl, Kakashi cocked an ear at the rustle of the wind before stepping forward.

"Hello Sakura-chan." he greeted jovially, grass rustling under his feet. "Not coming to get a bell?" Tutting in fax-disappointment, Kakashi tapped his masked chin. "That's a bit of a surprise, you seemed so eager before."

Green eyes glimmered with amusement. "Why would I need to go get a bell when you're bringing it to me?"

A creak of rope was all the warning Kakashi had when a large stump came flying out of the underbrush straight at the side of his head. Bending forward with ease as the wood whistled by, Kakashi's eye widened unwillingly when the ground before his eyes exploded in a shower of dark steel.

Trapped between the thick trunk on one side and shuriken on the other the jounin leapt to the side while bent over. A sizzling hiss was all the signal Kakashi had before the ground under his feet exploded in white fire.

The jounin flipped backwards away from the exploding tag to land on a tree branch that instantly gave way beneath his feet. Dropping towards the ground as a net shot up, Kakashi whipped out a kunai and sliced through the grasping net.

A further trap was triggered when two suspended logs swung down to attempt to catch him in the middle. Stumbling forward to avoid the trap aiming to squeeze his head like a grape, Kakashi smirked in reluctant amusement as a snare wrapped around an ankle and yanked him heel over head to dangle from a rope.

"I have to say I'm impressed." Kakashi informed Sakura when the pink-haired genin cautiously crossed the field towards him. "That much strategic foresight is something I would expect out of a chuunin, not a genin."

Flushing with pleasure, Sakura nodded happily and reached for the pair of bells shimmering in the sunlight at Kakashi's waist.

"Unfortunately for you, I'm a jounin."

Sakura only had a moment to blink green eyes in confusion before a snare wrapped around both her legs and dragged her away with a shriek.

Cutting loose in a single smooth motion, Kakashi dropped to the loam and spared an eye for his student swinging from a tree and wrapped in a cocoon of ropes.

Kakashi glanced at the position of the sun overhead and promptly dug _Icha Icha Paradise_ out of his pouch. Ignoring the frustrated struggles of the girl dangling from a nearby branch and her pleas to cut her loose, the jounin read his literary porn until the sound of an alarm clock rung out over the training ground.

* * *

Spitting out a clump of dirt, Sasuke ran a tongue over his gums in a last ditch attempt to clean out any remaining grains from his time spent buried up to his neck in the ground. The Uchiha spared a sour look for the impassive jounin looming over the trio of genin and shuffled to attempt to reduce the chafing of rope into his skin.

Being hogtied to a stump was degrading enough. Sasuke had no desire to add cramps and rope burn to the list of things that had gone horribly wrong since getting out of bed that morning. The only relief was his two teammates bound to their respective stumps on either side as Kakashi sat on top of _his_ stump with crossed legs.

Reaching down to further mess up the arrogant Uchiha's hair, Kakashi sighed and pried the lid off the first of four bentos. Showcasing the onigiri and mochi to the three obviously hungry children, the jounin slowly tipped the bento and drunk in the cries of outrage as the food poured out onto the ground.

The second bento followed the first, and then the third. By the time Kakashi was dumping the fourth and final bento out for the wildlife to consume, the three had gone silent with defeated looks. "I wonder." Kakashi began, staring at the last grain of rice tumbling out. "If the three of you are even serious about becoming ninja."

"Of course we are!" Naruko exploded, kicking against the ground ineffectually. "Do you think we'd be wasting our time taking tests if we weren't?"

"If you can't pass the test, you can't be a shinobi."

Staring into a pair of blue eyes with his single grim look, Kakashi trailed across the Uchiha's sullen face and settled on the shamed Sakura. "These tests aren't fun and games. They're meant to make sure you have the knowledge you need to survive in the world out there."

"Are you really that naive?" The jounin's voice turned harsh as he snapped a cold glare back at the jinchuuriki. "If the three of you brought the attitude you had today to a mission, you would've died. If I had wanted to, none of you would have left the training ground alive."

Gritting his teeth, Sasuke pointed out "Because you're a jounin." With all the experience and skill that rank requires.

Snapping back "No. Because you three hooligans aren't even a team! Working together, you might have managed to get the bells." Kakashi traced a weary hand over the hitae-ate concealing Obito's eye. "Sakura and Naruko couldn't even make it a minute without fighting amongst themselves. And rather than catching you that first time I threw you, Naruko turned on you as well. Sasuke, you were only marginally better by running off on your own and at least not fighting the others."

Furrowing her brow in confusion, Sakura muttered "But there's only two bells. Weren't we supposed to fight among ourselves?"

Slashing an impatient hand through the air, Kakashi scowled. "No! You pass or fail as a team. This test is designed to see if you're able to put the mission before your own interests."

Swallowing thickly, Naruko looked down at her toes and peered up at the agitated instructor through dusky lashes. So it was back to the Academy after all...

Rising to his feet, Kakashi sidled over to settle a hand over a dark ink black slab of stone and sighed. "Look here at the names carved on this stone." the jounin called out, turning to eye the three bound genin with a sidelong glance. "These ninja were recognized as heroes to the village after dying in the course of duty."

"It's a memorial." Sakura whispered in a hoarse tone, peering at her teammates and drinking in the stricken looks on their faces.

"My best friend's name is carved on here, along with the rest of my team." Kakashi pressed, gripping the stone with emotional force. "Most of Sasuke's family is recorded here." The jounin didn't miss the pitying looks the two girls gave the young Uchiha as he whirled about.

"Wouldn't you agree that your conduct today is shameful before their sacrifices?"

Sucking in a breath, Kakashi threw his face back and closed his eyes to listen to the wind. The three genin were silent, hanging on the jounin's every word. "By all rights I should fail you three right here."

But unlike every other team that had been thoughtlessly passed to Kakashi, the Hokage had assigned the trio with strict orders to enroll them in service no matter the cost. The Council was salivating over the thought of training a jinchuuriki up into another weapon for the village, and it had been years since the wider world had seen the Uchiha Clan of the Leaf.

There were too many political concerns to fail the three, not that Kakashi would ever admit it to them. "I'll give you one more shot." the jounin sighed, ignoring the looks of relief flooding the faces of the trio. "We'll meet up at the same place at the same time tomorrow. So help me, I'll hammer you three into a real team or kill you all trying."

Sakura paled even as Naruko squealed with joy.

Grunting out tiredly "Welcome to Team Seven.", Kakashi turned on his hell and walked off.

"Are you going to untie us?" Sakura called out with confusion.

Snorting in reply, Kakashi turned back. "What do you think?" Then he vanished completely.

* * *

Sauntering into the Hokage's office at the end of the day, Kakashi spared an acknowledging nod for both Asuma and Kurenai. Three other jounin had filed passed him on the way out, joking about having another year off from training brats and another year of lucrative missions.

"I've passed Hyuuga Hinata, Inuzuka Kiba, and Aburame Shino as Team Eight, Hokage-sama." Kurenai spoke after the errant Kakashi sidled up beside his cohorts.

Puffing from his pipe, the Sandaime leaned back in his chair and stroked a liver-spotted hand over his white beard. "I see." the Hokage mused, dark eyes lost in thought. "What about their character assessments?"

Kurenai shuffled nervously, the young jounin given her first team licking her lips and beginning in a steady tone. "They seem to work moderately well together. Hinata is shy and quiet, but has a kind heart and is nonjudgmental. That helps with cohesion, since Shino has probably faced discrimination over his kikaichu like many of the younger Aburame and Kiba is more boisterous than most. "

Pausing for breath, the red-eyed woman chewed her lip before pressing on. "Shino too is quiet and very polite, where Kiba is loud and friendly. But they treat each other with respect despite their differences."

"I put through Team Ten made up of Yamanaka Ino, Akimichi Chouji, and Nara Shikamaru Pops." Ignoring the Hokage's tired glare at being referred to so informally, Asuma drew a long suck from his cigarette and stamped the stick out in an ashtray set out on his father's desk. "Lifelong friends those three. Grew up together, played together, trained together. Ino and Shikamaru fight like an old married couple, but they unite against external threats with complaining at all."

"Very well." Hiruzen smiled before pinning the last jounin with a warning look. "What about you, Kakashi?"

"Uzumaki Naruko, Uchiha Sasuke, and Haruno Sakura pass as Team Seven." Kakashi sighed wearily, ignoring the blatently surprised looks that the other jounin stared at him with. "They have no team cohesion at all. Sakura and Naruko broke down in a fight almost as soon as the test started. Sasuke just ran around on his own and they spent the time waiting for me insulting each other."

Amusement and nostalgia shone in Hiruzen's eyes as he nodded. "Oh is that all?"

Kakashi scratched at his cheek before shaking his head. "No Hokage-sama. I'd like to..." Hesitation cost the jounin, and Hiruzen's eyes narrowed.

"Yes?" the Hokage prodded, leaning forward and making a silencing motion to his son.

"I'd like to nominate Team Seven for Hiruzen's Trial."

Kurenai gaped as Asuma snorted with laughter.

Folding his hands, Sarutobi Hiruzen blinked down at his wrinkled hands and turned the thought in his mind. Certainly Team Seven's situation came across dire, but to ask for the special training that he'd concocted and passed down through his own team? Only four squads ever undertook Hiruzen's Trial, and three of them were all dead.

"Granted." the Hokage sighed with all the immutability of fate. "Don't break them Kakashi."

"I might have to."

* * *

**(AN)** Herp derp. So 5200 words. As I said, shorter than the other one but just as annoying to stretch the content of the bell test out like that. What can you do though? Gotta do what you gotta I guess.

The only new jutsu was Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu – a C-rank fire release that create a giant fireball to send at your opponent. Often used as a coming of age thing among the Uchiha.

_**Uchiha Interceptor Fist**_ – oh the great horror of fanon strikes again. I actually thought all of thirty seconds before agreeing to put it in. Why? Because it makes sense. Why? Because not only because each clan is likely to have either their own style or significant alterations on basic Konoha Goken for their clan jutsu, but because it's the Sharingan. Why? Because like the Byagukan, the Sharingan bestows significant ability on the possessor. Why? Because they see ahead of almost anyone else, seeing openings and movements that no regular pair of eyes could.

(Shut up Shino)

So what's the logical construction from that? A hard and fast aggressive form of martial arts based on explosive movement that aims to takedown the enemy without even being hit. Offence is the best defence certainly applies here – with the obvious drawback of losing effectiveness without a Sharingan. And with some old retired clansmen still about, Sasuke could have learnt it from them.

Questions:

1) Are you sure about dat pairing? Gonna be NarukoXSakura you know?

Yes, I do know. I don't generally touch yuri and tend to find it difficult to read because I rarely relate to female protagonists. That being said, I think I can do it. It's not about undertones – this isn't a conventional romance. I'm going to build a world of bloody murder by the end of it. Sasuke isn't going to buy Naruko flowers. They're going to break under the stress of the missions and **fuck**. And he's going to fuck Sakura, and Sakura and Naruko will fuck each other. Because they're a team and they're living in a unique kind of hell with only each other.

2) Bring back Uzumaki Clan?

No. I'll tell you not only here, but for any story I ever write I will never revive the Uzumaki Clan. Why? Because it doesn't need to be 'revived', because it's not annihilated. It's scattered across the countries, but there are still Uzumaki alive here and there. It doesn't have that revival theme unless I went all out with magical Uzushio rebuilding Uzukage stuff, which is incredibly corny to me.

I'm always partial to the name Namikaze for any iteration of Naruto anyway, because it suits Naruto better. The Uzumaki Clan was a Clan with techniques and bloodlines passed down through generations from the Senju. Naruto, like his father, is Namikaze. Because the name Namikaze is the name of an orphan that dragged himself up from the dirt with nothing but his own two hands and mind to become Hokage.

3) Medic Sasuke – no, that's not really my vision of Sasuke. Sasuke is not a healer. Hatred is his dogma. Revenge is his way of living. He doesn't fix things, he destroys. I'm not going to so fundamentally warp his conception and steal the thunder from Sakura simply for a plot twist. (And the only way that wouldn't steal HER thunder is if she became the Snake's Apprentice, which goes against her character as well).

4) It's not that I can't write women, it's that I don't typically enjoy it. When I submerge into a fictional world, I do so by relating to male protagonists and deuteragonists.

Onward Scarlet Angel from above.


	3. The Trial of Hiruzen

**Disclaimer**: I don't own Naruto and I make no profit writing this fanfiction.

(**AN**) What a day. Went to see that new X-Men movie, started plugging away at Inhuman Ancestry. Let's get the show on the road.

* * *

"_Comrade, I give you my hand, I give you my love more precious than money, I give you myself before preaching or law; Will you give me yourself?"  
_

* * *

Naruko was nervous.

Fear was not new to the jinchuuriki. Naruko knew fear like an old friend. Fear of being abandoned. Fear of not being able to find enough food to survive on. Fear of violence and the hate directed at the Kyuubi sealed inside of her. Fear of never being acknowledged, never loved, and never wanted.

But the fear that their tardy but surprisingly stern sensei nurtured in Naruko was fear of failing. Of having her achievements crushed underfoot and being dismissed from the future she had chosen for herself.

_And she would never amount to anything again._

Squaring her shoulders and ignoring the cold panic that clawed at the back of her skull, Naruko turned blue eyes to stare at the Uchiha with clinical evaluation. The bored look on Sasuke's face was a lie.

Spine stiff as an iron rod with clenched fists shoved in his pockets and a nervous grind of the heel of his zori into the dirt, the boy was surely as worried as she was for the second chance Kakashi had promised them.

Turning to examine Sakura, Naruko cocked a brow at the much more obvious tension the pink-haired girl displayed. Crouching in the dirt and hugging her knees, Sakura looked out at the world with black-rimmed green eyes. Her rival was perhaps even more nervous than Naruko herself was.

The morning was cool, the faint breath of mist puffing through her lips as Naruko repressed a shiver and stared out over the training ground. Birdsong marked the waking of the world over still silent streets as civilians just began to rise from their beds.

Naruko wanted to complain about their tardy sensei, spit insults about the man that obviously seemed to enjoy wasting their time as the 0700 came and went, minutes stretching into an hour. But the memory of a disappointed dark eye and a serious voice force the blonde to hold her typically acerbical tongue.

Eventually the jinchuuriki leaned against a tree and slid down to the ground, dragging a knee up to her chest and yawning with boredum. Sasuke joined the other two in crouching to the ground, setting elbows on knees and threading his fingers together.

Floating down from the trees about came a lazy mumble "Well you're doing better than you were yesterday... by a fraction." Kakashi lay stretched out on a tree limb, grinning like a satisfied cat when the three genin jumped in shock and stared up at the jounin.

Crooking two fingers at the trio, Kakashi smirked. "Yo."

"You're late." Sakura and Naruko mumbled in unison without at real heat, still subdued from the beating they'd received the day before. The two girls stiffened and spared each other a silent annoyed glance, but kept their lips firmly shut.

Kakashi slinked to the ground in a lithe motion, dusting off his flak jacket before jerking his chin to the north. "Come along little ducklings."

All three leapt to their feet, Naruko and Sasuke shoving their hands in their pockets and Sakura threading her fingers together as they filed along after their sensei.

Traipsing along a vibrantly red bridge stretching out over a winding stream, Kakashi led Team Seven into the waking streets of Konoha. Several villagers gave nods of recognition to the jounin, knowing Kakashi by his legendary reputation. Others passed unseeing eyes over the group as they blinked bleary eyes and shuffled along to their jobs.

And some gave Naruko such open looks of malevolence that Sakura couldn't help but take notice and begin to catalog her surroundings. Green eyes narrowed in thought as citizen after citizen stiffened at the sight of her blonde teammate and either glared, assumed carefully blank looks, or turned away with an expression of pain.

Staring at Naruko's bright orange back, Sakura chewed a considering lip. Several years back the kind of looks the blonde was garnering would be more than expected, considering how much of a little hell-raiser Naruko had once been. Painting buildings in the night, throwing eggs at people – varied pranks of both good and malicious nature. But the pranks had quickly stopped after the blonde turned eight, throwing herself into her schoolwork and stealing Sakura's place as top of the class.

Shrugging, Sakura rose her face to look at the back of Kakashi's gray head. Ultimately it wasn't her business and she didn't care whether people liked or disliked the Uzumaki. Even if Sakura thought it seemed a little odd for people to hold grudges for so long.

Sasuke clenched his fists, seething but quietly obedient. The threat of being stripped of his shinobi status hung over his head like a murderous blade, handled by a deceptively cheery grey-haired jounin. Hunting Itachi was something Sasuke would never give up on, official shinobi or not.

But it would be a great deal easier to amass the strength to kill his brother if Sasuke had someone to teach him. So the Uchiha would swallow the urge to walk away from the infuriating older man and bow down for the strength Kakashi could give him.

Kakashi led them through the Northern gates with a silent nod to the two chuunin on watch duty, prompting Sasuke to raise a curious brow. The genin the Uchiha had pulled information out of on his morning rounds all agreed that they would start off with D-Rank missions – mending fences, milking cows, walking dogs, and other assorted _worthless_ drudgery.

So why was the their instructor leading them into the countryside?

Veering off the highway and onto a partially overgrown beaten path, Naruko craned her head about to drink in the surroundings. Trees slowly began to press in on both sides of the pathway, vegetation and humidity thickening the further they trampled over the sparse grass.

Unable to suppress the grin of excitement, Naruko threw her hands up and rested her head in their crossed cradle. Despite the worry of what their odd sensei had in store, the blonde still reveled in the realization that she was finally out of Konoha and exploring the world. Not very far in the grand scheme, but it was the first time out of the village's walls and no creepy old jounin could sour that for her.

The free wind weaving through the branches, untainted by the stink of the city. Rustlings of birds and other small critters in the underbrush. The tickling of unhewn grass against the tips of her toes peeking out of her zori. Creeping wild vines wrapping around the trunks of great oaks. All of it freedom and new life.

Except the gleaming well-cared for iron mesh fence that appeared before Naruko's eyes when Kakashi led them around a bend in the pathway. Twelve padlocks kept a great tangle of chains, engraved with bloody red seals that pulsed faintly with palpable chakra.

Halting before the towering gates, Kakashi drew out a great heavy ring of keys from his belt and fiddled with it to find the first of many keys. Unlocking the padlocks in a seemingly random but very specific order that wouldn't trigger Konoha's alarm system and bring a troop of ANBU down on their heads, the jounin yanked the great length of chain from the fence and tossed them carelessly into the loam.

Kakashi pulled on the great gate, inwardly amused at how easy such a giant construct was to open. Every single time it seemed like it was inviting those unwary to partake of its depths. An invisible barrier stretched and snapped, releasing the true scent of the trees onto the group.

_Rot. Death. Misery. Pain._

Sakura retched at the foul wind, plugging her nose and taking a few desperate gasps before giving in and releasing her nostrils. Glaring at the cheerful jounin as he clapped gleeful hands and turned to face them, Sakura chewed the inside of her cheek in annoyance. "A little more warning next time?"

