Naruto: Dreaming of Sunshine

Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success. ~ Henry Ford

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Iruka-sensei dismissed us for what was, in all actuality, a very long lunch break seeing as how we had only come to the Academy for team assignments anyway. I think it may have been a subtle way of saying 'bow to the whims of your superiors, no matter how nonsensical'. He had said 'get to know your team mates' but we'd all been in the same classes for the past seven years; it wasn't like we didn't know each other. Then again, given the Naruto-Sasuke combination, that didn't necessarily equate to being friends.

"Umm, did you want to eat lunch together?" I asked softly. "I have extra lunch." Mum had made extra lunch for the sole purpose of sharing with our team mates. Nothing quite breaks the ice like free food.

Naruto lit up like Christmas had come early. "Awesome! Your mum makes the best bento! Hey, why don't we go find Shikamaru? He's on Chouji's team, right?" He grabbed my arm and started dragging. Given that's how I usually get Shika to move, I acknowledged the irony.

"Sasuke?" I queried, sticking my feet to the floor against Naruto's tugging. He clearly didn't intend to come with us. "Will you please come?"

I could see the 'don't get in my way' written on his face. He clearly didn't like being put on a three person team, and certainly not with Naruto. I found it interesting that he didn't seem to have expected the teams.

Now that I thought about it… it wasn't something that had been covered in the Academy explicitly. It was just… there. Implicit in everything; ninja work in teams. Something you just knew from family, from stories. It wasn't something that you got told.

Which left a lot of people out in the cold, civilian kids, orphans… they'd have no idea of the 'unspoken rules'. I hadn't even realised there were any.

Naruto groaned. "Aww, why do you want him to come for? It's bad enough he has to be on our team… hey, do you think Iruka-sensei would let us swap him? Maybe for Sakura-chan, yeah, that'd be great!"

Sasuke scowled. "Fine," he bit out, probably just out of spite.

I felt like sighing and let Naruto drag me outside. Trying to keep the peace between these two was going to cause a headache and a half. And that isn't even mentioning trying to get them to work together.

Lunch was trying. Finding Shika also meant finding Ino, who spent the entire time fussing over Sasuke, who got increasingly irritated and sniped at Naruto. Naruto shouted back. It was hardly a calming, relaxing 'getting to know you'.

Hmm. It might have been cleverer to reduce the amount of time we spent together to avoid getting on each others nerves. Then, again, I suspected we would have plenty of time after lunch to annoy each other as well.

We went back to class and the other teams were collected one by one. Asuma Sarutobi collected team ten, looking completely unbothered, and Kurenai Yuhi, looking neatly professional, escorted team eight out of the classroom. A jounin I didn't recognise took Sakura with team one. Then it was just us. Iruka-sensei looked flustered and checked his watch.

"I've got to be at the mission desk in ten minutes. You'll be alright waiting for your Jounin-sensei?" he asked.

We assured him we would. Or rather, Sasuke grunted, I nodded and Naruto chattered loudly about how there was nothing that he couldn't do.

I'd brought a book with me, as I did very nearly every day. It was a thick and heavy text book on Metabolic Biochemistry. Chemistry had never been my forte, but everything was subtly different here, with the inclusion of chakra cycles. Chakra wasn't stored as ATP as the rest of energy in the body was, it was … well, no one actually knew. It manifested mostly as light, so it was hypothesised to be stored as electromagnetic or some other waveform energy, but that was starting to get into physics beyond my understanding.

Sasuke was, of course, capable of waiting patiently, even if it was with bad grace. Naruto, however, was bored long before Iruka left, and without the commanding glare of his teacher, started investigating the class room. He opened draws and cupboards, peered behind shelves, and leaned so far out the window he nearly fell out. The teachers knew better than to leave anything in the classrooms, and there wasn't really enough there to keep him entertained.

I thought about suggesting he read a book, but rejected the idea. I certainly didn't have anything that he would be interested in, and it was doubtful he'd brought anything with him.

Then again, I thought watching him prop the blackboard eraser on top of the door, it's not like he's destroying the room.

Sasuke snorted in disgust. "No half decent Jounin is going to fall for that." It was clear he was bored and itching for a fight.

