Iruka was walking out of the hokage tower with a folder in his hands.

He still couldn't believe how Mizuki tried to betray the village, nor would he have imagined that Naruto had it in him to stop him.

Although, now that he thought about it, it was to be expected that Tsunade-sama had taught him some things.

After all he performed always almost flawlessly in class, just a couple of points below Sasuke.

Always one or two points below him.

Iruka stopped in his track, a sudden thought on his mind. 'Could it be that he purposely held back?

After all his grades are just too precise, he's always been just behind Sasuke.

Even that one time that Sakura managed to perform best in a written test, Naruto ended up making less points than usual to be just behind Sasuke.

But why? It doesn't makesense! Maybe I'm just imaging things.'

He shook his head and looked at the folder in his hand. In that there were his now ex-students' future teams, assuming that they'd pass their jounin sensei's test.

Iruka was optimistic though, there were a lot of promising shinobi this year.

'Well,' he thought, 'I shouldn't make them wait.'

Haruno Sakura fixed her pink her and looked in the mirror for the last time.

Satisfied with her reflex, she said goodbye to her mother and went out to get to the academy.

Today they'll announce the team assignment, and she hoped with all her might to be on Sasuke's team.

They'd get to know each other better and then...

She blushed furiously and almost walked into a wall.

"Hey forehead-girl, what's up? Can't you even walk straight any more?"

"Shut up, Ino-pig! I was just thinking about how I'll spend my time with Sasuke-kun once we'll be on the same team."

"Tsk, right, keep dreaming billboard. I'm going to see my Sasuke-kun at the academy now."

The blond then walked ahead, but was soon joined the other who left her a couple of steps behind.

From then on they started to run as if the first would have won Sasuke's heart.

Their contest ended with the both of them flying through the classroom door at the same time, quickly followed by an argument about how there was a mile between them.

Naruto, who was peacefully sleeping in his seat, grumbled something before taking two empty bags of chips from Chouji, rolled them into two pellets, and tried to cover his ears with them.

Chouji chuckled at him while Shikamaru complained about 'troublesome women'.

Just when the two girls were about to start a fight, however, Iruka came in shouting to shut up and sit down.

Once they did that he started a speech about how proud he was of them and the life that awaited them as Konoha ninja.

As usual Naruto didn't hear a word, choosing instead to look around the class at the other graduated.

Sakura and Ino where glaring at each other, while at the same time stealing glances at Sasuke.

They weren't exactly what you can call strong and dependable kunoichi, in fact they spent almost all their time chasing after the Uchiha instead of training.

Like all the girls of their class.

The only exception was Hinata Hyuuga, but even if she had powerful eyes, her confidence was a major issue.

Which was a shame because she seemed to be someone he could have been friends with, if only she had managed to stay conscious long enough to say something more than two stuttered syllables.

Not far from her were Akamaru and his pet Kiba. 'No wait, maybe it was the other way around...'

Looking at them made Naruto remember what he read about the Gobi, the five

tailed dog. Granted their power was nothing like the bijuu's, but they were doggy too and had a good teamwork, their problem was that Kiba was brash, loud and arrogant.

And speaking of arrogance, Sasuke was without doubt in that category, the prick wouldn't admit he's facing a stronger opponent even if said opponent killed him and he really behaved like a pathetic drama queen.

That aside however he had powerful eyes, eyes neither him nor anyone else should have.

The only one that spoke less than the Uchiha was Shino Aburame, a nice guy in Naruto's eyes, smart and good with his insects, even if he seemed wary since his bugs refused to attach themselves to Naruto.

And naturally there were Chouji and Shikamaru, while the first was generally kind and had physical strength, the latter was quite clever. 'And they're my best friends,' Naruto couldn't help but smile at the thought.

His little evaluation of his class was interrupted by Iruka who started to announce the various teams.

"Team 7 will be Sasuke Uchiha, Sakura Haruno, and Shino Aburame."

The boys unanimously ignored Sakura's happy shout about how true love prevailed anything, while the girls glared at her.

"Team 8 will be Hinata Hyuuga, Chouji Akimichi, and Kiba Inuzuka."