"You'll get warnings when you earn them Sakura-chan." Kakashi smirked, clearly conveying that they haven't. "Since the three of you managed to _spectacularly_ fail the survival exercise yesterday, I've decided it's time for some remedial training."

Bowing at the waist, the jounin swept a dramatic hand out to the leering forest through the gates. "So for the next month welcome to your new home. The Forest of Death."

"The Forest of _Death_!" Naruko squawked at the same time Sakura stuttered "F-for the next _month_!"

"Hn." the Uchiha grunted, giving Kakashi a sour look.

Incredulously Naruko peered at the suddenly forbidding trees and the wind that seemed less innocent and more violent. "Why couldn't it be the Forest of Happiness? Or Ramen! Or maybe even just the Forest of Not-Being-A-Cold-Hard-Rotting-Corpse?"

Squealing when Sasuke went flying overhead through the gates in a tangle of limbs, Sakura barely had time to blanch when a hand seized the back of her collar and tossed her into the deadly woods. Naruko followed with an enraged scream a second later, leaving three genin to pop up out of the bushes and glare and two grinning Kakashi's at they shut the gates.

Kakashi relocked all twelve padlocks with a gesture. An audible hum rose into the air as the chakra barriers re-engaged, and the jounin walked off into the distance whistling.

"Shit." Naruko muttered, patting herself down to check that at least she hadn't lost any of her equipment.

Sasuke sent the pair of girls an annoyed glance and stomped off into the trees, obviously still sulking about being treated like a sack of trash.

Blinking after the boy, Sakura folded her arms and sneered at Naruko before taking off in the opposite direction.

Settling her chin in the palm of her hand, Naruko sighed. "Double shit."

A faint hiss breathed over her ear, and Naruko whipped about to pin an overhanging purple snake with a blue eyed glare. Further hissing drew her attention to an entire horde of the reptiles slithering towards her through the bushes.

"Triple shit!" the blonde screamed out as she took off into the trees.

* * *

Cradling his pale white jaw in a languid hand as he lounged against the Hokage's desk, Orochimaru flickered amused gold eyes to his sensei before smirking at the White Fang's son.

"What a delightful surprise Kakashi-kun." the snake purred, raising a dark eyebrow. "There hasn't been a team signed up for our trial in thirty years. I wonder what ever will _become_ of them." Grin widening at the stiffening of the jounin's spine, Orochimaru sauntered across to the window.

Thirty years because of the four teams to take up Hiruzen's desperate concoction to fix his dysfunctional genin team, one became the Sannin and the other three snapped under the pressure and went homicidal later in their careers.

"These things will garner you quite a reputation." the Commander of Konoha's ANBU and Head of the village's Science Bureau pointed out as he stared out over Konoha.

Hiruzen poured the last of the ash from his pipe into the trash bin and stared at the Yondaime's student over his hands. "Are you sure this really was warranted?" the Hokage fretted, thinking of his successor's daughter and the undeserving harsh hand she'd been dealt in life.

"Yes Hokage-sama." Kakashi answered immediately, folding arms behind his back and standing at attention. "As I said, there's no team cohesion. I reviewed their files before I made my request. Naruko and Sakura have been at odds for years, and it doesn't take more than an offhand comment to set them at each other's throats. Sasuke doesn't care about anyone or anything besides killing his brother. If it were any other team..." he trailed off regretfully.

"If it were any other team." Orochimaru agreed, crossing his arms over his flak vest and narrowing his slitted gaze at the Hokage mountain. "You know as well as I do, Hiruzen, that Danzo has been salivating for years for a chance to get his hands on Naruko-chan. Your teammates aren't much better than him. If we were taking our time with her as we'd desire they'd be arranging something around us."

Frowning with regret, the Sandaime suppressed the urge to light up his pipe again and rubbed a wrinkled cheek. "Homura and Koharu have the best interests of the village at heart. Even Danzo does." Ignoring Orochimaru's scoff, Hiruzen gave in to his craving and lit his pipe again. "But they're so _misguided_. How did I let them get so hard when I wasn't looking?"

After a moment's pause, during which Kakashi shifted uncomfortably, Orochimaru sighed. "It's not those three that got hard sensei, it was you that got soft. When we were children you pushed us harder and faster than I've seen anyone here do in years. Minato-kun's reputation bought us more peace and stability than we've had in generations, and you were glad for a Konoha that didn't need children to kill anymore."

"Maybe if your sensei still lived we wouldn't have a Konoha that returned to those bloody days." the snake sennin concluded with a nod at Kakashi. The jounin looked confused, but Hiruzen's eyes tightened at an unspoken name that floated between them.

_Itachi._

Coughing loud and wet, the Sandaime shook his head before turning back to Kakashi. "I assume that you'll be assigning them the customary three days reprieve?"

"Yes, Hokage-sama."

Winking with morbid humour, the Hokage dismissed the jounin with a last command of "No maiming, Kakashi."

"Not physically, Hokage-sama."

Orochimaru snorted.

* * *

Breathing in the chill night air, Sasuke cast a dark glance up at the thick canopy and strained his eyes to perceive more than mere vague shapes in the gloom. With the leaves of giant trees blocking out the starlight and only faint streams of moonlight managing to power through, the Forest of Death pressed in on all sides in the dark.

Faint trickles of paranoia stirred in the Uchiha's muscles that he ruthlessly stilled through force of will. Despite being a shinobi trained from the cradle to kill with his bare hands, Sasuke was still a human with all the primal instincts and fears of his distant ancestors.

Including the burning bile that whispered _fear_ and _prey_ in the night at the back of his throat.

Palming a black kunai with a sweaty palm, Sasuke crouched low over the hanging limb he had managed to scramble up to before light perished and peered down. There was a distant impression of solidity that the Uchiha assumed was the ground (and hoped wasn't merely an unfathomable dark) with the ripple of motion.

Either his eyes played anxious tricks or there was some beast prowling around the base of his tree in the night. Sasuke wasn't sure which he preferred.

Oh to have a Sharingan! Red eyes that conferred the sight and strength of his birthright. Gritting his teeth, the Uchiha seethed over the thought of failing to achieve his clan's doujutsu when _He_ had activated and mastered his at an early age.

Pinning the writhing motion with a venomous glare, Sasuke sent a frustrated kunai knifing through the dark in a futile attempt to burn away some of the fury that always clouded his heart.

A shriek bubbled back up to him, an unholy and torturous that trailed off with a burble. Sasuke paled, wrapping legs tighter around the branch and clenching shuriken in two white-knuckled fists.

Sleep was impossible, and by the time dawn finally broke through the thick foliage Sasuke had managed to slay two more of the creature's comrades with flung projectiles. The faint light illuminated the forms of great wolves. The first one torn apart by its fellows in a grisly display of cannibalism.

His eyes ached.

* * *

Being alone was an old experience, marked in with day after day as a little girl staring at her walls with no friends and no precious people to be with. Even after Jiraiya had scooped her from the streets and found her a new home, Naruko only had four white walls for company on most days.

Sometimes she would read scrolls the Hokage gifted her, or sometimes she would find a place to train thin arms and a childish body into the shape the life of a kunoichi demanded. Naruko's favourite thing to do however, was wander the village or simply sit on her balcony and take in the world.

Padding the streets of Konoha with a bright fake grin and pretending that the cold eyes didn't bother her – that people stared at her with admiration. Or she would dream that Naruko wasn't the blonde jinchuuriki brat, but rather a loved daughter with kind parents waiting at home. Sometimes she would pretend to be someone else – henge into the form of a random village child and bitterly drink in the kindness strangers offered her once Naruko was wearing someone else's face.

Naruko decided that the aching solitude of the wild was different. Within Konoha and even at her most isolated, the blonde had still been keenly aware of the people that surrounded her. The citizens of the Hidden Village ignored her and turned their backs on the jinchuuriki, but the villagers were still _there_. Filling up the hungry silence with their own movements and conversations, a low hum that hung on the edge of hearing and reassured Naruko that she was never truly alone.

The Forest of Death was appropriately named – for the death that swelled in it. There was no birdsong, no wind in the willows, no distant voices of human beings. Just the silence of the dead.

Staring down at a stagnant forest pool, Naruko bent low and peered into the grimy water to take in her reflection. Whisker slashs marked her cheeks, tracing under high cheekbones and over tan skin like black paint. Her eyes were visibly only as hollow caverns in the distorted sockets of her skull, leering back out of the pond scum with a macabre grin.

Naruko shuddered and stepped away. Hunger and thirst were constant companions in the trees, two days passed with only the barest intake. Water was gleaned from the dewy canopy shortly after dawn when the sun had yet to burn off the faint traces of moisture. Naruko didn't trust the water she had encountered – it stunk of disease.

The edge of hunger was dulled by the few berries Naruko could find in the bushes. Furtively glancing about the foreboding woods for the lightning movements of snakes in the underbrush. The blonde had vomited twice when she attempted to find edible mushrooms.

Shaking her head, Naruko pulled out of her musings and tugged open her orange jacket. The forest was overly humid and after spending a day covered in sweat, the blonde had decided that baring her mesh undershirt to the world was a fair trade off to cool down.

Naruko shoved her finger into her pouch and hooked it around the loop of a kunai, bringing the dark blade out to spin around her digit as she whistled and wandered through the trees. Not having a map or some form of direction was more than annoying. But what could she do besides survive the rest of the month wandering aimlessly?

Merely surviving wasn't _that_ hard.

* * *

Wrinkling her nose at the faint smell of her own sweat and body odour, Sakura stripped off her clothes and dunked into the river. Smiling at the cool, clear water rushing past, the pink-haired girl dunked her hair under the surface and let the tangled mess of hair soak through.

Four days in the miserable forest, surviving by following the river. There was more than enough clean water for Sakura to drink, and she had yet to encounter anything larger than a few scampering rabbits. Food was harder for the girl to come by, but her propensity for reading ahead ensured she knew more than enough about which plants were edible to have a hearty if vegetarian diet.

Wading up to where the water just touched her waist, Sakura sent a suspicious glance around her. Satisfied there were no underwater critters liable to swim up and bite her, she scooped a handful of sand from the river bottom and began to scrub vigorously. There was no soap or shampoo to use, but Sakura absolutely refused to allow herself to stink. Even on a survival trip into the woods.

Which was an odd enough thought. Survival wasn't that hard despite the forbidding name of the woods being called 'The Forest of Death'. Sakura laughed at the absurd tendency for dramatics whomever named the woods had. The trees were overgrown and abnormally thick, and if Sakura wandered deep into the woods the dark canopy blocked out enough light to be intimidating in the night. But she'd hardly encountered any creature that truly justified such a title for the woods.

Little did the girl understand that the Forest's true danger lay not in its natural fauna, but in the _human_ predators that could be found within.

A hand settled over pink locks, and Sakura shrieked and dove forward. Whirling about, Sakura pinned Kakashi with a poisonous glare and ducked down into the water to hide her nakedness.

"Pervert sensei!"

Kakashi merely stared blankly at the girl as she shrieked obscenities and shuffled further downstream away from him. Shuttering his eye closed, Kakashi drew in a slow breath and began to follow. Waterlogged clothes dragged around him, and his hands were wet when he settled a cold gaze on his student.

Swallowing nervously, Sakura shuddered in fear at the change in demeanor the jounin displayed. Kakashi always came across as jovial and teasing, or at the worst disappointed and serious. Not empty as the man looked reaching out for her now.

Frozen in an agony of indecision, Sakura's stilted thoughts couldn't settle on fighting or fleeing into the trees when and gloved hand settled around her throat. She had a single second of panic with the concern of – _Oh Kami what if he's going to_ touch _me_\- and then she was under the water.

Sakura blinked almost dumbly at being submerged, squinting green eyes up at the surface and taking in the water-distorted image of her sensei. Sluggish thoughts connected, and Sakura screamed. Bubbles burst forth from her lips as she struggled, digging her nails into the indomitable hand wrapped around her neck.

Burning rose in Sakura's lungs as she struggled, writhing about in a frenzy of desperate punches and kicks that only struck at the iron muscles beneath Kakashi's clothes. Dark tendrils began to crawl into the corners of her vision and Sakura ruminated bitterly that she'd die naked and drowned by a man she trusted.

Then air was rushing past her face, and Sakura gasped greedily. The pounding in her ears subsided as Kakashi held her aloft and permitted the kunoichi to suck in precious oxygen. Once satisfied she wasn't going to pass out from lack air, the jounin shoved the girl's head back under the water and waited for her struggles to weaken.

Again the strength passed out of Sakura's body, and Kakashi yanked her from the cool river depths and flung her to the shore. Laying limply and huffing desperately, Sakura made no effort to move until Kakashi slammed a kunai into the dirt next to her head.

Eyes wide at the dark blade shoved into the ground hilt deep, Sakura rolled away from him and crouched. Pure primal fear was written in her face as she silently accused him with her green gaze.

Tense seconds ticked by until Sakura managed to calm her mind long enough to remember her nakedness and cover prepubescent breasts and genitalia with her hands. Flushing red, the kunoichi began to edge towards her rumpled clothes while keeping a wary eye on the silent adult.

"What are you doing?" Kakashi asked her coldly as she reached a shaking hand out for her red dress. Clenching a brace of kunai between his fingers, the jounin twitched them in silent warning. "I am here to kill you, and your first concern isn't to kill me first but to get your clothes on?"

Halting with an outstretched arm, Sakura blinked away tears and glared at the man. No words were exchanged, but in that moment Sakura found the nerve to disobey the jounin's implicit warnings. She shot forward, reaching to sweep up her clothes.

Shuriken hammered into the red dress, nailing it to the ground seconds before Sakura tore it up. Great rips rent along the fabric as the pink haired girl clutched the bundle to her chest and took off into the wilderness.

Kakashi watched her go, humming all the while before turning off into the forest in search of his other students.

Leaves flashed by as Sakura fled naked through the trees, branches tearing scratches along her pale skin and pulling at her hair. Sobbing out "He's a lunatic!" Sakura pushed herself until her lungs were burning and her legs wobbling like jelly, forcing her to stop in an unfamiliar copse of trees.

Casting a cautious look about her, Sakura shimmied into her undergarments and pulled on her dark spats. She held out her cheongsam mournfully, eying the tears in the dress with sad eyes as she resigned her favourite dress to the trash bin.

As soon as she managed to escape the insane forest.

The first three days had been so deceptively easy that Sakura was convinced it wouldn't be any real hardship to survive the month alone in it. Even if she was _lonely_ there. But it was obvious their sadistic sensei would hunt them all.

Sakura needed to get _out_.

Frowning at the gloomy woods around her, the girl picked a random direction and set off with a kunai in a tight fist.

* * *

Naruko panted, a low ragged sound as she struggled to regain her wind. Sweat poured down her back and into her eyes, soaking the tattered remains of her iconic orange jumpsuit and mixing with the muck to produce a truly foul odor.

Peering back through the quiet forest, the blonde frowned "Did I lose him?" Shaking her head, Naruko rubbed a knuckle against the already healing shallow gash over her eyebrow. "Not a fucking chance."

The ninth day had dawned with a kick in the ribs, shattering her fitful sleep as her sadistic sensei booted her from a crevice between two branches. Faint dark rings shadowed under Naruko's eyes, giving tell to the hectic cat and mouse game she played with her jounin-sensei. Even the Kyuubi's influence couldn't fully stave off the creeping exhaustion.

Deciding not to test luck, the blonde formed a hand seal and transformed into a small red fox and shuffled off into the undergrowth. Naruko's bastard of a sensei was unlikely to be far behind, and she didn't have time to waste if she ever intended to escape Kakashi's _tender mercies_.

Naruko pressed her nose to the ground, inhaling and detecting with no small relief no scent but that of the forest. Through the days the blonde had come across faint trails of her two teammates, and traps from Kakashi almost inevitably followed.

Pushing through the bushes, Naruko cocked a sharp ear at the sound of rushing water and cautiously meandered toward it. The blonde had nothing to drink in hours, and after sweating and working to run from the crazy jounin Naruko could use a drink.

Wuffing irritably, the vixen broke into a trot as the land began to slope down towards The River. Naruko capitalized it in her mind because in all her wanderings of the damned forest she'd only ever found one place where constant fresh water and fish could be found.

There was a tower to the rough center of the fenced in hell, but the one time Naruko had ventured towards it in an effort to find shelter and food Kakashi-teme had instantly appeared and kicked her ass.

Breaking into a run as she stepped out into the blank stretches of field alongside the river, Naruko drove towards the river and jumped in. The blonde gulped down as much water as her empty stomach could hold with an expression of bliss that was odd on the face of a fox. The blonde gave herself a few short minutes to luxuriate in the feeling of water washing some of the grime from her fur before she pulled ashore with a huff.

One day she would murder Kakashi in his bed. And burn his orange books.

Naruko padded along towards the trees, confident that since her self-appointed tormentor hadn't shown up in a long while she may have been lucky enough to lose the bastard. As she reached the greenery, Naruko curled under a bush and released her transformation. Chakra machine the Kyuubi may be, but it was exhausting as hell to have to maintain a Henge for so long.

Settling a blue glare on the tree line across the narrow valley, the blonde drew her knees up her chest and worried her lip. What an asshole her sensei was, chasing her around the damn woods and never leting her stop to sleep or eat much of anything. A slow blink.

Hebi-jiji had laughed at her when she told him all about what kind of missions she'd go on as a kunoichi. At the time Naruko had thought the bastard was making fun of her, but maybe his smirks and remarks were his way of passing information along?

Another blink.

_'You're such an innocent little thing Naruko-chan. How little you know of the world.'_

Naruko drifted off, tense muscles relaxing into restful sleep for the first time in days. The wind brushed gently over the valley, ruffling the leaves of the bush concealing Konoha's jinchuuriki as she dreamt of a ramen feast. Drool trailed out of the side of the girl's lips as she savoured imaginary sustenance and submerged in better days.

Pain.

Burning pain lancing through her right shoulder, dragging Naruko awake in a strangled shriek of terror. Cerulean eyes flashed ruby as the blonde snapped her head about, going pale with pain and fear at the scaled crocodile sinking fangs into the meat of her shoulder.

"Let go!" she shouted reflexively, lashing out with her unhindered fist at the repilian predator. Naruko punched and scratched in a desperate frenzy, blinking tears of agony away as the blond struggled to force the creature to release her.

It merely growled in the base of its throat and clenched its jaws harder. Fangs sliced through fatty tissue and into muscle, cracking bone under the pressure of the crocodile's jaw. Screaming with the pain, Naruko grappled for something – anything - to beat the lizard with, scrabbling hands in the dirt and throwing any small pebble or stick at the animal.

Reduced to a primal frenzy, Naruko never even hesitated when the familiar feel of steel was nudged into her reaching palm. Slicing through the air soundlessly, Naruko drove the point of a kunai into the cold-blooded beast's scales.