I felt a … shiver in the air. The amount of ambient chakra just increased, as though someone had used a jutsu.

What-?

There was someone in the corridor. I ignored Sasuke and Naruto arguing and watched the door as it slid open, the eraser falling to land perfectly on a mop of white hair.

There was an instant of silence.

"Bwahahaha," Naruto howled. "You fell for it! I can't believe it! Take that Sasuke. I am the prank master!"

Kakashi looked… harmless. A bit silly, a bit eccentric, like a harmless old man. I caught myself writing him off as no threat. I was impressed. I knew that he was one of the best ninja in Konoha, that he had the Sharingan and would unlock the Magenkyo. I knew he had made Jounin at thirteen, which is impressive any way you look at it. And I still nearly wrote him off as harmless.

That was impressive.

I didn't have much hard data on Kakashi. What I knew was mostly hazy memories from so long ago. Although I definitely had an information network in Ino, our social circles didn't overlap with Jounin at all. Our teachers social circles didn't overlap with Jounin at all. The most I had was some throwaway lines from dad, some unconfirmed rumours of varying quality and a single bingo book page from Cloud.

Bingo book pages are odd things. Originally, they started as a way to keep track of missing-nin from your own village. Then they expanded to missing-nin of other villages. Then shinobi of extreme skill made their way onto those pages, more as a warning than as a target. Any ninja listed in a bingo book who is still affiliated with their village has at least a rank of 'Caution; extreme danger'. The Yellow Flash is famous for being listed as 'Flee on Sight'. Information on bingo book pages is notoriously spotty. In a way, that had been one of the trickiest things for me to learn, coming as I did from a world where information is only the touch of a button away. But information is gold here, and guarded just as well.

Dad had encouraged us to read the Konoha issue bingo book, and he certainly had purloined copies from every other major nation that he hadn't forbidden us from reading. If he really didn't want us to touch them, we wouldn't have even known they were there.

Kakashi - Kakashi-sensei, I suppose - had made Genin at five, Chunin at six and Jounin at thirteen. He was the son of Sakumo Hatake, the White Fang of Konoha, and taught by the Fourth Hokage himself. He had the Sharingan eye and was known as the Copy-Nin for his prowess at using it to copy ninjutsu. He was part of ANBU for anywhere between five and ten years, and Captain rank for probably at least half that. He had a lightning element affinity, though could use all five to great effect (which alone made him extremely dangerous) and invented the Chidori/Raikiri and in his hands it was ranked an S-rank One Hit Kill technique.

All this, I knew. And looking at the man standing in the doorway, I could see no trace of it. Not in his stance, not in his eye, not in his chakra. It was almost like it was a completely different person.

Oh, he is good.

"My first impression," he said flatly. "I don't like you."

I flinched. Ouch.

"Meet me on the roof in five minutes," he said, vanishing in a puff of chakra smoke. The Body Flicker, high speed movement that looked to the untrained eye like teleportation. There were two versions of it, a shorter less controlled combat version, and the longer version most ninja used for transport. I could manage a straight line combat Body Flicker, but using it as transport meant avoiding obstacles which was very difficult when you were moving faster than the eye could see.

As it was, five minutes was more than enough time to get to the roof using more mundane methods like taking the stairs.

"Great," Kakashi-sensei said, perching on the railing as we sat across from him. "Now we can all introduce ourselves." There was a long awkward silence. "You know, likes, dislikes, hobbies, dreams for the future?"

Sasuke sighed, apparently resigned to going first. "My name is Sasuke Uchiha. I have a lot of dislikes, but it doesn't matter since there is almost nothing I like. My dream for the future… no, my ambition is to revive my clan, and to kill a certain man."

There was something horrifying about listening to a twelve year old declare intent to murder in a perfectly emotionless tone. And it seemed like I was the only one affected by it.

"I'm Naruto Uzumaki! What I like is ramen, especially the kind at the Ichiraku Ramen shop. What I dislike is the three minute wait after you pour in the boiling water. My hobbies are eating ramen. And my dream... is to be the next Hokage!" He jumped up, finger pointing to emphasise the greatness of … either the Hokage or ramen. Probably ramen, knowing Naruto.