The crocodile went wild, bringing stubby clawed paws up to scratch at its poorly chosen prey's face.

Ignoring the hot seep of blood from the gashes rent into her cheeks, Naruko struck again and again. The blonde tore the blade through the flesh of her enemy, renting it with stabs and maddened sawing motions.

Eventually the struggles of the crocodile grew weaker as the loss of its cold blood and the grievious injuries took their toll. Deadly jaws released their hold on Naruko's broken and torn shoulder, giving the Kyuubi's chakra ample space to begin healing.

Naruko continued to tear into the animal like a creature possessed, until a twig cracked underfoot. Leaping to her feet with an uncivilized roar, blue eyes in a red face spun to pin a sheepish looking jounin with murderous intent.

Growling out "Stay away!" without any apparent recognition, Naruko made a quick abortive motion to throw her kunai before thinking better of discarding her weapon. The girl pressed a hand to her throbbing wound, adrenaline still riding high as she shuffled off into the deeper gloom of the forest.

Kakashi stared after her, reaching up to scratch the back of his head as he contained a wince. "Probably not the best idea."

Arranging for Naruko to be woken up by a suitably intimidating predator had been as easy matter, and when it seemed like the girl might truly be in danger the Hatake had shoved a kunai into her hand and ensured she'd live to fight another day.

But there was something profoundly disturbing about the sight of Minato-sensei's daughter looking through him without any understanding besides that of _threat_. Wild blue eyes above blood-soaking cheeks and a fanged snarl.

Perhaps a little more delicacy when handling the jinchuuriki would be better?

* * *

Sasuke's fingers shook, a cringing beat of exhaustion as he dragged himself through the canopy. Each step measured, each swing branch to branch carefully chosen for soundless movement as the twelfth night crowned with a half moon. Bloodshot dark eyes scanned through the night, tracking from pale shafts of light and into the concealing dark.

Nothing.

At least yet.

Hatake was a damn machine. A constant predator that unerringly followed him through the days and haunted his nights. It was as if the jounin never tired, conditioned to hunt the flesh of men without surrender like some fairytail creature of nightmare.

Gritting his teeth at the gap between their skills – the stinging knowledge that the jounin was so far above the training Sasuke had so eagerly amassed, Sasuke settled a cautious hand over the tree's trunk. If Hatake managed to press him down with such ease, what unimaginable gulfs of power existed between Itachi and Sasuke?

_There is no value in killing the likes of you._

Copper stung his tongue as Sasuke bit a lip to contain the need to scream.

Crouching against the trunk, Sasuke drug around in his emptied kunai pouch and pulled out a handful of dark roots to shove in his mouth. They were tough and tasteless, but they were one of the few plants he recognized in the cursed place and had nutritional value. "Fuck." the boy growled as he choked down a mouthful of the dry roots.

"Swearing is impolite Sasuke-chan." Kakashi chided as he leapt from the shadows to thrust a fist at the genin's face. "Perhaps I should wash your mouth out?"

Sasuke went limp, dropping underneath his sensei's swinging punch and sliding bonelessly to the dark forest floor. Bringing his hands into seals, the Uchiha hit the loam and forced his dry well of chakra to spit out _just a little more_.

Fire lit the night, blinding and white as Sasuke coughed out a small ball of flame and took off with the hope Kakashi was sufficiently blinded or distracted.

The jounin wasn't, and let Sasuke know with a brace of warning shuriken that tore into the Uchiha's legs. Blood sprayed from the shallow tears in his legs, and Sasuke grunted with the pain before leaping to the side.

Rolling along the ground, the Uchiha pulled to his feet and tossed his last brace of shuriken in the face of the approaching jounin.

Kakashi reached out and hooked a languid finger through one before wheeling to about to deflect the others in a bright shower of sparks.

Scowling with annoyance, the Uchiha pushed forward and swung down an axe kick that the jounin caught. Sasuke automatically pulled his other leg about to drive his heel into Kakashi's shoulder and smirked when he felt it connect.

Only to snarl when the Hatake shrugged the blow off and siezed his other foot.

Whirling the genin about, Kakashi tossed the boy into a tree and watched passively as Sasuke collided painfully with the bark. The jounin stepped forward as the Uchiha struggled back to his feet, pushing up his hitae-ate and catching Sasuke with a red gaze.

_Sharingan!_ Sasuke realized with shock as he caught sight of the red eye with three tomoe. There was no time to wonder where exactly Kakashi had stolen the dojutsu after the man gave him a tremendous back hand.

Pain flared in his cheek as Sasuke stumbled away, keeping a furious stare on his family's implanted kekkai genkai. "Where?" was what he managed to pant out before Kakashi planted a heel in his chest and kicked him off his feet.

Digging his nails into the dirt, Sasuke shoved back to his knees with an expression of pure rage and consuming hatred. Was this all his efforts managed to amount to? A toy to be kicked around at the leisure of some lazy perverted jounin?

"Fuck!" Sasuke cursed again, dredging up chakra and spitting fire in Kakashi's face.

Kakashi burst into smoke, replacing himself with a log that promptly charred in the heat of the Uchiha's technique. Shaking his head at the boy, the jounin drew out a kunai and dashing in from the corner of Sasuke's vision.

Then drove it into his throat.

Sasuke blinked, failing to comprehend to sharp pain in his neck. His eyes ached as he trailed an incredulous gaze up to the impassive jounin that had shoved the dark steel into his trachea. Pale lips struggled to form syllables as Sasuke attempted to question it. The choice to murder.

_Why?_

_Why nii-san!? Why?_

Bitterness rose in him. A slow song of despair and grief as Sasuke gurgled on his own crimson blood. Warm and cloying as it slid into his lungs and drowned him. Tears sparked in the corner of his vision as Sasuke felt death rising up to claim him. Was this all he'd ever amount to? Just another forgotten runt of the Uchiha clan, left behind by his stronger brother to wallow in mediocrity and then perish?

_His eyes burned.  
_

No! Vengeance was cold and unforgiving. Itachi called behind the horizon – a singular discordant note that mingled rage and grief. Every moment was dedicated to that destruction. Endless days of solitude marked by the thrum of muscles that pushed beyond their limits. Sasuke refused to die here, raging against the failing light in his vision!

_I won't say "good night"!_

Sasuke's eyes _opened_, a tide of black and crimson that glowed in the dark and spun. A single tomoe swirling over hateful red irises that pinned Kakashi with a look speaking of the unquenchable fire within.

The genjutsu popped like a dirty soap bubble, peeling away as the world righted itself and Sasuke found himself with his back pressed to a tree. The first tree he'd been thrown into, the first time he'd beheld his sensei's legendary weapon.

Another Sharingan eye blinked in surprise, curving up in a mixture of annoyance and pleasure. "Aa." Kakashi vocalized, moving forward in a blur towards his student.

Sasuke caught the dash, marveling in his new ability to finally perceive the jounin's stride and begin to move against it.

But Sharingan eyes or no, he was still a genin, and the only difference was that he could actually see it when Kakashi hammered a fist into his temple and sent him spiralling into unconciousness.

* * *

(AN) I think I'll stop this chapter here. I originally planned to cover the entire time in the Forest in one chapter, but I think it'll be better to split it in two since otherwise it would probably crown past 10,000 words. As it is, this stopped around 6500.

Before anyone asks – yes, this was directly inspired by **Team Seven's Ascension**. The first thing that Kakashi does is throw the three into the Forest and force them to learn to work together, which really inspired me here because I recognized that realistically there was no other way to quickly force three kids that dislike each other to work together other than the threat of death/torture.

Don't worry too much about originality though, since while this is inspired by that particular work, it's not like I intend to borrow everything from it – this is probably the last thing (but even as you see, it's not even the same forest experience). I'd say that as I'm conceiving it now there will be no other shared elements (unless for some reason he posts an update that shares qualities with what I currently have planned).

Don't cry about Sasuke's Sharingan activation. As I said – these kids are stronger than their canon counterparts at this point and I intend to keep pushing them along with all sorts of fun pain and other kinds of motives.

For the curious – I am dividing the Sharingan's abilities in the fic on a matter of three levels (obviously not counting Mangekyou). I thought about outlaying it here, but that's pointless when I'll have Kakashi or Sasuke explain it in the fic anyway in a chapter or two. The only thing I'll say that at Sasuke's level (one tomoe in each eye) there is no ability to copy anything, just predict some movement. So keep your panties on.

Questions:

1 – Trial of Hiruzen. As you can see, it's basically the sensei forcing the Team under extreme stress conditions to work together. Originally invented by Sarutobi because the Sannin couldn't get their shit together. It's very rare because it's such a harsh method of teaching (i.e Kakashi drowning Sakura, arranging Naruko's injury, "killing" Sasuke) that has a high probability of creating dependence between the three and thus mental issues later on.

2 – Pairing. This is SasukexNarukoxSakura. Or basicially SasukexNaruko, SasukexSakura, and NarukoxSakura. I have the poll up so I can gauge opinion, and if I see a massive movement against the trio pairing I might take Sakura out of it.

3 – Dems Kiddies, no sex right? Indeed. Obviously at this point they're only 13 (Sakura), and 12 (the other two). But they're going to be teenagers soon so I'd probably predict sex when they hit fourteen – or at least exploration. I don't write rape either. It's obviously a possibility in the world that might be referenced to other people, but I don't rape my characters because I hate rape as drama.

4 – Strong Kakashi. Yes, I want a _strong_ Kakashi. I want to write the Copy-Nin that conquered a thousand jutsu. The Yondaime's student. Six year old chuunin. I always found it absurd how in the series he's this legendary shinobi but somehow gets his shit kicked in by pretty much any shinobi of note. So he's A-rank here, borderline S-rank. Rather than a lazy bum that Zabuza can exhaust and capture in fifteen minutes.

5 – Naruko vs. Naruto. My original aversion to Naruko as a name stemmed from my assumption that it was just a fanon retarded alteration of Naruto's name and was just butchering the language. Like renaming a character name Tom to Tomrisa to make it "feminine". I'm no japanese linguist, but after learning it's actually about as much of a name as Naruto and means "Roaring Light" I don't see why I shouldn't adopt it.


	4. The Formation of Team Seven

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Naruto or make any profit from writing fanfiction about it. I just play in this playground.

(AN): Starting this the day after posting Ch:3. Finishing it half a year later. So efficient.

* * *

"_When we are in partnership and have stopped clutching each other's throats, when we have stopped enslaving each other, we will stand together, hands clasped, and be friends. we will be comrades, we will be siblings, and we will begin the march to the grandest civilization the human race has ever known." _

* * *

Black receded, giving way to a throb between his ears and a foul taste in his mouth. Sasuke groaned, cracking open his lids to stare blearily at a distant wall of green. Birdsong tweeted merrily, and the Uchiha cursed at the noise.

Twitching numb fingers, Sasuke attempted to reach up and rub his gritty eyes.

Attempted being the operative word.

Swearing again at a tight squeeze all along his body, Sasuke glared down at the thick swirl of rope surrounding him and binding him to an overhanging tree branch.

Craning his head as far as his tightly bound position permitted, the Uchiha stared at the horizontal horizon in confusion.

Then he turned an incredulous look to the distant green forest _floor_ and emptied his stomach of its meager contents.

Spitting the last dregs of bile from dry lips, Sasuke shimmied his bound limbs in an effort to test the freedom he was allocated.

It wasn't an overly tight fit, which meant his bastard of a jounin sensei intended for Sasuke to wriggle free sooner or later. The Uchiha moodily considered remaining still as a matter of spite, but quickly dismissed the half-hearted suggestion and began to shift.

His entire form save the head was covered in swirls of rope like a demented caterpillar. Squeezing free was a process that consumed Sasuke's time and patience, and more than once the Uchiha shouted curses about the jounin responsible for the mess he was in.

"Half breed spawn of a whore and a goat!"

Finally Sasuke managed to squeeze forward enough to hang half in and half out of the woven cocoon. Blood rushed to the Uchiha's head as he rolled about to face the sky.

Sparing his surroundings a cautious glance for the eventual return of the sadistic Hatake, Sasuke reached up and pulled free.

His clothes were damp with sweat, mud, and the faint traces of blood. Wrinkling a nose at the stench building from his filthy attire, Sasuke swung his hips about before reaching for another branch to try and swing along the canopy.

Weakened by lack of movement and circulation however, Sasuke's numb fingers misjudged their grasp and let the Uchiha drop to the ground.

Crashing to the earth with a gasp, Sasuke stared up at the sky and drew slow careful breathes into his lungs and waited for his heart to pump oxygen rich blood through his veins.

Pins and needles stabbed over him hotly, and Sasuke grimaced as he reached up to massage a blue-clad shoulder.

"Asshole." he cursed faintly, sitting up and scanning the surrounding foliage again. If there was one thing he'd learned from the sadistic prick, it was that one could never be too careful about their environment.

A pale hand came up to rub across his throat in memory of the genjutsu. Even if it had been fake, and even if Sasuke had struggled free, the illusion left a mark.

Such was the fragility of his life – able to be totally undone and destroyed in a distracted second. Undoubtedly the harsh genjutsu would have driven him into unconsciousness if not for his eyes.

Black swirled tiredly into red, glittering lit bloody rubies as Sasuke threw back his head and laughed. _Sharingan_ at last! Tearing the hitae-ate from his forehead, Sasuke held the dull metal up to the light and polished it with his thumbs and spit until he could perceive the distorted image of blazing crimson eyes with a single curved dark tomoe in each.

Still weak and underdeveloped. Just a fraction of the strength Sasuke's clan and blood possessed. But it was the _beginning_. The first true step in closing the bloody ocean stretching between Itachi and Sasuke.

"Itachi." the Uchiha breathed as he marveled over his changed eyes for another long moment before stuffing the hitae-ate in a pocket and tracking his enhanced vision back across the environment.

Shafts of light from the mid-afternoon sun slanted down through the forest surrounding him. Motes of dust floated in the illuminating light as Sasuke panned his gaze. Trees in all directions, the Uchiha decided with a frustrated sigh. The raven had no idea how much time he'd lost after being beaten down by Kakashi, but it was at _least_ half a day. If not more, Sasuke decided with a shiver. Being out for too long after a hit to the head could mean brain damage.

The Uchiha had no idea it had been two and a half days, with a vaguely worried Kakashi that had come back to force broth down his unresponsive throat. And that his sensei had pressed green wreathed fingers to his temples to calm down the faint cranial swelling that resulted from the hit to his skull, along with days of malnutrition, and the stress of a new Sharingan activation on the Uchiha's nervous system.

The faintest suggestion of a shimmer glimmered on the edge of his vision, and Sasuke dove for cover beneath a thickly growing fern. His pulse raced in his ears as Sasuke held his breath and strained to hear anything in the trees. Utter silence beyond birdsong, wind over leaves, and the faint bubble of water on the edge of his hearing.

Was the glimmer just light off the top of the river? Sasuke hoped desperately it was something so innocent and not the reflection of his sadistic sensei's hitae-ate. There was nothing to be done for it but to go and see.

His head ached faintly with remembered pain, and the last thing the Uchiha wanted at that moment was to encounter Hatake. Nothing risked and nothing gained however, and Sasuke had absolutely no doubt that if it truly was Kakashi that the jounin would come hunt him down if he snuck away.

Better to go and see. If it was just the river, he could get some water for his thirsting throat and wash away the taste of vomit. If it was Kakashi, he might as well get his daily beating over with.

Pressing ahead cautiously with crimson eyes bright and alert, Sasuke crawled through the underbrush.

* * *

It started with the sound of a snapped twig in her ear as Naruko crouched in the bushes with wide, tired blue eyes. Instantly alert with a rush of adrenaline as her heart lurched into frantic motion, Naruko drew her last kunai from her pouch and held her breath.

No more twigs broke. There was no rustle of clothes or faint jingle of metal on metal. It was practically ghost in the woods, and Naruko bit her lip until she tasted blood. The blond had seen Kakashi flashing in the woods across the river, probably chasing one of her 'teammates'.

And now the jounin sensei was there for her.

Shrinking in on herself, Naruko drew the filthy dark orange scraps of her once vibrant jacket closer. Another twig snapped, agonizingly close. _Just on the other side of the tree!_ Naruko held her breath. Clenching the handle of the kunai until her knuckles went white, the Uzumaki tensed and leapt.

She'd get Kakashi before he got her.

Except it wasn't Kakashi, she realized with wide blue eyes as she skidded to a stop. It was Sasuke. And he was _ruining everything_.

Seizing his dark locks with a filthy hand, Naruko ignored the way his surprise faded to outrage and dragged him after her back into hiding.

The blonde covered the Uchiha's mouth with a filthy, dirt caked hand as Sasuke opened his lips for a furious question. "Shut up!" Naruko hissed a whisper. "Do you want sensei to find us?"

Sasuke subsided instantly, shoving her hand away and creeping up beside her to scan the opposite bank with sharp red eyes. _Sharingan_ Naruko realized in an absent corner of her mind, recalling old lessons from Hebi-jiji about Konoha and the people within it.

They both ignored the mingling sour scent of their body odor and vomit. Neither was in much of a place to complain about the other, considering their own unwashed situation.

Contrasting pairs of eyes scanned the opposite bank of the river frantically, looking for traces of the jounin that had only recently been hounding their pink-haired teammate through the trees.

Wood creaked, a deliberately and heavy sound that rose over the symphony of the forest. Then the two genin were _moving_, diving out of the bushes with their hands already weaving into seals as they turned in unison to face the boughs above.

Sasuke brought curled fingers to his lips and blew a short focused breath. Fire curled from the Uchiha's mouth and shot up in small ball of flames even as Kakashi was diving down from the canopy with a kunai in each fist.

Gleaming with the dull blue sheen of channeled chakra, Kakashi split the fireball in halves with a casual swipe. The jounin landed in a crouch, only to have a dozen frantic blonde Kage Bunshin leap at him with furious cries.

Grabbing Sasuke's wrist in a bruising grip, Naruko dragged the unwilling Uchiha away from the whirling dance of combat and plunged deeper into the forest. Sasuke resisted for a moment before swallowing his arrogance and following the blonde in a frenzied rush through the trees.

The duo ran until their lungs and legs burned from the effort, forced to stop by the weakness of their own flesh.

Panting with exertion, Naruko looked back at the clear broken trail through the trees they'd left and shook her head with dissatisfaction. It only took a nudge for the sweating and flushed raven to stumble after her through the underbrush.

Both knew their old blind trail was too obvious, and the more distance they could put between themselves and it, the better.

"Damn bastard." Naruko wheezed, reaching out to steady herself on a nearby tree as she nearly slipped over a root. "I'm starting to wonder if he's actually trying to kill us."

Shaking his head with disagreement, Sasuke gave his weapons pouches a quick pat down. "Can't be." Seven shuriken and three kunai. "Otherwise he would have just killed me instead of putting me under genjutsu to make me think he did."

Silence hung for a moment as Naruko digested that, drinking in her surroundings and grinning and the sense of familiarity. "Sounds rough." The blonde commented as she felt along the body of a particularly thick tree. Sasuke grunted with agreement.

The bark was dark, twisted, and old. Thick and tough as leather, but with a hidden vulnerability. Almost invisible to the naked eye, the blonde's fingers quested along the trunk until she found a depression where the bark felt weak and soft.

Hooking her fingers under the skin of the tree, Naruko pulled.

Revealing a small hidden depression in the bark that had been covered over with new growth as the tree age, the blonde stepped inside. Faint carvings in the wood showcased the names of the few prospective chuunin who had found the naturally grown hidey-hole.

Naruko ignored the _'Sakumo waz here'_ as she stopped shoving the skin of the tree away. Darkness flooded the little hollow, black as the void. "I found this place a few days into the test when I was running from Kakashi-sensei." She explained as she turned to look at the silent Uchiha.

Red glimmered faintly in the darkness as Sasuke's underdeveloped and weak Sharingan struggled for some kind of sensory input. "I never found a place like this." He admitted, stung slightly by the realization that someone else had found a useful place to hide away where he had failed.

Both spoke in quiet whispers, keenly aware that even if they were hidden that the bark separating them from the outside world was not all _that_ thick. Their jounin sensei could have been standing on the other side of it for all they knew, ready to plunge kunai into the dark and inflict a world of pain.

But so long as they were quiet, and didn't breathe or speak too heavily, they had a small space away from the rigors of combat. And with the remembered feel of crocodile teeth in her shoulder, Naruko had little problem sinking to her bottom with her back propped against the wood of the tree and knees drawn to her chest.

The near constant fear was not what Naruko had expected _at all_ from becoming a kunoichi. Pain? Yes. Fighting? Absolutely. Loss? She'd be damned if she gave anyone or anything up, but she still knew that she could lose people. But fear of existence was not something the blonde had ever prepared for. The constant awareness of how to escape the next beat-down, of how and when to flee, and the realization that sometimes she was so absolutely outclassed she could do nothing was humbling. And frightening.

Naruko knew that even if she survived Kakashi's crazy survival training and decided to keep being a ninja that she would never be able to go back to what she had been. There was a gulf too wide of pain and threat of annihilation between the present and that rose-tinted childhood.

Innocence lost.

Swallowing thickly, Naruko ignored the pounding heartbeat in her veins and listened. They may have been hidden, but there were not safe. They might never be safe again.

Naruko did not release Sasuke's wrist, as she hadn't let go despite dragging him through the trees on a rush away from danger. Something in the dark silence craved that human contact as they huddled in the heart of a tree.

Sasuke did not complain.

Nor did he move to break the contact.

* * *

Dispatching the last of Naruko's shouting clones with a lazy kick to the temple, Kakashi stared off after the fleeing pair of his students. To torment or not to torment was the question of the hour. On the one hand, he could keep the pressure up on them and break them a little bit further. On the other, he could give them a few hours to heal up – heal together most importantly.

Decisions, decisions…

The Hatake gave a lazy shrug and sauntered off towards the nearest part of Forty-Four's enclosing fence. He had fourteen days or so to spare. Lots of time to focus his hunt on Sakura and drive her towards the other two. Lots of time to hammer the three of them together into a halfway cohesive unit.

But first, lunch.

Stepping up to the towering, chakra charged steel fence, Kakashi pulled a strip of sealing paper from his flak vest pocket. The Hatake pressed the premade seal over interwoven links of chain and waited.

Dark ink flared red, burnt orange flames curled out to the edges of the seal and burning it to nothingness. Metal peeled away with an unholy shriek, opening a slight hole large enough for a man to step through.

Shoving his hands in his pocket, Kakashi crossed the fence and blinked. The Forest of Death was well named, having an unspoken aura of violence, and stepping from the world within the fence to the world outside was rife with disorientation. Minute tension faded from the jounin's shoulders as he turned back to watch the fence fold back upon itself and seal the forest back in with a lazy eye.

Satisfied that none of his students would be escaping early, Kakashi vanished in a whirl of leaves. Colours blurred by as the jounin's chakra enhanced speed pushed him beyond the limits of human vision. Shunshin was a technique many shinobi knew, but few ever mastered. It took extremely well trained vision and a quick mind to apply the Shunshin over long distances and around complex obstacles.

Kakashi had that vision and mind, which was why when he stopped in the observation room for Forty-Four for the instant he needed to pilfer more of the 'emergency escape' seals that made passing in and out of the training ground so simple for him, none of the chuunin on duty were even aware of his presence. The jounin sensei preferred it that way. In a world of half shadows and murder, he who passed undetected was he who survived.

He might report the chuunin to their higher ups for failure of duty however. Konoha needed to be strong, and it needed to be alert to do so. It was something to decide over tempura.

Home for Kakashi was a six tatami apartment, boxed in by passionless white painted walls in the low class part of the village. Home was cheap and worn, but familiar furniture. Home was dog-eared, lurid orange books scattered about in lazy tosses. Home was the slight stale scent of barely lived in air with the rich sweet smell of cheap bentos. Home was the faint ding as the microwave finished cooking his convenience store meal to lukewarm.

_(Home was the mission, boxed in by passionless white porcelain masks in the dark. Home was comfortable body armour. Home was venomous crimson stains, arced over muddy ground with all the careful art of a killer. Home was the mingled reek of copper blood and old corpses with the slight tinge of stale sweat. Home was the whistle of kunai in the night as they thudded into another unfortunate soul.)_

The clack of Kakashi's chopsticks was achingly quiet and deafeningly loud in the utter silence of his apartment (_of his life_).

"Idatakimasu." The former ANBU captain murmured, stabbing the point of a chopstick into the deep-fried flesh of his seafood. A sparkle of amusement rang through him as Kakashi considered the likelihood that his three students were all doing their best to hide from him even when he wasn't looking for them.

How fearsome he must have become to the genin.

It was good for their development the jounin mused as he sipped chilled tea. Their ability to run from him and remain undetected had been absolutely atrocious the first few days. The children were improving though – not nearly well enough to hide from _him_ – but noticeably. They were growing smarter and stronger in response to near constant threat of pain as well. Fighting better than they had when they started, even despite their utter exhaustion.

Sasuke's Sharingan was just the cherry on top. Kakashi wouldn't have thought that it would be so easy to bring the boy's kekkai genkai out. Maybe Sasuke had just been near activating it anyway. Or perhaps he was a genius like his monster of a brother.

Combat ability could be trained into them later.

Rising to his feet, Kakashi dumped the empty takeaway bento in the trash and gave his weapons pouches a quick pat down.

The first thing to do would be deal with Sakura.

(And report those chuunin on duty for their laxness.)

* * *

The moon was waning and cold when Sakura stopped for a breather. Heaving air into her lungs, the genin pressed a hand to her sweating flank and drank in the sweet, sweet wind. A faint trickle of blood run down her cheek from a shallow cut where one of Kakashi's kunai and flown too close for comfort.

This was ridiculous! Didn't the man have anyone else to bother for hours on end? The pink-haired girl spared a small pang of guilt for wishing the sadistic sensei had chosen one of her other teammates to follow around all afternoon and beat the hell out of. But better them than her.

Wood creaked in the night, and Sakura leapt to her feet with wide eyes. Bright green eyes spun wildly as she peered about in the dark. She didn't see anyone coming towards her on the ground. Nor was there anyone in the trees above her, ready to pounce down.

_She was being watched._

Crackling sounded again, and Sakura reached down to pat her weapons pouch. Empty, the _genin_ despaired before tensing in preparation for a run. "Haruno!" was hissed at her, too quiet and feminine to be Kakashi.

Naruko stood in the dark, tense and drawn like a wild animal with the tattered remains of her once cheery jacket hugged to her thin frame. The night reduced brilliant blue eyes into empty pools of black on the girl's dirty face. "Come here." the blonde whispered, motioning her teammate closer.

Approaching warily, Sakura licked dry lips as her fight-or-flight instinct built on the dregs of adrenaline in her system. Naruko grabbed the pinkette's wrist while cocking an ear to the forest and waiting for anything odd of the ordinary to reveal itself.

Only the low buzz of insects and brush of wind responded. It was not reassuring.

Naruko thinned her lips, holding onto Sakura's wrist tightly with one hand while reaching behind to hook her nails beneath bark in what was quickly becoming a familiar motion. Wood creaked again as wood split up and revealed a small natural hollow where to floating red eyes gazed at them in the pitch.

Wind rustled, peeling back to let a faint few shafts of moonlight through the canopy. White light cast away the pure shadows, leaving Sasuke to step forward and drag both girls within. Bark slapped down, cutting off the light and leaving the three standing in close quarters in the darkness.

"What's this about?" Sakura muttered, reaching out to fumble for the back wall of the hollow. Shuffling and low curses filled the air as the team nudged around to find a position where they could all sink to the ground in relief.

"He doesn't seem to be able to find us here." Naruko breathed through her mouth, wincing at the taste of stale air and other unmentionables. A fair trade for some rest and safety at least.

"Guess that's why he decided to chase me around all day." Sakura agreed bitterly, eliciting a low grunt from Sasuke. The Sharingan faded away, red shuttering into the dark and leaving the other two with nothing to distract from the utter blackness within their hiding spot.

Minutes ticked by, and ever so slowly Sakura began to _relax_. Days worth of tense muscle loosened at finally, finally having somewhere to exist without constant threat. "Why did you even come and get me anyway?" Sakura asked, rubbing newly calloused hands over her bare knees for lack of anything else to do.

Surprisingly, it was Sasuke that spoke up. Something about the utter isolation they'd been through for almost two weeks tentatively craved human contact. To find some sense of normalcy and comfort after a marathon of violence. "We've all been through _that_. It seemed appropriate."

_That_ meaning wild dashes for freedom, pushed to the very edge of physical endurance. _That_ meaning days and nights spent catching minutes of sleep in between one chase and another. _That_ meaning the taste of copper in the mouth when Kakashi decided it was time for another beat down.

Naruko shivered.

"Well as much as I don't want to work with you, I feel I kind of have to." the blonde began with a mutinous expression neither of the others could actually see. "Sensei kicks my ass any time I try to fight him."

Humming in agreement, Sakura knuckled her eyes in tiredness. "I guess I can deal with you."

"You'd better." Naruko pointed out without any real heat. The blonde was simply too tired to muster up a sense of indignation.

"Sleep." Sasuke commanded, Sharingan sputtering back up to shine faintly in the dark. "I'll keep watch. We can switch in a few hours."

Naruko slept.

* * *

Feeling far more rested, Sakura crouched in the shallows near the mouth of the long river that wound through Training Ground Forty-Four and scrubbed wet sand into her skin with brutal efficiency. With Sasuke and Naruko standing guard and watching the trees, Sakura felt safe enough to chance a bath. Though not safe enough to venture out into the deeper portions of the river for a more complete cleaning.

The girl's throat closed up in sympathetic memory, and Sakura scrubbed the sensation of drowning away harshly until her skin shone pink from the friction. Giving the deep, clear water a final scan in case Kakashi had decided to sneak up on them underwater from downstream, Sakura stepped out of the shallows and pulled her wet and tattered clothes on. For the first time in days, even her clothes were partially cleaned. This made Sakura feel human.

Or at least civilized rather than the primal, instinctive beast she'd felt herself becoming within grip of constant fear.

Naruko gave a silent nod when the two girls switched duties so the Uzumaki could get herself cleaned. It was a positive signal that the coast was still clear, and Sakura trained sharp green eyes on the deceptively gentle forest. Save for the trees being so large and the absurdly sized animals, the Forest of Death looked peaceful enough.

Sakura could practically smell the death.

Water splashed quietly behind her as Naruko stripped and began to scrub away with the same intensity as Sakura had. The pink-haired girl still gave quick glances over her shoulder at the other girl every few moments to be sure it was Naruko splashing about rather than their jounin sensei in a silent ambush.

Their truce was tentative at best, and Sakura had a long memory of the many sleepless nights she'd sacrificed in the Academy only to have Naruko come sweeping up from dead last to push her down to second place. The Haruno still had no idea where the other girl had found the motivation and training to achieve that. Her fists clenched in habitual frustration.

But it _was_ a truce Sakura mused.

Sasuke switched with a chilled and shivering Naruko as he took the chance to clean up. Both girls did their best to give him privacy and only looked back when he made any especially loud splashing. Once upon a time the Uchiha would have been torn between embarrassed and furious, and there _was_ a flush rising in his cheeks as he scrubbed away at his skin. But it seemed almost inconsequential when compared to what he could possibly be experiencing without the two watching his back.

It was a strange feeling to be able to keep his back to someone. The Uchiha didn't trust them to die for him, or go out of their way to make life easier for him. But he did respect their common interest, and three together stood a better chance against Kakashi than one. _For now_, Sasuke thought darkly and imagined one day being strong enough to peel Itachi's skin from his bones.

Kakashi was pleased that things were finally coming together when he burst from the ground in a blur of black and silver amidst dirt towards Sakura. Not because the girl leapt back with quick reflexes and put distance between herself and her sensei. Though that was a positive development in and of itself.

No, he was pleased that when Sakura dove away with a shriek, Sasuke stepped in with a single tomoe twirling in red eyes and met Kakashi with an effective block. The three were better rested than they had been in days, since Kakashi had given them a day's respite to work out their personal issues and come together.

It showed, both in the renewed energy Sasuke displayed in actually meeting his lazy strikes blow for blow. And in the coordinated way Naruko moved to flank him with Kage Bunshin while Sakura took pot shots with crude thrown short spears and rocks.

The three were of course nowhere near skilled enough to beat him. Kakashi saw a dozen niggling holes in Sasuke's offence, and Naruko's Kage Bunshin crumbled beneath his bored strikes. But they managed to coordinate – to actually plan an offence together rather than tearing each others' throats out, and execute it.

So the Hatake swallowed the instinct to crumble Sasuke's form with a single well placed blow, or hammer a thrown kunai into Sakura's forehead, or kick Naruko's kneecaps out when the girl stepped back to respawn her clones. He could afford to give them a little reward for the day, and worry about preventing their complacency tomorrow.

With a faint pleased smile in his visible dark eye, Kakashi allowed himself to be driven off, and vanished into the trees.

The three genin blinked after the jounin's form vanished, confused at having actually _won_ an encounter with Kakashi.

Naruko laughed, high and nearly hysterical with relief. Pumping an excited fist into the air, the jinchuuriki turned to look at her teammates with a wide pleased smile. "Yatta!"

Pinching her cheek in disbelief, Sakura stared into the trees and wordlessly accepted when Sasuke began pressing the little spears she'd carved with a rock from some branches into her hands. "How?" she murmured helplessly.

"_How_?" Naruko snorted, jovial mood spreading. "We kicked his ass, that's how!"

A small pleased smirk wound onto Sasuke's face. "Don't get too cocky Uzumaki." He warned, deactivating his Sharingan and ending the drain on his chakra. "He'll be back, and it's not like he was going all out at us anyway."

"Yeah, yeah." Naruko rolled her eyes with a shooing motion. "I think we've got this one in the bag now."

She was wrong.

* * *

Kakashi blew Sasuke's concentrated offence to pieces, sliding through gaps in the Uchiha's half-trained attempt at his clans' taijutsu style to deliver bruising punches to the boy's ribs. He held back just enough not to break anything.

Shaking his head when Sasuke collapsed in a coughing fit once Kakashi drove a heel into the raven's solar plexus, Kakashi turned to grasp Naruko's swinging foot. "I wonder if the three of you understand the concept of _overconfidence_." The jounin clucked his tongue as he swung the blonde around with an iron grip on her heel.

"I give you one day as a reward for working together, and the three of you decide to get soft."

Naruko crashed into a pale and shaking Sakura in a tangle of limbs. The pink-haired girl cursed at the taste of blood in her mouth when the blonde's forehead cracked into her lip. Struggling to their feet, they watched Kakashi stand with his arms crossed and displeased expression on his face.

Limping over to the duo, Sasuke favoured the jounin with a murderous red glare. Every breath sent sharp pains through his chest as his diaphragm fought through the spasms. "Fuck." The Uchiha swore through gritted teeth, nudging the other two to retreat before the Hatake decided to take the fight to them again.

Kakashi craned his head back lazily, staring up at the stars overhead and humming thoughtfully. "You've got thirteen days left, let's make the most of it shall we?" The smile he gave was chilling. "I'll give you a five second headstart."

They ran.

* * *

The last day dawned bright and pink, clouds curling away merrily before the sun.

Naruko rubbed her dry eyes and ignored the rough sensation of bark against her bare feet. She'd lost her zori...some time ago. And wasn't that just fucked up? The days within the Forest all ran together in a violent symphony until it was all that any of them could do to keep track of how many day were left in the hellhole they'd been consigned to. Losing her footwear just seemed too irrelevant to force her mind into bothering to remember.

Kakashi had just pushed them harder and harder, until even the baths they'd taken the time to enjoy after their truce became a precious commodity. Squeezing in enough time for one of them to clean up, or for another to finally eat was ever more difficult once it became clear that they'd never really escaped the jounin's notice.

Unless they took advantage of the times they assumed Kakashi was off eating or sleeping (or reading his porno, the old bastard), there was little to no opportunity for rest. But that was all finally coming to an end.

Ignoring the rush of air as Sasuke flew up from the underbrush and settled in a crouch on the branch beside her, Naruko nudged Sakura awake with an elbow.

"Seems clear for now." The Uchiha reported in a mutter. Red faded to black as Sasuke stopped scraping the bottom of the barrel for chakra. He wasn't faring much better than Naruko, with his blue high-collared shirt reduced to covering just his upper chest and back. Sasuke still _had_ his zori, even if the soles were peeling away on them.

Sakura wordlessly stared at the other two with a hard green look. Paranoia was quickly becoming an old friend. "One of you get some sleep." She ordered briskly, shuffling to another branch to make room for one of them to curl up in the comfiest spot for a nap by the trunk. "Sensei is going to push us harder today than any other I bet. And tonight is going to be an utter shit show."

Manners had a way of degenerating in close company. Telling someone to watch their mouth just didn't have the same impact when they'd seen each other spitting blood and dirt after an infinitely more skilled shinobi handed their collective asses to them.

"Probably." Naruko agreed, leaning against the trunk and closing her eyes.

Sasuke watched the girl's state of rest with longing for a moment before shaking his head and rescanning the trees around them. Only one more day, and one more night. He could survive it. He would.

Peeling off the latter tatters of her red cheongsam, Sakura tugged at her thin underbody mesh with a faint expression of distaste. Even shame seemed to take a back seat to efficiency when her life was on the line. Raising an eyebrow at Sasuke's odd look, the girl shook the wadded up red cloth with emphasis.