"My name is Shikako Nara. I like my family and the deer. I dislike people yelling. My hobbies are reading and … helping out at the clan workshops. My dream…" I hesitated.

As I gave the basic introduction, my voice was quiet, and trembled just a little. Public speaking of any kind, even in front of only a few people, had always afflicted me with nerves. It was something that I had no control over, something that defied any sort of reasoning. No matter how much I repeated to myself that nothing would happen, that there was nothing scary about talking to people, still my voice would shake.

The boys probably didn't notice it, but Kakashi-sensei undoubtable did. I wonder what he thought of it; did he think I had low self-esteem, did he think I was shy, did he think anything of it at all?

My dream is to be special. I almost said it, but I looked up at just the wrong moment. Kakashi-sensei looked bored but patient, but the two boys didn't even appear to be paying attention.

How stupid did that sound?

"doesn't matter," I finished, quieter than even before.

"Great," Kakashi-sensei said, clapping his hands together like we hadn't just revealed what a collection of walking neuroses we were. "My name is Kakashi Hatake, my likes and dislikes don't matter and you're too young to know my hobbies. Now that we all know each other, I get to tell you about what we're going to be doing tomorrow."

"Yeah!" Naruto bounced to his feet. "Are we going on a mission? Do we get to rescue a princess? Or fight enemy ninja? I'm totally ready for it!"

Kakashi-sensei chuckled darkly. A creeping whisper of chakra wanted me to believe the sky was darkening. I isolated the genjutsu probe and got rid of it with a shudder. It felt like static electricity on my insides.

"Oh, it's a mission alright," he said ominously. "A survival mission."

Naruto stopped bouncing, apparently clueing in on the projected atmosphere. "A… survival mission?"

"You see," sensei said. "even though you've graduated the Academy, you aren't real ninja just yet. Of the twenty seven students who graduated, only nine will go on to be shinobi. You still have to pass my test. The test which has a sixty six percent failure rate."

He leaned back, looking pleased at Naruto's spluttering and Sasuke's sudden focused expression.

"Meet me at Training Ground Three at five o'clock tomorrow morning. Training is going to be harsh, so I'd recommend not eating breakfast unless you want to throw it up." Eating right before exercises could lead to problems, but not eating had it's own traps. Besides, its not like ninja could just not eat on missions, which was where small, bland and regular snacks came in at least half an hour before exercise.

He vanished in another Body Flicker, leaving leaves to litter the roof top.

I wandered home. Given that we'd wasted three hours waiting for Kakashi-sensei to show up, Shikamaru was long done. Father had an amused smirk on his face and I knew that he knew exactly who our Jounin-sensei was. I wanted to level a dirty scowl at him but didn't - it was hardly his fault.

"So how did it go?" Mum wanted to know.

I shrugged. "Okay. We have a test tomorrow. Sensei said we'd probably be doing heavy exercise." I didn't add his recommendation to not eat, mum and dad were both ninja and they knew how to eat for missions. "I'll probably put together a mission pack later. I don't know what we'll be doing."

"Alright. Let me know if you need any help, okay?" she said.

I nodded affirmative.

"A test?" Shikamaru drawled. "What for?"

I frowned. "You didn't get one? Sensei said most of the graduates would fail and go back to the Academy."

"It's a Jounin's choice as to whether or not to give the test," Dad explained. "And as to what test to give. Asuma probably didn't think it necessary."

I snickered. "Or knew that the likelihood of Shika completing it was inversely proportional to the amount of effort involved."

"A test would have been too troublesome," Shikamaru declared, flopping backwards to stare at the sky. I'm pretty sure he said it as a joke. If he had been given a test, I have no doubt he would have at least given it a try. Then again, with Team Ten, the bell test would have fallen over before it even began. Chouji would never take something that could help someone else, Shika wouldn't care to compete with anyone and Ino had a good heart under her sometimes abrasive exterior. Not to mention, the only way they would be able to take on Asuma would be together.

Which begged the question of how I was going to get my hodge-podge team to work together.