"Could be used for a decoy."

Motioning at Naruko's ripped jacket with underbody mesh peeking through, Sasuke shrugged. "Ask her for her's too."

"Only if you give up your's too, bastard." Naruko sighed, opening tired eyes to stare at him sourly.

Pulling off the last remains of his shirt, Sasuke handed it to Sakura. Naruko yanked her own off in reply and tossed it over.

"Now let me sleep." The blonde declared crankily and closing her eyes again.

The air was warm enough that clad in shorts and body mesh, neither girl shivered. Nor did the Uchiha, sitting bare-chested and peering into the canopy.

Scruples had a way of dying when it was a choice between mutual indignity and pain.

* * *

When Kakashi made his way to the forest on the thirty-first day, he was greeted by the sight of his three genin. Grim-faced and half naked on the other end of the fence, the three looked like they almost expected further punishment, or to be left inside for another month.

And as interesting as psychologists would find them to study if left long enough - Kakashi had little intent to let the three children grow any more native than they had. The Trial had done what he'd needed for them.

Forged three squabbling children into hard-eyed, paranoid genin.

He could work with that.

Chain clattered as the jounin worked through the padlocks in the correct order. Even as the last lock clanged to the ground and the gates creaked open, the three never lost the pinched look to their faces. Good. Hope for the best, plan for the worst.

(Though Sasuke would have to do a better job hiding the kunai behind his wrist to fool someone like Kakashi.)

Looking over his bruised and battered team – _his_ – Kakashi smirked jovially and gave a slow sarcastic clap. Naruko and Sasuke fixed him with twin looks of annoyance, while Sakura sighed with weary resignation.

"Congratulations _genin_. Looks like you graduated from the common rabble and decided to become common grunts." The sarcasm faded from the jounin's voice as his eye curved in a small but genuinely pleased smile. "I'm proud of you."

Their sensei sniffed at the air with distaste. "Though I would be prouder if you were just an itty bit cleaner." Smirking at the look of shame that flooded the three genin's expressions, Kakashi waved off the built up month of dirt, sweat, and blood. "I'll see you at Training Ground Three tomorrow morning at 0700. Dismissed."

Sakura blinked slowly, turning about to the south to gaze at the distant walls of Konoha on the horizon. A strange feeling built in her gut and it took a moment for the pink-haired girl to realize it was relief.

Steel clanged behind her as their sensei sealed the Forest of Death back up, but Sakura couldn't be bothered to look behind and watch. She was too busy dreaming about the possibilities on the other side of those walls.

Finally, a shower and a change of clothes. After a month of scrounging from the forest, she'd finally be able to eat a decent meal. Sakura was keenly aware of the way that Kakashi's 'survival training' had melted away the last of the baby fat from her frame and left only bones and the beginnings of proper corded muscle. Her mother was going to have a fit when she got a hold of her!

Safety and home called her, and Sakura was happy enough to share a house with the parents that had become more confused and distant over the years if the reward was a roof over her head and warm bed at night. Her parents really did love her, but they didn't understand her anymore.

Sakura had taken three blissful steps in the direction of home when a concentrated burst of killing intent stopped her in her tracks. Heavy and suffocating, the pinkette struggled to breath as she forced herself to turn back to stare at their sensei.

Ignoring Sasuke's pale, sweating, and crimson eyed face, Sakura focused on Kakashi's deceptively kind facade. There was absolutely no tension in the silver-haired jounin's frame. Standing slack and with a dopey grin in his eye, Kakashi reached a languid hand up to scratch absently over his cheek.

"On second thought my cute little minions, I thought maybe we could play a bit of a game first."

Swallowing thickly, Naruko clenched her hands into fist to stop the urge to shake in fear. "A game?" The blonde stuttered.

"Oh nothing too complex, just a bit of fun." Kakashi reassured mildly. "We're going to play a bit of tag. I'll even give you a five second head start if you want."

The grinding of Sasuke's teeth was audible in the tense silence.

"Where's our safe zone then?" Naruko stalled, knowing that tag would merely a euphemism for 'let's see how far and fast you can run kiddies!'.

"Your homes." Kakashi shrugged. "Where else?"

Licking dry lips, Sakura sent her teammates meaningful looks. "Is it just safe to be in our own homes, or are we safe in each others' homes?"

Pleased at the assumption that the girl was making – that the fragile truce forged in the forest would persist – Kakashi cut off the suffocating killing intent. "I don't see why not. You're _teammates_ after all."

"Right." Sasuke grunted, straightening to glare at the jounin with all the bravado he could muster.

"Go." Kakashi declared with a yawn.

Blinking in confusion, Sakura stared at the man. "What?"

"Five."

"Shit!" Naruko cursed, launching forward like a human bullet. Sakura and Sasuke cued instantly, falling in behind her as they all pushed their aching and weary frames for every scrap of speed.

Gasping for breath, Sasuke managed to bark "Whose home is closest to the gate?" His was probably the furthest away – the Uchiha clan's deserted compound located in the safest and oldest part of the village. Shoving away the thought of the empty place he lived, Sasuke shot a quick glance over his shoulder.

Kakashi was nowhere to be seen, which meant the jounin was already in pursuit.

"My parents built a home near the Hyuuga clan." Sakura wheezed, sweat pouring down her brow.

"Then it's mine." Naruko decided with a grunt, before all vision was lost in a flash of light and heat.

Rolling through the dirt to extinguish any flames that might be clinging to her shorts, Naruko gaped incredulously. "That was an exploding tag! Are you trying to seriously kill us you bastard!"

Sakura pulled her teammate to her feet and dragged the other girl into motion. "Less talking and more running!" the merchant's daughter puffed, sprinting over the uneven fields with the blonde in close pursuit.

Steel whistled in the air, only to be redirected with a clang and soft curse as Sasuke stepped in beside the two and redirected the projectile. "That was my last kunai." The Uchiha informed them, blood rushing to the surface of his pale skin with exertion.

The walls of the village loomed ahead, taunting salvation as the trio turned east to follow along the wall until they found the main gate. The three could practically feel Kakashi on their heels, violent and amused intent always just a moment from pouncing.

"Hey you!" A confused voice called out as they broke into the final stretch of field. The two chuunin guarding the main gates stared at the three Konoha genin with suspicion. "Halt right there!"

They didn't. Because as much trouble as they could get in from disobeying a superior – a jounin outranked a chuunin and they could always claim to be following the orders of a superior officer.

Warning kunai flew from the guards' hands, slicing along the genin's' tired limbs with stings and slashes of red.

Then Sharingan no Kakashi appeared, dark and silver with a crimson eye. The two quailed before the legend even as he shouted in a jovial tone that it was just a training exercise. Team Seven cleared the gate, ignoring the gaping chuunin as Kakashi whirled out with a violent kick that barely skimmed the top of Naruko's head.

A panicked shriek bubbled up from her throat, but Naruko clamped down on it before yelling at her teammates to follow her. Without a second of hesitation, the two genin leapt after the blonde.

Once they were within the village, it became harder for Kakashi to so openly pursue them without interference from the Hokage's ANBU division. The jounin retreated to the rooftops, following the three children from the sky and tossing shuriken in their direction when the trio showed any sign of slowing down.

"Come on, come on, come on…" Naruko repeated a breathless mantra as she dove between market stalls and pushed past offended civilians. Mood only soured when _that girl_ was immediately followed up by _that traitor's brother_.

Hope blossomed in the Uzumaki's chest, cresting higher and higher the longer the chase went on when it became clear to her that Kakashi wouldn't pursue so closely within the village. "There!" she shouted as they crossed from the poorer outer district into the more affluent middle.

Sasuke followed the direction of the blonde's pointing finger, fixing a red gaze on the door of an apartment building. There was little to set it apart from the neighbouring buildings, so it was probably one of the newer constructions that had gone up after the Kyuubi attack.

The three hit the door at full speed, almost blowing it off its hinges and not even bothering to close it behind them as they raced to the top floor.

Kakashi was waiting for them, sitting lazily on the window sill on the end of the hall. He favoured the three with a friendly wave before heaving a brace of kunai at them. Sasuke noted the wires as he shoved the other two to the floor.

Reeling in the kunai with a jerk before they could hit the wall and cause property damage, Kakashi sighed. "You know, back in my day we asked before we got on top of a woman Sasuke-chan."

Sakura sputtered, flushing red and fixing the jounin with a dirty glare.

Shaking her head, Naruko grabbed hold of both her teammate's wrists and barreled into the nearest door. "Home free!" She shouted gleefully, hoping the jounin would adhere to the rules he'd set before she slammed the door to her apartment shut behind her.

"Fuck." Sasuke elucidated.

* * *

(AN): It's been a long time. 7100 words.

For the curious, this chapter was inspired by _Kokuten_. Both the fanfic and the song it was named after.

So I'm coming on to the end of the semester and really hoping the writing mood sticks with me. It'll probably never be like the good old days in first year when I would put out like a chapter a day or something ridiculous. But a few hundred or a thousand or so words a day? I could live with that. I even did a thousand words for _Chasing Yesterday_, which is heartening considering this was started because I wanted to write but was in the rut when it came to that particular work.

Responses yes.

Kakashi is rough – absolutely. I wanted to borrow the mold for Team Seven's Ascension here. Which I feel is gritty realism. I can't imagine the world of shinobi leads to people being lazy, unmotivated bums. Yes, he can be silly and joke around with his students, but he shouldn't put their lives on the line by not giving everything he's got into forcing them to evolve. So this Kakashi is cold, and broken, but he's loyal and he doesn't want to see them die. Which was why as you can see he chased them through the village – he's not about to let them separate even though they just want to go home. He's going to force that bond to grow if it's the only thing he accomplishes as sensei.

Where and how is Team Taka – I have no plans in that regard. They just don't factor into what I've gotten sketched out in my head for this fic. Which are Team Seven and Team Hiruzen. So even if they appear, I wouldn't anticipate much of a role Kabuto will be pretty prominent though.

As nice as the Forest of Death is as a bit of character development, I'm glad it's over with so I can get on with real action.


	5. The First D-Rank

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, nor do I make any kind of profit from any of these fan-based works.**

(AN) I honestly hope I can keep up some momentum since I'm starting this seconds after posting Chapter 4. We'll see how long I can manage this rodeo.

* * *

"_The primary joy of life is acceptance, approval, the sense of appreciation and companionship of our human __comrades__. Many men do not understand that the need for fellowship is really as deep as the need for food, and so they go through life accepting many substitutes for the genuine, warm, and simple."_

* * *

The three genin leaned against the door, shoving their shoulders up against it as if the presence of their small bodies could prevent Kakashi's entrance if the jounin truly desired to come in. As the minutes ticked by however, it seemed like their sensei would abide by the rules of the sadistic game he'd set.

Naruko collapsed in relief, curling up on the floor right beside the door and drinking in the knowledge that she was safe from the Hatake. At least for so long as she remained inside her apartment.

Striding over on wobbly legs, Sasuke sank down on one of two cheaply made wooden chairs Naruko had left haphazardly about her kitchen a month beforehand. The Uchiha dropped his face into his hands and breathed in blowing rhythmic repetition that spoke of stress relief.

Sakura pulled herself up on Naruko's slightly dusty kitchen counter, folding her hands in her lap and staring into space with dull emerald orbs. This was really not in the least what she'd had in mind when she'd signed up to become a kunoichi.

"Do you think he's gone?" Sasuke muttered lowly, dragging his hands away to stare at the others with a dark gaze.

Groaning wordlessly in reply, Naruko grabbed her doorknob and heaved herself into a sitting position. The blonde climbed tiredly to her feet and pressed a suspicious blue eye to the peephole built into her door.

Kakashi stared cheerfully back. Twirling an absent kunai around his finger, the jounin looked completely relaxed as he lounged shamelessly in the hallway before her door.

"Nope." Naruko scowled before turning away and stomping over to her fridge. Yanking the refrigerator door open, she peered past expired milk and absolutely disgusting fruits. Grabbing a can of sealed tuna, the blonde made a vaguely distasteful face and peeled the lid back before digging in with bare fingers.

"That's disgusting!" Sakura shrieked, looking vaguely green. "You didn't even wash your hands!" Shuddering at that thought of just what sorts of dirt – or heaven forbid _parasites_ – there could be on the blonde's hands, the pink-haired girl looked away.

Rolling her eyes at the other girl, Naruko pulled out another can and shut the fridge with her heel. "ooo 'ant un?" she mumbled around food with a raised brow at Sasuke.

The Uchiha stared back aghast.

Swallowing past the preserved fish, the blonde dragged her tongue across her teeth in an effort to clean any remaining food particles away. "Fucking pansy." Naruko snorted, tossing the still sealed second can directly at the raven's forehead.

Sasuke caught the can in a reflex motion, setting it down still sealed and staring at the tin as if it would burst into flame before his eyes. It was disgusting, and horrifically unrefined, but it would still food. After a month in the Forest of Death with little sustenance, perhaps he could afford to be a touch unrefined.

Decision made, the Uchiha rose and took quick steps over to his blonde teammate's sink. Shoving his hands under scalding water, Sasuke rubbed dish soap into every nook and cranny. The way the water turned brown from all the accumulated filthy made both him and Sakura wince, but he preserved until the water ran clean.

Once he was satisfied, Sasuke stepped around Sakura and began opening drawers at random in search for a fork. Naruko bustled past him, pointing wordlessly at the one furthest to the right as she conceded to washing her own hands free of the scum built up over a month.

Sitting down again, Sasuke tore ravenously into the cold fish. Out of the corner of his eye he noted Sakura moving past her own scruples and joining him at the table as well with clean hands and a tin of canned ham.

Devouring the food in silence, the three genin scrapped the bottoms of their respective dishes in an effort to detract away from the awkward air floating between them. Without plans against Kakashi to make or reports about what they'd seen, there was little to speak about.

Naruko broke first, pushing away from the counter to toss her can in the trash and folding defensive arms over her chest. "Well I don't know about you chucklefucks, but I'm off to have a shower." It was a testament to half a month's endured company that neither of the other two complained about the derogatory term.

* * *

Sweat beaded on his temples, instantly absorbed and held uncomfortably against his scalp by the hitae-ate fastened diagonally across his face. Kakashi stood at attention with hands in full view pressed to his sides and watched his nonchalant Hokage pour a thimble of tobacco into a well-worn pipe.

The elderly Sarutobi was indifferently relaxed, moving through familiar motions to light up the bowl with a spark of flame off the nail. It was a measure of the famous skill of the Shinobi no Kami that the man would use the advanced chakra manipulation for something so mundane.

Sucking in a mouthful and blowing a casual smoke ring, the Sandaime watched the cloud disperse before turning a cool gaze on the jounin. "Speak Kakashi, and explain why I shouldn't have you chased through the village yourself for that stunt you pulled this morning."

Kakashi swallowed dryly, lips moving beneath his black skin-tight mask. "It was a training exercise Sandaime-sama."

"A training exercise." Hiruzen deadpanned, leaning back in his chair and bringing the stem of his pipe to his mouth.

Taking the unspoken demand for what it was, Kakashi hurriedly explained. "Yes sir. Team Seven's results in Forty-Four were excellent considering what I had to work with going in. I wanted to keep the pressure up and make sure there was no regression."

"So you chased three unwashed genin half-naked through the streets during the civilians' morning rush hour."

Well, Kakashi reflected, reaching up to scratch at his chin. It sounded horrifically irresponsible when put like that. "Yes sir."

The corner of the Hokage's lip quirked up, distorting the prominent liver spot on the elder's left check and softening deep frown lines. Giving a bark of laughter that Hiruzen immediately covered up with a coughing fit, the Sandaime pointed the stem of his pipe meaningfully at the Yondaime's student.

"Don't let it happen again."

Gracefully ignoring the way the village leader's mouth curled into a smirk, Kakashi lowered his head in acquiesce. "As you command, Hokage-sama."

"Now." Hiruzen began, dark eyes hardening as he leaned forward to prop his elbows on his desk. "At ease. Tell me everything about what happened in Forty-Four."

Shuffling his hands into his pockets and lounging in a less tense position, Kakashi shrugged. "It was about what you could expect from a team that needed that kind of training. They spent a lot of time running around alone and getting squashed. Halfway through they decided to cooperate. The pressure kept their little truce alive. They're all showing small improvements within their basic application of shinobi skills."

The Hokage hummed, stroking his white goatee in thought. "Were there any complications?"

Kakashi stared out the window for a moment in thought. The mid-afternoon sun reflected off the rare gleaming metal roof, and reminded him of the shimmering river that twisted through the Forest of Death. "From observation, Sakura has seemed to develop an aversion to going into or near water of any significant depth. Nothing overtly serious yet, but I'll have to take steps to ensure it doesn't develop further."

Instantly understanding the implication that something – likely Kakashi himself - had occurred to drive the girl towards developing the beginnings of a phobia, The Hokage pressed onward. A fear of water was potentially crippling for a shinobi if allowed to fester. "Keep a close watch on her. Remand her to psychiatric therapy if the problem persists longer than two weeks, and begin considering possible replacements from our pool of unattached genin."

The Hatake snapped his head around to gape at the Hokage in protest. "That's too early Hokage-sama! There's nothing wrong with Sakura that I can't get past. Maybe after a month-"

Hiruzen's face turned steely, and his voice was all old iron as he barked at the younger man. "Enough Jounin Hatake! I know better than anyone what the possible long term results of my training program could be. Two weeks, no more and no less." A touch of pity softened the Sandaime's expression. "If you had any other team I would not have permitted you to even begin the regimen I constructed, and because of the team you have the council is expecting quick and _stable_ results." He stressed, puffing the last bit of tobacco in the pipe's bowl.

"As it is I've had more than enough trouble convincing Jiraiya not to go and sting you up by your intestines. This is my final word on the matter. Now continue."

Wincing at his superior's outburst, Kakashi nodded slowly. "Yes Hokage-sama." Taking a slow breath, the jounin shook away the worry that his first team in years would fall through his fingers merely a month after gaining it. "Naruko was injured by one of the beasts in the forest, and while she killed it and made a full recovery afterwards, the creature was executed in a spectacularly messy way. I'm sure the Council will be pleased that she's beginning to develop some insensitivity." Finishing with a touch of sarcasm, he returned a forcefully disinterested gaze out the window.

The Hokage frowned darkly, staring down at the aged and pitted surface of his desk. So Naruko was finally stepping into the world of shinobi, where soon enough the cheerful blonde girl would have to kill or be killed. It was enough to make his old heart ache. "Continue."

"Sasuke in contrast seems less effected, though I suppose considering his childhood it's only a slight push in the direction he was already developing in." Kakashi's thoughts briefly touched on Itachi, the quiet and gentle subordinate that had abruptly snapped and become a killing machine. The Uchiha prodigy's apparent murderous breakdown contributed greatly to Kakashi's own desire to retire from ANBU. "He awoke his Sharingan with one tomoe in each eye, and seems to be progressing well in applying it to combat."

"_That_ is something that will go a long way towards silencing your detractors within the Council. It has been many years since Konohagakure's Uchiha clan has been seen in the field, and there are many both shinobi and civilian that will be glad to know the Sharingan will be fighting for Konoha once more. Present company excluded, of course."

"Of course." Kakashi nodded sagely, taking up on the Sandaime's unspoken invitation to lighten the tense atmosphere. "A red-eyed Cyclops just doesn't get the old wives gossiping in the market as well as a young pretty boy."

Snorting with faint amusement, Hiruzen waved the jounin away. "Dismissed Kakashi. Keep me updated on the status of your team. I will present your findings to the Council tonight."

* * *

Brilliant golden eyes stared down at a petri dish in thought. The survival of such unique cells for so long in such hostile agar never failed to make the pale man suck in a breath of admiration. If only he could _somehow_ find a way to induce such powerful vitality within the shinobi of Konoha without an utterly massive death toll. Danzo might consider a survival rate of one point six percent acceptable for such a result.

Orochimaru was a scientist, and anything less than pure one hundred percent accuracy left a terrible taste on his tongue. The independent and humane research that Sarutobi-sensei insisted on into the condition along with the Hebi-sennin's expertise had upped the projected survival rate of implantation. Thirty percent survival for children and fifteen for adults.

With access to test subjects and with time to devote to the project, Orochimaru was fully confident in his ability to implant the Shodaime's cells at a rate of survival that would make risk negligible. But to do so would require many unethical, not to mention illegal experiments on likely unwilling subjects.

Considering how he still shuddered in memory of Hiruzen's sheer fury when discovering Danzo's own experiments, Orochimaru rather felt the whole controversy not worth dealing with. He was not so enamored of the possibilities that he would risk the Hokage's wrath upon himself.

Shaking his head, the pale man shoved away memories of the day he'd almost become head of Danzo's Ne simply because of Shimura's underestimation of Sarutobi's morality.

(Though the Sennin failed to understand the squeamishness of it all. The experimentation he'd committed on himself had such positive results, after all.)

Orochimaru placed the sample carefully back within the specimen fridge, shucking off his white lab coat but leaving his ponytail up. Hair tended to get in the way of his delicate work within Konoha's Department of Research and Development, and if the Sennin had to return to further experiments it would be better to save the hassle of playing about with his hair.

Amused slitted eyes pinned a nervous brown haired jounin. The man was so _anxious_ every single time he showed up to find out the latest lab results regarding his unique condition as a human experiment. _Former_ experiment as Sarutobi sensei insisted, but as Orochimaru himself knew, that particular label was inaccurate.

Some experiments never ended.

"At ease Tenzo-kun." The Sandaime's student chuckled lowly, panning an automatic gaze about the waiting room to confirm no others had come by since last he checked. "The results are the same today as they were last month, and the month before that, and the one before that, ad nauseam. The Shodaime's cells within your body show no signs of rejection or abnormal growth."

Flushing with embarrassment, the normally stoic ANBU operative stared down at his feet. "Yes Orochimaru-sama. I'm sorry to have wasted your time."

Smiling with manipulative cheer, Orochimaru waved off the younger man's apologies. "It's hardly your fault Tenzo-kun." And it wasn't really. "You know as well as I that these constant tests are at the instigation of the Hokage. All that is left for us to do is obey."

A familiar chakra signature flashed in at the edge of Orochimaru's senses, and the snake summoner blinked slowly. "Now run along Tenzo-kun." He ordered in clear dismissal, already turning away. "I shall write up the results myself and send them to Tsunade, as always."

"Yes sir!" Tenzo saluted before stepping out in a hurry.

The door clicked shut behind the ANBU operative, and Orochimaru sighed at a familiar chuckling.

"Still scaring the kiddies I see Oro." A hand clapped down on the pale man's shoulder and spun him about. Jiraiya grinned dopily, settling his other hand on his shorter teammate's older shoulder and shaking him with emphasis. "Come on old man! It's Tsunade's birthday. We've got better things to do than hang around stinky old labs all day."

Rolling his eyes, Orochimaru pressed his hands on Jiraiya's chest and shoved the other man away. "I shall assume that we'll be doing the same thing we have done for her birthday every year for the past two decades?"

"Yep!"

"What have I done in a past life to deserve this?" The dark-haired man reached up to the ceiling in mock prayer to some higher deity. "Saddled on a team for my entire life with two old drunks and two old perverts."

Mimicking his teammate's motions, Jiraiya made his own prayer. "Oh Kami-sama, thank you for placing me in this world where I can witness glorious breasts and fine booties to my heart's content! The best possible world with lots of drinks, fast women, and good food!"

"Your mother would be so proud."

* * *

Tugging on an overly tight white t-shirt and pair of dark shorts that clung to his skin, Sasuke stared out the window at a dark Konoha. His hair hung in his eyes, longer after a month in the Forest of Death without a haircut and no longer held back by the hitae-ate he'd lost sometime over the past month.

After Naruko had told him to cover up his pasty chest and promptly thrown some of her own clothes at him, the Uchiha had taken to considering the odd new state of affairs in his life. Weeks ago his birthday had passed by unnoticed and unremarked, and he'd turned thirteen without even realizing it.

The same age as _that man_ when they'd made him ANBU captain.

Two months ago Sasuke would have sneered at anyone who suggested one day he'd end up in Naruko's apartment wearing the tomboy's old clothes, after using her shower and discreetly borrowing her toothbrush to clean a month's built up filth from his mouth, and eating tuna sandwiches.

The Uchiha had Sakura to thank for the meal, as the pink-haired girl had promptly turned Naruko's fridge inside out after her own shower. Clad in identical spandex shorts and mesh shirt as their host, sans the orange vest and replaced with a green camisole, the merchant's daughter had tossed out all the blonde's expired food and found frozen bread in the freezer.

Naruko hadn't bothered to complain. Sandwiches were better than meat from the tin, though the jinchuuriki still insisted that the other two were overly squeamish sissies.

"Do you think tomorrow Kakashi-sensei will actually let us go home?" Sakura broke the silence as she pushed her empty plate around on Naruko's kotatsu.

Calling out from the kitchen as she washed the dust built up from a month of being absent, Naruko denied the possibility. "I doubt it. The old bastard probably enjoys chasing us around. We'll show up, and he'll just kick our shit in, or whatever."

Sasuke swallowed the last of his meal and slid his plate on top of Sakura's. "We'll have to wait and see. Either he'll let us go, or play another one of his 'games'." The boy muttered darkly. "People like him get enjoyment out of just making people afraid."

"So we should just not let it bother us?" Sakura asked, pitch rising in confusion as she grabbed both plates and dropped them off in the kitchen.

"What's the point?" Sasuke reiterated, shoving his hands in his pockets and staring back out the window. "There's nothing we can do to change it now. If you want to be the one making the decisions in this world, you need to become strong."

The conversation died off, heavy silence broken by small clattering as Naruko washed the dishes. The blonde girl wiped the suds from her hands, watching the warm dishwater drain from the sink before scowling. "We should still come up with a plan or something."

"If it's the same 'game' as today, we'll just run to the nearest home and wait for him to leave." Sakura declared, glaring at the Uchiha's back as if daring him to disagree.

"Hn."

"Fine with me." Naruko yawned, running her hands through her blond mane in a habitual motion. The hair hung longer and unbound, reaching the middle of her back without a month of pigtails or haircuts.

Shooting a gaze at the clock on her wall, the Uzumaki blinked sleepy blue eyes. It was still early, having only just passed seven in the evening. "Well I don't know about you two, but I'm tired as hell. I'm gonna go hit the hay."

Footsteps faded away as Naruko strode off into her bedroom. Springs squealed when the blonde girl threw herself onto her bed, snuggling up to a pillow and trying to drop off to sleep.

Sakura blinked before turning to stare at Sasuke. "So who gets the couch and who has to sleep on the floor?"

Shrugging in reply, Sasuke followed after Naruko. The Uchiha ignored the sour look he felt digging into his back as he entered her bedroom and began riffling through her closet for blankets. Pulling a pair out, Sasuke spared a sneer for the bright orange colouring of every single comforter the girl owned and returned to the sitting room.

Sasuke tossed one of the blankets at Sakura's face, not bothering to look if the pink haired girl managed to catch it or not. Turning immediately towards the windows, Sasuke dropped the obnoxiously bright comforter in the nearest corner and sank down onto it. The Uchiha rolled to face the wall, showing his back to anyone in the apartment that would have look at stared at the flecked white paint. As much as he would have preferred the couch, Sasuke had the feeling his mother would be less than pleased at him for making a girl sleep on the floor.

The overhead light clicked off after a few short minutes, plunging the room into darkness. None of the three spoke as the couch creaked under the weight of Sakura curling up into it. There was little that needed to be said.

Nervous expectation kept all three up for hours.

* * *

Kakashi was _only_ an hour late, grinning at the hateful look the three genin directed his way when he dropped from the trees above to land directly between them. "Good morning my cute little grunts." the jounin waved cheerily, registering and dismissing instantly the way the three had shifted their centers of gravity. Fight or flight was good to see in his students when they were prepared to face a superior predator.

But ultimately pointless for what was planned for the day.

"Sleep well?" Kakashi smirked sarcastically, shoving one hand in his pocket and withdrawing an orange book that would very quickly become familiar to the three. The question seemed redundant after the jounin had taken in the sight of heavy lids and reddened eyes, but what was life without a bit of teasing?

"Fine." Naruko grunted after a moment, drifting around her sensei carefully to take up a position beside Sasuke. Sakura followed after a drawn moment, none speaking when warm wind brushed through the grass. It spoke of the hot summer day to come.

Luckily the three would be spending much of the morning inside.

Silence filled the clearing, broken by the sounds of nature and the slow crackle of paper as the Hatake turned a page in book of smut. "Well come along." Kakashi decided, inwardly displeased at the distant demeanour of his subordinates. He'd intended to teach the genin to work together and to follow orders, not make them emotionless statues.

Ah well, Kakashi would just have to remedy that in time. The human psyche was so wonderfully resilient.

Setting off like a mother goose with three little ducklings at her heels, Kakashi trotted off in the vague direction of the Hokage's tower. Training Ground Three was achingly nostalgic, stretching back through time as Team Seven after Team Seven made use of it. Kakashi trailed a hand over the rail of the small crimson bridge that spanned the river.

Every dent and whorl seemed like the greeting from an old friend, and the jounin found himself idly wondering how long the structure had borne witness to the cycle of teams. It had certainly been there when Minato-sensei had trained his team. It had very likely been there when Jiraiya had trained his team. But Kakashi had no idea if it had been part of the childhood that shaped the Sannin, much less if it had stood the test of time like the Sandaime had.

Would his own students raise teams of their own under the silent watch of crimson painted cherry wood?

_Only if they survived._

Sparing a glance over his shoulder, Kakashi smiled vaguely at the faintly rebellious and wary expressions that stared back at him. He'd be lying if he claimed the stares didn't amuse him. But he would also be lying if the rejection he found there didn't sting as well.

The jounin's feet contacted dirt, and the moment his hand left the familiar railing Kakashi found himself filled with grim resolve. Setting an eye on the Hokage's tower that loomed closer and closer with every step. The building was built on blood and dreams in his mind.

_("I'm about to die - but I'll become your eye, and see the future with you.")_

Kakashi's left eye ached.

_("Those who stray from the path of justice have no courage, but under the wing of a strong leader cowardice cannot survive.")_

Blowing out a shaky breath, he shoved his orange book away and pressed a hand to the door of the tower.

_("It's not good to hide your wounds you know, I'm looking after you.")_

Obito. Sensei. Rin.

In that moment Kakashi made a promise to old ghosts and young souls. Ruffling Sakura's pink strands, Kakashi smiled down at the three young genin.

"I won't allow any of my comrades to die. I'll protect you all with my life. Trust me."

He wouldn't fail his duty again.

Which was kinda nice, Naruko decided. But didn't exactly instill confidence in whatever road the jounin was leading them down.

* * *

"You have three options today." the chuunin at the desk declared, unmemorable features twisting into a smile. Brown eyes. Brown hair. Bland face. "There is a pet retrieval mission, a grocery shopping slash babysitting mission, and a painting mission. Which would you like for you team today, Hatake-san?"

How _riveting_.

Sasuke had to admit, he'd been caught off guard. After Kakashi's unnecessarily dramatic declaration before entering the tower, the Uchiha had been expecting something dangerous. And once they'd made their way to the missions desk that he vaguely remembered from a childhood field trip at the Academy, Sasuke combined the inferences he had before him and assumed they'd be assigned a mission with possibility of combat.

Turning a glare on his contemplative sensei - the man surely was not seriously debating this! - Sasuke belted out "Is this a joke?" Rage and humiliation twisted, driving him to dig further. "We're shinobi, not temporary labourers!"

"Be quiet Sasuke." Kakashi muttered, tapping his chin before giving a sharp nod. "We'll take the painting mission." Taking the mission scroll from the chuunin and scanning it quickly, the jounin committed relevant details to memory. Ignoring the simmering Uchiha, Kakashi dropped the scroll into his pocket and gave the chuunin a friendly wave as he turned away. "Until next time, Watanabe-san."

The jounin sensei contained his reprimand until they'd left the building. Reaching out, Kakashi gave his male student a smack across the back of the skull. He frowned down at the boy, shaking his head. "That was unprofessional Sasuke. You should know by now that _every_ team starts with tasks like this. Ours is no exception."

Half-remembered academy reports niggled at the jounin. Something about textbook knowledge...ahh.

"Sakura, I'm sure you can explain D-rank missions to him."

Squeaking at being put on the spot, Sakura spared a glance for her fuming teammate. "Well...umm. D-rank missions are given to genin teams for the purpose of building teamwork and cohesion. You're right in that they're not really things that shinobi would be required for. But the government takes the missions at a discount for the purpose of training genin like us."

Never one to be left out of a discussion, Naruko rolled her eyes as they plodded after Kakashi. "That's so boring though! Even if we're not going to go fight some bad guys, couldn't you just train us instead of wasting our time like this?"

Leading the three children from the upper class district near the nerve center of village politics to the edge of the slums, Kakashi hummed in mock thought. "This is just part of the package when becoming a kunoichi Naruto. We all have hoops to jump through." The jounin's visible eye crinkled as he grinned. "Unless you want to quit being a ninja?"

"No chance!"

Tuning out the loud and energetic blonde, Kakashi cocked his head at the faint sound of hammering. Twisting back down alleys towards the source, the jounin motioned for the genin to follow along.

Their mission was a painfully routine one, and one that despite appearances Kakashi was no more eager to take part in than his students. But it was a necessary one, and if the village had not contracted out the work to its' genin forces in a fit of efficiency, it would have had to pay civilians to do the work.

All of the Hokage became famous for the structures and changes they wrought in the village. Senju Hashirama had built much of the village and directed the design of most of its oldest districts with his own hand. Senju Tobirama contributed greatly to the rule of law, the doctrines and legalities that shaped the responsibilities of all shinobi in service to the village.

Sarutobi Hiruzen contributed to the growth of the village by presiding over its' periods of great expansion. Population had tripled under the Sandaime's rule, prodded along by the Hokage's willingness to use the resources of government to encourage family development. Spurred by the large pool of manpower, Konoha became not only the first hidden village, but the rumored strongest.

Part of Sarutobi's policies at times included revitalization of run down and forgotten portions of the village. In time, the former slums would be rebuilt into thriving parts of the expanding village.

Which was why when Kakashi ducked around hastily erected fences and stepped onto the construction site where Team Seven's first mission was assigned, he didn't complain about the sawdust the made his nose itch. "Here we are." The jounin declared, making a grand gesture with false cheer.

The children looked distinctly underwhelmed.

"Ahh shinobi-san." A rough voice called their attention to a burly man striding over to them with a jovial expression. Corded muscles bulged along the man's forearms, speaking to a long career as a construction manager. Beady eyes until bushy grey brows peered down at Sakura, before flitting over to Sasuke and then Naruko.

The blonde knew she didn't imagine the slight flinch the greyed man gave when he saw the jinchuuriki.

"Foreman-san." Kakashi responded, voice cool and purely professional. In usual circumstances the Hatake could force himself to adopt a friendly persona that put clients at ease. But Kakashi hadn't missed the contained reaction to his student, and wasn't willing to muster the effort to pretend. As long as he was polite and efficient, even the Hokage had no recourse to complain.

"Team Seven reporting for duty."

The foreman smiled shakily at the jounin, before giving an expansive shrug and pointing at the still-under construction building. "We're coming on the end of this project." The man explained blithely, motioning towards workers fastening canary yellow siding with emphasis. "The building has already been sold to a private investor, who picked out the indoor colour scheme."

Clearly expecting to be followed, the giant of a man stepped towards the front door of the unfinished apartment building. "All the rooms have paint and brushes in them, you just have to open the cans and go to work. Two coats are what's been ordered, but you only need one. Another team will come by tomorrow and apply the second." The foreman explained as he carefully moved the door aside, taking care not to bash the wood that hadn't been fasted in place yet. "We've already cleared out most of our stuff from the inside. But some of the crew will be working on the exterior."

Regarding the three genin with a careful eye as the children shuffled inside after their sensei, the foreman crossed arms over his barrel chest. "Any questions?"

"No foreman-san." Kakashi answered for the team, scanning down the hall at pale unpainted walls.

The hesitation was visible when the manager gave a short nod. "Right." Dragging beady eyes away from the jinchuuriki, the foreman stepped outside with a wave. "If you need me for anything I'll be just up the street working on another one of our projects."

Smiling thinly, Kakashi gave a short wave as the front door was shuffled back into place. "Sounds simple enough." The jounin addressed the team lazily. "I'll be up on the third floor. You three get to work down here. Ja ne."

Vanishing in a burst of speed, their sensei left them alone. Sasuke frowned darkly, before turning away silently into the first apartment on the left. Sakura stared after the Uchiha before giving a tired shrug and taking the second apartment on the left.

Naruko just sighed, taking the third and last apartment on the left with ill grace.

* * *

Wincing in disgust at the garish orange paint soaking the end of his brush, Sasuke swept it along the wall in a testing stroke. The colour spread smoothly on featureless white, without any slobbing and sticking. The Uchiha was concluded that the paint was orange not because it was cheap, but because whomever decided to become the landlord of this particular welfare project had terrible taste.

Naruko was probably ecstatic at the palette choice.

Dip. Stroke. Dip. Stroke. Dip. Stroke.

Somehow Sasuke had severe doubt that Itachi had ever been consigned to such drudgery. Though if Kakashi had been honest, then his older brother must have spent some portion of his genin career performing the utterly mundane. It wasn't _impossible_. That man had been very good at pretending to be just another good little boy, after all.

Dip. Stroke. Dip. Stroke. Dip. Stroke.