The thought tumbled over in my mind as I packed my mission gear. Intense exercise meant I didn't want to be carrying a lot, which was where sealing scrolls came in. They could still get pretty bulky, but a small scroll still stored more than I could comfortably carry otherwise. I couldn't be entirely certain that Kakashi would stick to the same plot as the show, but I very much doubted the test would last longer than a day, so I could leave behind my camping gear. I'd want combat gear, trap setting tools, water bottles, ration bars, a med-kit and probably a book for however long we had to wait for him to show up. I hesitated, then doubled the number of ration bars - I wasn't sure what Sasuke and Naruto would do, but they might have taken Kakashi-sensei's words seriously.

The fact that he'd given such bad advice made me frown. Can't trust your teacher. You've got to think about the orders you were given or you might end up doing something you don't like.

Apparently some lessons need reinforcing over and over again.

In the morning, I was at the training fields well before the allotted time. Given that my sensei is Kakashi, its rather perverse I'm pedantically punctual. I arrive early. If others don't show up on time I start to think that I'm in the wrong place. I get rather nervous and agitated. In this instance, I took a walk around the training field. There was a rather large clearing with three posts and the Memorial Stone, bordered by a river and a forest. The forest was pretty much standard Konoha fare - large, widely spaced trees, plenty of shrublike undergrowth, and meandering paths. I made a quick check to see if there were any preset traps - either by sensei or left from other training sessions - but I found nothing. I didn't want to risk setting any of my own before I knew what was happening.

By the time I'd made it back to the clearing Naruto and Sasuke were both there and ignoring each other. I did a quick chakra sweep but even if sensei had been there I'm pretty sure he could have hid from me, I might have unusual chakra sensitivity but he was a Jounin for a reason.

"Good morning," I greeted quietly. Sasuke grunted. Naruto yawned. This was not a team of morning people.

I sat and pulled out my book to start reading.

"Sooo hungry," Naruto moaned about an hour later.

I peered over my book. "Didn't you have breakfast?" I asked curiously, suspecting the answer.

"Are you crazy?" Naruto answered. "Kakashi-sensei said not to or we'd throw it up!"

I nodded. "Mmm. Its true that if you eat right before exercises you might get sick or stitch. But some missions can last a few weeks, right? So ninja have to be able to eat on missions."

He stared at me. "That's right! I totally didn't think of that. So how…?"

"Well," I said. "You should always leave at least half an hour or longer between eating and heavy exercise. And you should eat things that are high in carbohydrates but low in proteins and fats because they take longer to digest. Things like fruits or cereals."

I noticed Sasuke was also listening. That was good, I didn't like the idea that my team mates didn't know something like this. I pulled my sealing scroll out and unravelled it, locating the symbol that I had stored the ration bars in. With a quick application of chakra, it released a small pile of bars; it was a good thing I had the foresight to bring extra. They were pretty much standard ration bars that any ninja family brought in bulk.

"Here," I said quietly, dividing out a few bars for each of them. "It's only for today though," I cautioned Naruto. "Next time you'll have to bring your own."

Sasuke looked like he wanted to refuse them, maybe out of pride, maybe for some other reason. I pushed them in his direction and resealed the rest of them before going back to my book. Common sense and a hungry stomach won out over pride and stubbornness and after a second, he came closer and picked them up.

It was a very quiet morning as we waited for sensei to show up. That suited me just fine.

"Good morning!" a cheery voice called several hours later.

Naruto leapt to his feet. "YOU'RE LATE!" he hollered.

I flinched away from the explosion of noise. Naruto certainly had a good pair of lungs. I took that as my cue to seal my book away. It was from the clan library and I didn't really want it getting damaged.

"Well, a black cat crossed my path so I had to take the long way."

He… actually used excuses like that. I almost couldn't believe it. If he used excuses like that on everyone else-

I frowned. If he did then what? When you were an elite Jounin you could get away with a hell of a lot, being late included. It wasn't like there was anyone that could call him on it except maybe the Jounin Commander and the Hokage and even then they'd probably hold off until it was an important issue. I shook the thought off. It was irrelevant.

"Well, then. Let's get started." He dropped an old fashioned alarm clock on a tree stump and set it. "Here we go. It's set for noon. Your assignment is very simple. You just have to take these bells from me. That's all there is to it. If you can't get a bell, you go without lunch. You'll get tied to those post and watch while I eat my lunch in front of you."