If he remembered correctly in fact, Itachi was often assigned by their mother to perform laundry and other household tasks. That man had performed the tasks with his usual utter perfection. Perfect Itachi. Loved and adored by his family and his entire clan, prodigy and star pupil.

Dip. Stroke. Dip. Stroke. _Dip. Stroke_.

Those actions _that night_ were just utterly incomprehensible. Was Itachi always such a cold and ruthless murderer? Had he ever been at any point the dutiful son and loving brother he appeared to be? How could Itachi have sat on such urges for years, pretending for so long – his entire life even? It was just as incomprehensible as it was the night Itachi claimed to have been pretending all along.

_Dip. Stroke. Dip. Stroke. Dip. Stroke._

But then what if Itachi had lied? Sasuke had no intention of ever trusting Itachi – that traitorous, murderous, lying piece of refuse. But what if at some point the ruse hadn't been a ruse? Perhaps the lie had been claiming such a ruse in the first place. It seemed more sensible than assuming Itachi had been a consummate liar from the cradle. But if Itachi had ever actually cared for their family, what had caused the turnaround? Why did Itachi just snap?

_Dip. Stroke -_

Sasuke dropped the brush. Glaring down at the orange splatters on the rolled out paper that stretched from one end of the room to the other, Sasuke tried to find some relief that he hadn't made a mess of the actual floor on his first mission.

He failed. There was only the silence. And the confusion. And the anger.

Sasuke picked the brush back up.

* * *

Naruko rushed into the room across the hall, pleased that she was making some progress. Following on her heels were ten paint-splattered clones, all with varying degrees of distaste for the cool lavender smears dotting their clothes. There had better be an orange room somewhere, Naruko determined with a scowl. Some people just didn't understand the best colour in the rainbow.

Such a shame really.

Popping back the lid on the jar of paint, Naruko peered inside and instantly made a face of disgust. "Blue." The blonde called out to her Kage Bunshin, taking the brush one pushed into her hand and going to work.

Dip. Stroke. Dip. Stroke. Dip. Stroke.

She just wanted to _leave_. The foreman was a little more discreet about it than most, probably because of her teammates and Kakashi sensei watching him, but Naruko had seen the way he'd reacted to her presence. That utterly ignorant and terribly disheartening flinch of fear and distaste she'd grown up with from most adults she'd met.

Damned Kyuubi.

Naruko wasn't selfish enough to wish that the fox was someone else's problem. She'd lived that life after all, and while it could have been worse it certainly was no walk in the park. At least she had the benefit of Hokage-jiji and Ero-sennin and Hebi-jiji looking out for her. Some other orphan probably wouldn't have made it.

Dip. Stroke. Dip. Stroke. Dip. Stroke.

"This is gonna take hours." One of the clones groaned as they completed one wall and switched to an adjacent one. "Each room doesn't take that long, but we've got to do them all and then wait for them to dry and then do them all again!" Another complained in a single breath.

"Sasuke and Sakura are here too ya know." A third commented, leaving dark blue streaks down the wall with her brush. "Should make things go a bit faster."

"Not that much faster." A fourth disagreed from the bathroom where she was carefully dabbing bright pink into the walls. "There's only one of each of them ya know."

Tossing her own brush back in the paint bucket with a glare, Naruko rose to her feet and favoured the partially painted room with a sour glare. "Just shut up all of you. Since this is all just me basically talking to myself, I don't want things to get any more pathetic than they already are."

"Sorry boss!" chorused back, making the original rub her forehead. "Whatever." Naruko decided, forming her hands in a cross seal and dragging her chakra through the movements of the technique.

"Kage Bunshin no jutsu!"

Smoke exploded in the room as chakra surged, making more than one clone cough and curse. The white clouds quickly faded into nothingness, revealing a few dozen clones staring back at her with feral grins.

"You all know what to do." The blonde barked, stomping away and dismissing all introspection as a bad job. She had a mission to do. She could afford to get sappy and bitch about it later.

* * *

She was just finishing her second wall in an ugly shade of maroon when a pair of footsteps broke the silence. Sakura looked over her shoulder, blinking in surprise at the absolutely filthy and paint-splattered Naruko that was silently dipping a brush into the paint bucket.

"Hello?"

"Hello to you too, Pinky." Naruko grunted back, stepping up beside her and slapping pain on with a ferocious but experienced motion. The hurried streaks left by the blonde spurred Sakura into turning back to continue her own painting.

Licking her lips, Sakura weighed the benefits of silent monotony versus potentially annoying conversation."Did you finish your own room already?"

Blinking in surprise, the blonde bit back the acerbic comment that threatened to escape. Despite the instinct of old grudges that urged her to make a sarcastic comment, Naruko was able to swallow back the reflex and shrug casually instead. "I just made a bunch of clones and got to work. Didn't take too long to finish up my room and start doing every other one."

"That's...useful." Sakura ventured. After the blonde grunted with agreement, conversation lapsed between the two. The work went by much swifter under two hands, and it was... nice to have the silent presence of another there with her.

Solitude was familiar. But it also needled at her anxiety. Within the confines of the Forest of Death, solitude had been hammered into her head as being dangerous. Camaraderie was safety. Life within Forty-Four felt like a surrealistic year rather than a hectic month, and Sakura kept encountering more and more changes within herself the deeper she looked.

The Haruno was not sure how she really felt about that.

Dip. Stroke. Dip. Stroke. Dip. Stroke.

A final dab of maroon into the bottom of a corner and Naruko dropped the brush back into the bucket. Stretching languorously, Naruko peeked out the window and grinned at the angle of the light. It was only noon. They were making good time, which meant hopefully they could learn something interesting in the afternoon.

Unless Kakashi-sensei told them they had to walk dogs for the afternoon or something.

Turning to the door, Naruko stepped away from the finished walls. She'd go see how all the other rooms were coming along, and then ask what was next on the list.

"Thanks." Sakura called after a moment of hesitation, staring contemplatively at the blonde girl's back.

The returning smile was bright and sunny. "No problem!"

* * *

Staring down at two immaculately clean students and one covered with varying colours of splattered paint, Kakashi quirked a grin. It was good to see them being real children again, even if that childhood would have its final death soon enough. The three genin were changing in subtle ways every day beneath his gaze.

It made him feel old.

"So." Kakashi began conversationally. "How was that Sasuke-chan? Did you have fun?" Amusement bubbled at the look of pure offence the boy gave the address. "I'll admit though, you were done earlier than I expected." Ruffling Naruko's paint covered strands, the jounin rose a curious brow. "Kage Bunshin?"

"Yep!"

"Well." Kakashi withdrew his copy of _Icha Icha Paradise_ in a smooth motion. Flipping the old classic open to a dog-eared page, the jounin began to read. Oh, one of his favourite scenes...

"Don't ignore me bastard!" Naruko's face was scrunched up in annoyance, unbound blonde strands tangling in the breeze around the girl.

"Did you say something?" Kakashi asked rhetorically, knowing it would only infuriate the jinchuuriki further. "Don't answer that." The jounin ordered when he saw her mouth open to shout at him from the corner of his eye.

"Well done Team Seven. You've accomplished your first D-rank mission and joined the esteemed ranks of painters everywhere."

Sakura snorted in reluctant humour, covering her mouth with one hand. "So what's next, sensei?" the pink-haired girl asked after a moment, green shirt shifting when her hand dropped back to her side.

Scratching the back of his head in indecision. "Eh, Naruko and Sasuke are dismissed for the day. Same time, same place tomorrow. Sakura, you remain behind."

Rolling his eyes, Sasuke shuffled off with an aloof expression. Once it was clear that there was no more missions to accomplish, no training to be had, and no company needed to fend off Kakashi's sadistic interference, there was no reason to remain.

Naruko stared at Sakura's apprehensive face with a conflicted look of her own. After a month of their sensei's 'gentle attention' her instincts were screaming at her not to go off anywhere alone. But she supposed she knew where the other two lived if anything happened, and she had to start trusting the man again sometime if they were going to be a real team.

Dashing off in a blur of orange and yellow, the jinchuuriki left her teammate alone with their sensei.

Sakura swallowed nervously at the serious mien Kakashi adopted as soon as the other two genin faded from earshot. Ducking her head down to shade her face with her chin length hair, Sakura waited for whatever punishment she's unknowingly earned.

Frowning slightly at the way his mere presence could cause the preteen to shrink in upon herself, Kakashi decided that he would really have to work on their relationship. The Forest had been necessary for his students, but it wasn't easy for them. A squad couldn't operate with that kind of friction.

"Sakura, do you even want to be a kunoichi?"

* * *

(AN) 7200 words for this one. Hopefully I'll maintain this pace. It's definitely a nice roll if I do. This chapter rolled to a mix of _Kokuten_ and _Senya_.

I really should start studying though. I have my final in a week.

Anyway, I can't think of much in the reviews that need to be answered here. As for this chapter, it was all in good fun. As you see, I kept Tenzo around and merely shifted responsibility for his existence to Danzo. The conversation between Jiraiya and Orochimaru obviously implies Tsunade is _around_, which I'll confirm is true before I get a bunch of curious reviews about it.

The interaction with Team Seven is still very business-like in earlier parts of the chapter, though I did thaw it a bit in the end between Sakura and Naruko. The two have very similar personalities, and would probably get along well once they stop being at each other's throats. And considering that Naruko disliked Sakura only in response to Sakura's jealousy, which has gone round the drain because of the Forest, I hope I'm bleeding down the tension between them appropriately.

Real beginning friendship between those two is probably a couple of chapters off (and between Sasuke and anyone else even longer), though politeness, reciprocity for favours, and basic decency is blooming well. Naruko isn't the type to hold grudges either. Which is why she's even touching on friendly in the end there.

As for Kakashi's little moment, I just wanted to clear it up in case you took Kakashi's resolutions and actions as being driven by actually liking his students. He doesn't like them, or dislike them. He doesn't really have much personal attachment either way. But what Kakashi is attached to is idealism. He'll fight and bleed and die for the concept of his duty, which includes trying to get the best possible outcome for his team. Real affection between him and them is also a long way off.


	6. The Basics

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or anything. I don't make a profit from writing anything.**

**(AN)** I actually started this before posting chapter five, since that hanger at the end urged an immediate response.

* * *

"_You forge different bonds with friends than with family, tell different secrets._"

* * *

Sakura's head snapped up, green eyes flashing in shock and quickly igniting in anger. "What are you talking about?" the girl asked waspishly, fear forgotten. "Of course I do!"

Raising his hands up in a placating motion, Kakashi shook his head. "That came out wrong." The jounin admitted to the simmering genin.

A dark eye tracked across the training ground to settle on the garish red bridge. "Walk with me." He ordered, stepping past the pink-haired genin and striding towards the crossing with purpose.

Still fuming, Sakura trailed after the man. The nerve of him! She'd taken the oath just like any other shinobi of Konoha. She'd pulled her weight in all their exercises and fought him just as hard as either of her teammates. She wasn't weak.

A hand clamped down on her shoulder, manoeuvring the genin to stand beside Kakashi as the jounin gaze down into the gently flowing stream. "Besides putting my foot in my mouth, I do have something important to talk to you about Sakura." Kakashi began seriously. "After I gave my report to Hokage-sama about the growth and development of the team, he told me that unless you get over your fear of water within the next two weeks, you're off the team."

Staring up at the jounin aghast with an ashen face, Sakura shook her head numbly. "I'm not afraid of water, so there's no problem right? _Right_?"

Kakashi sighed wearily, patting the girl's pink locks. "You can't lie to me Sakura. I've seen all the signs. I can even feel you shaking just standing this close to the water." It was a bit of embellishing, as the Hatake could only feel the faintest rare tremor under his fingertips. But the little white lie would help push the girl into confronting her fear.

"I'd offer to help you, but this is more something for you to get over on your own." Kakashi motioned significantly to the clear stream. "I kept you here because this is a good place to start mastering your fear. Accept it, confront it, and then dismiss it. That's all I can offer you Sakura."

Raising his hand in a half seal, Kakashi gave the pale girl the most reassuring smile he could muster. "I believe in you. Work hard, and you will get through this. I'll always be available for advice if you need it." A small flare of chakra and the man was gone in a swirling of leaves.

Sakura blinked blankly at the place her sensei had been standing, before turning a dark glare on the clear water. How typical of adults. Put you in a situation, and then expect you to get yourself out of it. Kakashi had been nicer when most would have just told her to stop being a little crybaby. But still, was it too much to ask for some supervision and support?

"Emotional cripple." Sakura sighed, clenching her hands and driving away the almost automatic shake with short spikes of pain. She was being irrational, and her dreams were at jeopardy. The pink-haired girl gritted her teeth.

_Water in the lungs, burning her throats and driving the light away._

She took a shaky breath.

_Do you even want to be a kunoichi?_

Green eyes flashed fire, and Sakura stepped outward. Down she tumbled, breaking the smooth mirror surface and sinking into blue shadows.

* * *

Sasuke contained a yawn, taking in the smell of the early morning dew as he stood alone. Training Ground Three had been a part of his life for years. First with the early morning runs – his afternoon and evening runs took different routes – and then it seemed to be the ground of choice for his newly assigned team.

It was still cool, but the golden burn across the sky as dawn fell to its' end promised another murderously warm summer day. The country was named Hi no Kuni for several reasons, one of which must have been the beastly heights temperature could reach in the summers.

To complain outwardly or show his discomfort would be befitting of an Uchiha however, so Sasuke remained silent when Naruko trundled up. Unlike him, she had made concessions to the summer heat. Tube shorts, that odd mesh undershirt that it seemed every second shinobi favoured, and a garishly orange sleeveless shirt.

"Don't you ever tire of looking like a walking pumpkin?" Slipped from his lips without thought, causing the blonde to flush and shove her finger in his face.

"Don't you ever get tired of living life on the bland side bastard?" the Uzumaki retorted. Blue eyes flickered over the Uchiha's wardrobe and dismissed it as boring. Steel-blue was less common than dark green, but the sweatpants were practically Konoha standard issue. He even had bandages and a kunai pouch strapped to one leg like Iruka-sensei back in the academy. The shirt was just a plain black t-shirt.

"Fuck's sake." Naruko swore. "You're gonna roast in that today." Rolling her eyes at his grunt, Naruko folded arms and stared away with a pout. Sakura was nowhere to be seen either, and with two minutes to spare before 0700, the pink-haired girl was cutting it close.

Keeping an eye on her watch, Naruko shook her head as the minute had swung to 0700, and then to 0701. Sakura appeared in a rush of footsteps, crunching the grass beneath her heels as the pink-haired girl skidded to a stop beside the other two genin.

Clucking her tongue in fake disapproval, Naruko turned a heavy lidded gaze towards her teammate. "You're late Sakura, I'd almost think you weren't serious about being a ninja." The taunt came naturally, picked up over forced close proximity with Kakashi.

The blonde didn't expect the other girl to go white and give her a truly foul glare.

Holding up in hand peacefully, Naruko chuckled nervously. "It was just a joke, relax." The dark look in those green eyes abated after a moment, and the pink-haired girl turned away.

Taking the moment to study the Haruno, Naruko frowned in thought. Now that she actually took a moment to observe the other girl, it was clear that something had been eating at her. Dark circles curled under Sakura's eyes, speaking of a sleepless night. The plain red vest the other genin had zipped up to her chin was rumpled as if it had been thrown on in the last minute.

"Good morning minions." Broke over them cheerfully, startling Naruko to spin about and stare at Kakashi looming over his shoulder. Sasuke was barely visible at the corner of her vision with an audible scoff at her surprise, and Naruko stuck out her tongue.

"Only half an hour late this time sensei. You're getting better and better. Maybe some day you might even come on time if you really practice." The blonde snarked. "What's on the menu today, more painting? Maybe we'll get to take out some trash?"

Kakashi was quiet for a long moment, considering Sakura's haggard demeanor before coughing into his fist. "Well, nothing so grand today. We're going to get you started on taijutsu practice!"

"We did graduate the academy you know, sensei." Sakura muttered after a beat, only to squeal when Kakashi moved faster than their untrained eyes could see and kicked her legs out from under her.

"If you were well-trained in your hand-to-hand, you would have seen that, at least." Kakashi barked reprovingly, forming his hand into a familiar cross seal and spawning two Kage Bunshin with a practiced flex of chakra.

A clone stepped up to Sasuke, setting an iron grip on the boy's shoulder and steering him away to the other end of the training ground. Naruko was similarly accosted, thrown over the shoulder of the other clone and carried off in a whirl of complaints and threats.

The real Kakashi stayed with Sakura, watching his pink-haired student struggle painfully to her feet and regard him with a tired and wary expression.

* * *

"Use your Sharingan." Kakashi orders once they've moved far enough away from the others that sight of them is lost within the trees.

Red instantly swirls into Sasuke's eyes. The world sharpens, colours turning bright and vivid. Sasuke can see flecks of dust twisting through the air, blown along by the warm breeze. The engraved swirl in Kakashi's hitae-ate looks sharp enough to cut, and the Uchiha tilts his head in silent askance.

Nodding in approval, the Kage Bunshin steps away from the Uchiha. Once the Kakashi clone judged there to be sufficient space between them to prevent accidental dispelling, he turned back to Sasuke and folded his arms over his chest. "Show me your basic stance."

Sasuke hesitated a brief moment with indecision before sinking into the basic Academy-taught half squat. The form is textbook perfect. Engrained in his muscle memory after years of instruction provided to all students of the Konoha Ninja Academy. Appropriate for a genin with no experience, no specialization, and no background.

The style taught at the Academy was an all-rounder style that existed for the sole purpose of providing students and new graduates with somewhere to begin their careers as shinobi. It was not overly fast, or very slow. The strikes were not heavy, but nor were they light. It wass neutral, exhibiting neither aggressiveness nor defensiveness, with only stability as its' defining characteristic.

The Uchiha knows every movement and strike the style bounds. So he knows that when his feet move into position, that his Academy instructors would have praised him on how correct his motions were. But Sasuke sees the spark that lights in Kakashi's dark eye, and knows before the jounin even says it.

"That's wrong."

Twin dark spots swim through twin red pools, and Sasuke rises up. Dirt shuffles beneath the Uchiha's feet as he moves, shifting the positioning of his body from right angles to a forward lunge. Sasuke's new stance was sloppy, with all the hinting of something carefully practiced alone and without instruction, but seen many times.

All the neutrality of Sasuke's earlier stance is gone. Leaving only aggression. Strike first, strike hard, and strike once.

_Sekkendou_.

Kakashi moves closer, examining Sasuke's form carefully and noting all the minor imperfections that could fatally snowball in a real fight. Less than he'd seen in the boy a month prior – the growth in Forty-Four was more than purely mental.

Then he reaches out, settling hands on the Uchiha's shoulders and pushes ever-so-slightly down. _Closer to the ground._

Sasuke allows the jounin to lay hands on him, silent and ever observant with blazing crimson eyes. His feet are nudged straight. Elbows pushed tighter and further back. Head tilted forward and lower. Knees rotated.

Eventually Kakashi pulls up his hitae-ate, inspecting the genin's positioning with all the blazing clarity of a fully developed Sharingan. Satisfied, Obito's eye is hidden from sight under cloth and cool steel.

"Again." Kakashi orders, and Sasuke obeys. The Uchiha relaxes into a neutral stand, before sinking back down into the initial stance of his family's signature taijutsu.

Staring at the boy with an inscrutable dark eye, Kakashi motions Sasuke to relax again. The ready again. Over and over and over, Sasuke dips down and up, every motion carefully controlled with the corrections Kakashi had introduced. His legs begin to burn, sweat beading on his forehead as the pace of the impromptu exercise is increased.

Mistakes are met with a slashing comment, pointing out the _correct_ way to perform the motion. Sasuke grows more frustrated, more overheated, and more sweaty. Until Kakashi barks out "Enough!" long after the Uchiha has lost count of how often he's had to assume initial stance.

The jounin's dark eye runs over Sasuke's form, and then he grins like a wolf.

"Good."

* * *

Hatake Kakashi was a sadistic bastard Naruko decided as she collapsed to the ground face first, panting and gasping for air. Her clothes stuck to her body, adhering by the vaguely disgusting sensation of new sweat. Puffing away a small cloud of dirt in a final frustrated huff, the blond rolled back over and glared at her sensei.

Observing the girl with a bored mien, Kakashi waited for Naruko's breathing to normalize. Which occurred surprisingly quickly, the jounin concluded after waiting only a short minute for the mottled flush to vanish from the Uzumaki's face.

"You're too wasteful." The man proclaimed, chewing over the spar he'd managed to drag out of the girl over the course of the afternoon. "Your form is well-practiced and you know how to link move sets together appropriately." Lukewarm praise for the Rookie of the Year.

Kakashi's eye sharpened, staring down at Naruko with oppressive force and convincing her that remaining on the ground was perhaps safer than getting back up and pushing her luck further. "But you fail to reasonably grasp the philosophy behind the style and apply it."

Fisting his hand into Naruko's dirtied shirt, the Kage Bunshin hauled the protesting girl to her feet. "The Academy style was developed as a starting point for shinobi learning taijutsu. It tries to all round its' focus, being in the middle in terms of defensiveness and aggressiveness. The strikes aren't weak, but they aren't very powerful either. It's a form that ultimately only succeeds to being relatively stable and conserving energy."

The look of pure concentration on Naruko's face almost causes the jounin to stumble over his words when he recognizes it. Kakashi isn't sure whether to be pleased that the blonde apparently respected him enough, or at least feared him enough to take his instruction seriously. Or if he should be upset by other implications.

_Such as the notion that sincere instruction is so rare for his sensei's daughter that she can't help but be drawn in._

Taking a steady breath, Kakashi forces his eye into a crinkling smile. "You're too much of a hothead for that kid. You rush in from the start, giving it your all and trying to win through overpowering your opponent. That'll work on other scrubs like you," the jounin pauses to ruffle the blonde's messy strands. "But on someone like me, it's asking for trouble."

Naruko mulled that over for a moment. "So you're telling me I should hold back more?" the genin offered tentatively. It was the obvious conclusion to be made, but it didn't feel _right_ to her. Patience was something Naruko learned by effort – it didn't come naturally to her like it seemed to come to others. In order to be a good kunoichi the blonde was willing to force herself to slow down in a fight, but the thought didn't sit right in her gut.

"Not exactly." Kakashi returned, shoving his hands in his pockets and tracking an absent gaze over the slowly darkening sky. "You could do that, if you were going to apply the Academy style _right_. But in the end it's still the Academy style, and now that you're in _my_ hands it's my responsibility to teach you taijutsu forms appropriate for your temperament and abilities."

Waving a gloved hand in dismissal, the jounin gazed down on his student with a predatory smirk. "Go home Naruko." Kakashi ordered breezily. "Be here tomorrow at the same time, and by then I expect you to have decided how you want to fight with your taijutsu. Ja ne."

Vanishing in a puff of smoke, the Kage Bunshin left the blonde girl to trudge home alone deep in thought.

* * *

Peeling off her soaked clothes, Sakura tossed the bundle into the basket her mother had set out in the bathroom for dirtied clothes and stepped into the shower. The warm drizzle chased away the chill that had set deep into her limbs after a long day of dunking in and out of cool streams and sparring with Kakashi-sensei.

Fortunately – or unfortunately – she'd gotten the real man to teach her for the day, compared to her teammates who'd been dragged off by the jounin's Kage Bunshin. Which drove the pink-haired girl to suspect that their sensei was pushing her a lot harder than he'd pushed the other two genin. Considering that apparently she was the only one in danger of being booted off the squad, it made sense.

Sakura scowled darkened. Squeezing out a dollop of strawberry shampoo into her palm and massaging it roughly into her scalp, the girl bit her lip in frustration. It was absurdly unfair for the Hokage to single her out for the scars Kakashi had inflicted on her during their little _vacation_ in the Forest of Death.

As if the other two didn't have odd little ticks developed over that month. The Uchiha still walked through the village with tense shoulders and careful sweeping eyes as if someone was out to get him, where Naruko was more subdued and suspicious of people than she'd ever seen the other girl over their years as classmates.

Still, what was done was done. Sakura sighed mournfully, leaning forward to allow the warm spray to wash away the soap and her worries from her skull. Two weeks were what the Hokage had given her, and the Haruno would be damned if she'd fail the test. Pale fists clenched.

She still remembered a childhood of modest opulence, growing up soft and cherished by a jolly merchant and his softer wife. Haruno Kizashi had matured into a social climber, and once upon a time a soft little pink-haired girl had stumbled over negotiations for a betrothal with some minor nobility.

A bit of desperate pleading and deliberate deception on the part of a six year old girl had gotten Sakura enrolled in the Ninja Academy, and after that the Haruno family's soft little girl belonged to Konohagakure's military. Her parents found out too late that the government protected its' own, and she was not going to be sold to anyone.

And even if Sakura could have been, a kunoichi was too rough and unladylike for a proper noble wife in Hi no Kuni's feudal families. Mebuki and Kizashi had never truly forgiven Sakura for that lie when they realized their daughter had known all along how kunoichi outside of contracted clans were regulated.

Sakura wasn't sure she wanted them to. Better a dog of the military than a brood mare for her father's social standing.

Turning off the tap with a twist of thin fingers, Sakura shook the droplets of water from her hair and stepped out onto the pale tiles of the bathroom floor. Cool air brushed her naked flesh, sending her hair standing on end before the Haruno was able to fish a towel out from under the sink and wrap it around her chilled form.

Wandering back to her room, Sakura chewed a nail in thought. Burdens of the Hokage aside, Kakashi had set his own burdens on her as well. Decide on the way she wanted to fight physically.

Unlike many of her more intellectually limited peers, Sakura had been aware from the first day she'd been taught taijutsu that she would move on to a form more specialized for her strengths. Or weaknesses.

Decisions, decisions...

* * *

Naruko winced at the pulling of already scabbed over cat scratches as she pressed a yowling furball in the general direction of some fat noblewoman. Every muscle in her body ached – her bruises probably had bruises, for the sake of all that was holy.

D-ranks truly had become a mixed blessing, taking up one day a week with various utterly mind-numbing assignments. Buy some old man groceries. Paint fences or walls. Walk a horde of dogs around the village. Chase down a cat that didn't want to go home. From what Sakura passed along to her, the other teams did such things five mornings a week, which Naruko wanted no part of.

But in exchange for getting her ass kicked by Kakashi the other six, it was beginning to look like an attractive option. Six days of a week of continuous taijutsu practice was wearing all of them down, not even considering the extra assignments they were forced to undertake outside of it.

Naruko was beginning to question if Kakashi had ever heard of time off.

Tuning out the profuse thanks the fat woman directed at her sheepish and unfailingly polite sensei, the blonde wheeled about and caught Sasuke blinking away the tired strain in his constantly red eyes. Since the day after their first D-rank mission, the Uchiha had been cheerfully commanded to keep the Sharingan activated at all times in order to increase Sasuke's endurance at using the doujutsu.

It made Naruko glad she had no bloodline talent of her own to be hounded into training all hours of the day. But maybe the training Kakashi was giving her in a martial arts style he'd called _Goken_ was a fair trade.

Sasuke didn't have _near_ the amount of bruising she did, and the blonde doubted he'd ever gotten one of his bones cracked in the taijutsu training he was getting. Whatever it was. _Stupid super secret sensei_.

"Wasn't that fun?" Kakashi beamed at the three, who glared sourly at him. Three D-ranks in one day was enough, the jounin decided as he ruffled a blonde mop in one hand and a raven one in the other. Indignant squawks were brushed off as the jounin weighed over what to do with the last few hours of the afternoon.

Teamwork building it was.

Moving from one end of the room to the other in a blur, Kakashi grinned over his shoulder. "Come along my cute little students!"

Growling under their breaths, the three genin filed after their commanding officer as he led them back into the village streets.

The jounin flipped out his lurid orange book of smut, staring at the pages but not truly reading them as he navigated his team through the streets of Konoha deep in thought. The past few weeks had seen his students grow slowly but steadily, Sasuke's _Uchiha Sekkendou_ forms smoothing out as Kakashi forced the broody boy to unlearn the hundreds of minor mistakes gained from self-teaching.

Naruko's determination and attentiveness was surprising, given how energetic the blonde girl could become and how like Obito she seemed to Kakashi. The Uzumaki took to the _Konoha Goken_ like a duck to water after introduced to it. A style to 'kick ass and take names' indeed.

It was with pleasure that the Hatake had been able to report positive improvement in terms of Sakura's aversion to water. The girl still didn't love to spend her time swimming around in it, and Kakashi doubted the pink-haired girl ever would. But it was enough to persuade the Sandaime into allowing the girl to remain on Team Seven.

Initiating Sakura into aikido was a touch more difficult than instructing the other two, as the philosophy of reflection seemed to sit ill with the pink-haired girl. The Haruno was more direct and aggressive in personality, but the choice of style had been her's. Perhaps one day when the girl's physical strength was greater the jounin could push her towards a style better suited for her temperament.

Shaking off the thoughts, Kakashi spun about and swung into a low bow. "Welcome to an establishment of true class!" The jounin declared dramatically, smirking when three pairs of suspicious eyes panned up to stare at a faded sign emblazoned with _Shushuya_.

Sasuke merely gave a sigh in defeat, rolling crimson eyes and slouching as he plodded off into the restaurant. Sakura and Naruko stepped after him with mutinous looks, leaving Kakashi to bring up the rear as the four filed into the dim golden glow of the pub.

Giving the bartender a wave, Kakashi shoved his students along until they reached a corner booth. The jounin spared a moment to turn away and tell a vaguely familiar brown-haired waitress that he was looking for "Four of the usual." Before squeezing into the booth next to Naruko.

Sakura covered her mouth as the pink-haired girl gave a tired yawn, knuckling green eyes and accidently jostling Sasuke in the process.

Shooting an annoyed glare at his teammate, the Uchiha folded his arms over his chest and pinned the jounin sensei with a dark frown. "Is this going to become a habit of your's, _sensei_?" The last word resentfully bit out as Sasuke superficially adopted the politeness Kakashi enforced on him during training for no better reason than personal amusement.

Kakashi reached over and patted dark locks condescendingly anyway. "Of course, Sasuke-chan. We'll be here every Friday after missions."

"Well I for one am glad we came here." Naruko cut in, rubbing a hungry stomach and staring longingly across the pub at an already served pair of kunoichi. "When's the food gonna get here, huh?"

Declaring "You had _better_ be paying." With a huff, Sakura propped her head up on her elbow and stared into space. Until Kakashi gave her a kick under the table and smiled back at her green glare.

The waitress bustled back over to their table, unloading several plates of yakitori and a jug of tea Giving the jounin a plastic smile, the teen girl bowed "Thank you for your patronage."

Slapping Naruko's greedy hand away from the food when the blonde reached out for it, Kakashi waved the waitress off and favoured Sasuke with a crinkled smile. "Well grunts, before we get started I wanted us to have a little fun team exercise. The loser has to sit here and watch the rest of us eat."

Pointing at the Haruno, the jounin smiled ferally. "Sakura, you introduce Sasuke. Naruko, introduce Sakura. Sasuke, you introduce Naruko."

Furrowing her brow in thought, Naruko turned her whiskered face towards the silver-haired man and wiped a touch of hungry drool away with a furtive hand. "What, you mean like that shit we did on the first day we met?"

The three genin stared at each other in silent trepidation, until Kakashi kicked Sasuke under the table and spurring the Uchiha to grit out "Uzumaki Naruko. She likes ramen. She dislikes..." Trailing off, Sasuke cast about in the recesses of his memory. "Cooking." The boy settled on. "Her dream is make friends."

Wilting in her seat at the answer that was _technically_ correct but sounded so pathetic and lonely when put like that, Naruko pouted sullenly. "Haruno Sakura. She likes her friends, dislikes me, and wants to be the most powerful kunoichi."

"I don't dislike you that much." Sakura muttered under her breath, ignoring the way Naruko perked up and scratched idly at the table. "Uchiha Sasuke. He dislikes everything, likes nothing, and wants to kill some guy."

Kakashi chuckled at the offended expression that exploded on Sasuke's face when the pink-haired girl reduced _Uchiha Itachi_ to _some guy_. Drawing out his considering hum for the sake of watching Naruko grow ever more hungry and desperate, the jounin finally shrugged with all the detachment of a monk. "Well I guess you all learned something about each other. So I'll let you off this time. Dig in."

"Yatta!" Naruko howled, punching a fist into the air and reaching out for a stick of yakitori. Sakura piled food on her own plate more quietly but with no less enthusiasm. After a drawn out moment, Sasuke just shook his head and reached out himself.

Wrapping hands around a warm cup of tea, Kakashi allowed his eye to crinkle into a true smile. _Yes, they were learning.  
_

* * *

**(AN):** 4500 words or so. Shortest chapter yet, but there's little you can expect from something called _The Basics_. Which is about exactly what it says on the tin. I'm managing to finish this up in between studying for exams and reading stuff for my own enjoyment.

I felt it was needed to have this even though it might feel like filler to you guys. It's setting the stage for the three to begin deviating into their own specialized skill sets. And even if it's for something as _basic_ – and in terms of fanon, unexciting – as taijutsu, it's the place to start that. Ninjutsu and genjutsu are cool and flashy and all, but the real basic fighting of a shinobi is their taijutsu. And with Sharingan no Kakashi as their teacher, they can be molded into appropriate skill sets for it. That other stuff comes later as their skills improve, but right now it's their taijutsu that will keep them alive and let them win on _actual_ C-rank missions against bandits and other thugs. It also sets out the weekly schedule and hints at time passing.

June – Graduation

July – Forest of Death

August – a few weeks so far of training every day, except for D-ranks on Fridays and now eating out on Fridays.

As you can see, I've adopted a name for the styles they're learning.

_Uchiha Sekkendou – _Which is supposed to translate to "Way of the Intercepting Fist" is the Uchiha clan's counterpart to the Hyuuga Jyuuken. Kakashi picked it up the same way he picks everything up – by observing his teammates and enemies with the Sharingan, and now passes it along to Sasuke.

_Konoha Goken_ – Konoha's Strong Fist, which is what Gai and Lee use in canon. Kakashi knows it, though he doesn't use it himself. As an actual taijutsu style, it makes sense for Naruko since it's a Hard and External style that doesn't rely on anything but stamina and strength. In this fic, just like in real life, _le ebin unpredictable street brawler_ would get his shit kicked in, which is just one of the oddities of fanon but one which I'm not going to adopt.

_Aikido_ – which in terms of this fic is just a generalized, internationally known taijutsu style that's good for kunoichi because of the redirection it's based on. Sakura asked for something based on her current physical weakness, but as she grows she'll likely decide to learn something else. All of the Sannin developed their own taijutsu styles, and down the line Sakura will probably exclusively use Tsunade's so it's not a big deal to find an interim style for her.

**On why Team Seven doesn't do D-ranks more than once a week**: Because they don't _need_ to, or _want_ to. Think about it, Kakashi himself is probably wealthy if not stinking rich from a long career in ANBU doing S-ranks (remember, even an A-rank was more than Tazuna's _entire_ _village_ could apparently afford, even if it _was_ poor).

Sasuke is likely similarly well off, as his parents were both head of the clan ( probably getting a generous stipend at the time, plus the perks of inheriting the wealth of any dead Uchiha through the generations that had no near next of kin) and former ninja (had savings built up from their career. Toss in Itachi's probably substantial wealth that would have been seized by Konoha after his 'treachery', and Sasuke is probably sitting on a good bit of money himself.

Plus, like Naruko he's going to draw from the orphan fund (which would exist in a military village for military orphans). Naruko would probably be listed in records as Kushina's daughter and have inherited her stuff in some trust fund (and much of Minato's via some Sarutobi book fudging). Plus whatever support her Godfather (one of the Sannin) gives her, which is probably paying her rent and bills himself.

Ironically it's Sakura hardest hit, since the only money she personally would have would be allowance from her (wealthy) parents.

So none of them _need_ to do D-ranks to pay the bills, and Kakashi gets more benefit out of training them harder and longer instead of wasting time on missions they don't actually need to do. The only purpose D-ranks have for Team Seven is for Kakashi to evaluate their team work in a controlled setting. And while the Hokage could assign missions in a military village, D-ranks aren't of a high enough importance to specifically request Team Seven's skill set (which is not specialized at this point anyway).

Reviews: "I think the three genin would gleefully leave him to his death the first time he was in trouble against another enemy jounin: you can't put people through two weeks of fear and expect them to ever trust or like you ever again. It's unrealistic."

While that's a fair point, I'll correct you first that it was a month in the Forest of Death.

Secondly, you underestimate the human psyche. Mixing the torture and kindness like that will actually generate positive will and loyalty towards the abuser. That's how abuse in real life works actually.

Convinced that the shit they're put through is for their own good, and treated with relative kindness outside of it, coupled with actual noticeable improvements in their skills and the tapering off of the initial abuse, it's not difficult at all to see how they could become attached. Remember that these kids have also likely been conditioned since they were six or seven to _expect_ and respond positively under that kind of stress, it's almost foregone.

Sure, they won't initially love him. In fact, they're going to have initial conditions and instincts of fear towards him, but that eventually gets trained out of them as they work together and as Kakashi gives them emotional support. It's not like these kids were healthy in the first place. In real life, they'd be prime abuse targets because they'd be easily pushed to accept it as part of their validation. Humans need other people.

I'll preempt anyone growling about stealing "Dog of the Military" from Fullmetal Alchemist. I'm perfectly aware of where it comes from. But I'll use it. It's an interesting term and I can see how one might even apply it in real life.


End file.