"So that's why you told us not to eat breakfast!" Naruto shouted, pointing at him. I wondered if he'd made the same connection I had last night to the Mizuki situation. With Naruto, it was a tossup.

"There are only two bells." Sasuke was the one to point out the obvious 'flaw' in this arrangement.

Kakashi-sensei smiled. "That way, one of you will ultimately end up tied to the post and disqualified for failing to complete the mission. That one goes back to the Academy." He jingled the bells and added thoughtfully. "Then again, all three of you could flunk out too. You can use any weapons you have. If you aren't prepared to kill me, you wont be able to take the bells."

Kakashi was more than good enough to defeat us. We'd have to get insanely lucky to even get close to landing a killing blow. That wasn't the point. It was about intention. If your intention was weak, your blows were weak. You would question your purpose. Your actions would falter. You would fail. And if you failed, there was no point.

Do or do not, there is no try.

I swallowed, and then declared, "Troublesome. When we get the bells, you two can have them." Of course, it was more an if than a when, but it was the statement that counted. I could have sworn I saw Kakashi-sensei's eye twitch. I didn't want to have to come up against my team-mates, and if I could pre-empt the competition and get us working together -

"So, sensei," I continued, trying to keep my voice steady. "Can we have the bells?" It was implied we'd have to fight for them, but there are always other options. I'd rather settle things peacefully.

He stared. "No."

I shrugged a little shakily. "Worth a try. What would it take for you to give up the bells?" It wasn't like I had anything worth bribing him with anyway, but I thought I better put in a token effort. Always try and solve a problem diplomatically first. I noticed that Sasuke looked a little… surprised, if not approving.

"You'll have to take them by force." He smiled. "Now, when I say 'start' we can begin."

I dropped my voice low. Of course Kakashi could probably still hear me, he wasn't that far away, but that wasn't the point. "Naruto, make thirty clones and try and keep sensei in the clearing. Sasuke, you're best at close combat so I want you to wait for Naruto to make an opening." It wasn't much of a plan. As a Nara, I was probably expected to know, right down to the number of steps, just what moves everyone would make. I didn't. That's me - the Nara without a plan.

For a second, I thought they wouldn't listen then both boys nodded. It wasn't that either of them liked taking orders, but neither of them had anything planned and couldn't see the harm in it. Hopefully, I had established myself as worth listening to this morning. Maybe not as a leader, but at least as someone who knew something.

"Well, then," Kakashi-sensei said. "Start."

Sasuke leapt away into the foliage, and Naruto had thirty clones encircling Kakashi-sensei in an instant. Sensei replied by taking out his book. The clones acted just like Naruto would have at someone ignoring them - infuriated. Naruto himself was about to leap in to combat as well, but I grabbed his arm.

"Make another ten clones and start spreading traps in the trees. Be careful of Sasuke, though," I hissed to him. He nodded, a little disappointed to not be fighting, but he liked setting traps. He was reasonably good at it, too, if you could get him to take it seriously.

Me, I had started using my Shadow Possession Jutsu almost immediately. I had chosen to stand in an area that was marginally shady. It wasn't really noticeable, particularly because my chakra enhanced shadow stood out blackly on it, but it did give me a little boost. Mostly, I had sent my shadow out to circle around Kakashi-sensei using the clones shadows. I wanted to entrap him and then catch him. Leaping across the shadow was just as good as having it grab you.

Of course, Kakashi-sensei probably knows more about the Shadow Possession Jutsu than I do. He's just that kind of person. In response to my tactics, he started popping the clones. Mostly he'd just been dodging them, letting them dog pile each other. Now he popped one here, one there, all at critical points where my shadow was already spread thin. It snapped. I drew back, and tried to send it in to catch him.

He kept dodging, both my shadow and the clones with such ease that he didn't even have to put his book away. Grudgingly, I admired him.

Then I started pelting him with kunai and shuriken. I threw them precise and angled, so that they wouldn't go stray and hit the clones. I couldn't be one hundred percent sure that Naruto hadn't joined in the fight. I was no Tenten, but Nara were mostly ranged fighters, so we did practice our throwing religiously.

He used a replacement jutsu, and the knives 'thunked' precisely into a log of wood. Of course, of course, he'd replaced himself just underneath where Sasuke was hiding. It was the perfect moment for him to attack and they both knew it. Sasuke fell for the bait.

It's hard to say he should have done otherwise, but it was so clearly done on purpose. The whole entire training grounds, and he lands there? Not a chance in hell.

I had withdrawn my shadow and it pooled around my feet in a nearly normal position. It was nearly noon and the sun was high so it took a lot of chakra to extend it very far. I started a basic Vertigo Genjutsu, but Sensei didn't so much as falter. Sasuke had the Naruto's backing him, but they nearly caused more problems for him than for Kakashi. There were just too many limbs trying to move in too small a space.

Still, he kept him occupied, and got off a single ninjutsu. The Naruto clones ducked and dived, and a few of them popped, as the huge fireball seemed to surround Kakashi. There was momentary panic as we lost him, but I was sure he wouldn't go far from the fight. This wasn't a tracking exercise.

Then Sasuke was yanked viciously underground, leaving his head sticking out of the dirt.

"Second lesson: Ninjutsu," Kakashi-sensei announced, brushing off his hands.

Then he was standing right in front of me. He'd crossed the clearing so fast I hadn't even seen him move. I didn't see the sucker punch either, and it felt like being hit with a ton of bricks. I gasped, I choked, no air made it into my lungs. According to Welfare measures breathlessness is one of the most distressing and unpleasant experiences a being can suffer. The sheer desire to breathe, backed by the panic at not being able too… yeah, I can see why.

"You shouldn't just stand there," Kakashi-sensei admonished cheerfully. "It makes you an easy target. Now, I've done Taijutsu and Ninjutsu, so I guess that leaves genjutsu for you." The intrusion of chakra into my system was a nasty feeling, sharp and biting, and I removed it even before it took hold and I saw what he wanted me to see. It was strong, and took a lot of concentration to get rid of but I had the advantage of being able to differentiate between my chakra and his.

If I had been able to reply I would have said 'Shadow Possession Jutsu complete'. He was standing in my patch of shade. That was all I needed.

Of course, there are ways out of the Shadow Possession. You cant move, but you can still use chakra. A sealess replacement was well within his capabilities. And Kakashi-sensei was so much stronger than me that he could have simply used the brute force method to get out.

Still, he did neither, and I awkwardly made him throw the bells back over his shoulder. A Naruto grabbed them immediately. Several more were still trying to dig Sasuke out of the ground.

Given that I'd practically ruined his test, removing my ability to talk and then letting the boys decide what to do with the bells was probably his next move in testing their commitment to teamwork. I had to admire, grudgingly and with pain, the kind of precision it took to hit someone hard enough to wind them, yet not do any actual damage. A blow like that could have ruptured my spleen, snapped all my ribs or done some serious internal damage, but all I'd get from it was a bruise.

I collapsed to my knees, the jutsu ending. The panic was the worst bit, the feeling of not being able to breathe. I knew, intellectually that I was just winded, and it would get better soon. Heck, I've even been winded before. But the panic was still there. It isn't a nice feeling.

"Shikako!" A Naruto came speeding out of the forest. I'm pretty sure this was the real one. It wasn't a big thing in this circumstance, but a wounded team-mate on a battle field could make damn good bait for a trap. "Ah! You killed her! She's dieing!"

"Idiot," Sasuke scoffed, now free from his hole. "She's just winded. She isn't dieing." He took a firm hold of my arm and hoisted me to my feet. "Hunching over like that isn't going to help."

Kakashi smiled, eye curving happily. "Now you've got the bells, Naruto, so who's going back to the Academy?"

Naruto stared down at the bells in his hands, then up at me. I jerked my head at Sasuke. Breathing was still an issue, speaking was out of the question.

He gave one of the bells to Sasuke like I wanted, then the other one to me. His face was determined but so heartbroken. I was sure that the team would pass as a team, yet they didn't know that. Naruto was serious about giving up his dream so I could pass. I frowned, and stuffed the bell down the collar of his shirt.

He hollered. "That's cold! What was that for?" He danced around, trying to get it out.

"Well then," Kakashi-sensei beamed. "I guess I have to say - You all pass!"

Naruto stopped dancing. "Wait, what?"

"Well, what do you think the purpose of this test was?" Kakashi-sensei asked patiently.

"Err, I don't know," Naruto said with a puzzled frown.

"Think about it," Kakashi suggested. "Three people, two bells. A pass or fail, all or nothing test."

I almost said 'teamwork', then I paused. It sounded … trite. It might have been true, but there was more to it than that. That was only the barest of explanations. "To put the good of the mission ahead of the good of the individual," I offered quietly.

Konoha is worth more than your life. I shivered. In a real mission 'failure' often meant death. In terms of a real mission the briefing might have gone 'one of you will certainly die. All three of you might. What will you do?'. You couldn't just back out of a mission because it was dangerous. Not without very good reason.

Kakashi-sensei blinked slowly. "I purposely pitted you against each other. With only two bells, one of you was guaranteed to fail. The test was to see if you could overcome that for the sake of the mission. To see if you would work together or break apart. A Genin should have a natural feel for teamwork. Of course, you need individual skills, but teamwork is the most important element of a shinobi. When individuals put themselves above the squad, this can lead to failure. And death. On every mission, your life is on the line. Have you seen this stone?" He walked towards the memorial stone.

We exchanged a look and followed him.

"They are ninja who are honoured as hero in our village." His voice had a distinctly solemn note to it.

"That's it! I'm going to have my name on there!" Naruto exclaimed.

I winced and shook my head.

"What?" he asked, confused.

"They a special kind of hero," Kakashi continued. "They are the ninja who were killed in action. This is the memorial stone. The names of my closest friends are all engraved here."

My uncle, dad's younger brother, was on there and more of the clan besides. Kyougi Nara had only been added three months ago - I knew her vaguely but mostly I remember the way her mother cried at the funeral. She had been nineteen and a Chunin.

Yeah, there is honour to dieing for Konoha. But you're still dead.

"So," Kakashi said, turning to us, chasing the gloomy atmosphere away. "Now I've explained my part in the test, you get to explain yours."

"What do you mean?" Naruto asked with a puzzled frown. "You just said. Our part was to work together."

"Well, you must have had a plan, didn't you? A reason why you attacked the way you did?"

Naruto chuckled sheepishly. "I just did what Shikako said." He rubbed the back of his head.

Sasuke glanced at me then back to Kakashi. "Naruto was the distraction. He was supposed to create an opening so I could go for the bells."

Kakashi nodded. "Rudimentary, but effective." He turned to me. "Now why don't you explain to your team mates the way you decided who would do what."

"Umm. W-well," I stuttered. "Like Sasuke said Naruto's Shadow Clone Jutsu is good for surrounding people. And they cast shadows… so I can use them for my Jutsu. Sasuke is the best at Taijutsu out of all of us, and the fastest, so he'd have the best chance at grabbing the bells…" I trailed off, not sure what else to say.

"Why the straight out charge?" Kakashi-sensei prompted. "Most kids would have tried to hide first."

"Five reasons," I said holding up a finger. "We had to overcome you. There was no way we could get the bells by avoiding you." A second finger. "You knew we were here, so we couldn't attempt to surprise you and take you off guard." A third finger. "Your tracking skills are much greater than our stealth abilities, so even trying to hide would have been pointless." A fourth finger. "The clearing gave us more advantages than disadvantages because it allowed us to keep you in our sight. Naruto had traps spread through the trees in case you went that way." The last finger. "And we were on a time limit. Hiding might have brought us time to plan, but we had no information on your capabilities … so it was best to try something before retreating and trying for a second attempt."

Naruto looked stunned. "You thought about all that? But you came up with the plan, like, right away!"

I looked down. "Well, it wasn't a very complex plan," I mumbled.

"Are you kidding? It was great! I was like 'wazzam' and 'kapow' and then Sasuke was like 'zzzwssshhh' and he nearly got the bells!" His hands fluttered about in mock combat with each other.

"Right," Kakashi-sensei cut him off. "I think that concludes our debriefing. Team Seven will start their first mission tomorrow. For now, we can all go home."