Naruto and Shikamaru looked apologetically at Chouji who just smiled at them and shrugged, silently saying that it was all right, even if they weren't on the same team.

"Team 10 will be Shikamaru Nara, Naruto Senju, and Ino Yamanaka."

"WHAT? NO WAY! How am I supposed to work with those two? They're always sleeping, and when by some sort of miracle they're awake Shikamaru complains and Naruto says weird stuff!" Ino yelled out.

"Weirdness is just a question of points of view," the orange clad boy muttered.

"Did you hear him? He's a weirdo!"

Iruka raised an eyebrow at the blond girl, "Yes, I heard that, and it actually made a lot of sense. It was really deep if you ask me."

"Thanks sensei. Do you see Ino? That's exactly what I meant," Naruto spoke grinning like crazy.

Oh, he'll enjoy driving the bossy girl insane.

Iruka sighed seeing her become red from anger and decided to cut their argument short and resumed calling out the other teams.

In the end he put the folder that he was reading away and addressed the class for the last time, "You can go to have lunch now, report here in an hour to meet your jounin sensei. Dismissed."

Meanwhile in the hokage tower all the jounin sensei had been watching their future students through the hokage's crystal ball.

The old Sandaime was also there, curious about the next generation of leaf ninjas.

"I had to agree with Blondie," Asuma said, "that kid is weird. Although it wouldn't be the first among us..."

The figure of Kakashi coming in right then, giggling while reading a book, simply confirmed his words.

The fact that, just before he closed the door behind him, they could hear a yell about how the flames of youth will eventually defeat his hip attitude reminded them that there was something even worse out there.

"Well, while I must agree with you that Naruto is rather..." the Yondaime paused to search for the right word, "original, he's still one of the best students we had this year. He just needs some motivation, like Shikamaru, whose grades however were among the lowest."

Asuma looked at the blond hokage with a light scowl, "And I should be the one to motivate them while at the same time breaking the Yamanaka out of her fangirlism?"

Minato didn't know if he wanted to smile at how lazy the jounin sounded or if it was for the best to change teams. But it was already too late for the latter, so he simply nodded.

However a sudden thought hit him. With that little monster on the team... "Asuma, I don't know how you're planning to test them, but whatever you do, don't use the bell test. Tsunade's son skills as a thief are unbelievable."

The hokage ignored the curious gazes of the other jounin, it wasn't their business what had been stolen or from who.

"Anyway, Kakashi you already knew what your team would be, just try not to get lost while you go at the academy," the masked jounin smiled sheepishly at his old sensei, "Kurenai, you've been given the Hyuuga heiress, I assume you remember that our spies had warned us of a possible threat from Cloud because of her bloodline...?"

The genjutsu mistress nodded. There hadn't been any attempt to kidnap her or her sister so far, which only meant that Kumo was planning their moves carefully.

"Very well, if none of you have any more questions then you can go."

Ino turned out to be better than Naruto initially thought, in fact she joined him and Shikamaru for lunch.

He would have bet that she'd gone chasing her crush. However her next declaration made him doubt that it was indeed a good thing she hadn't.

"Now listen, since I'm stuck with you two as team mates you'll have to change. I refuse to do all the work when you two sleep, so from now on you'll follow my orders, is that clear?"

Naruto and Shikamaru exchanged glances.

After a minute Shikamaru muttered, "Troublesome woman." Nonetheless the Nara boy smirked when he recognized a familiar smirk on the other boy's face.

An evil smirk. Pasting a foxy grin on his face, Naruto turned towards Ino,

"What you said was clear, but I'm not going to do it. I didn't know you were so bossy, though.

Maybe Sasuke doesn't go out with you 'cuz he isn't into bdsm."

Ino looked at him with a confused expression, "What's bdsm?"

If possible Naruto's grin became even wider, "Oh, just something my kyoufu told me about once. It basically means bondage, and is when people use things like chains, handcu-"

His little speech was interrupted by a very red faced Ino who tried to kill him.

Naruto jumped out of her reach and began to run, closely followed by a murderous girl. He didn't think to have embarrassed her enough however and yelled over his shoulder, "Ino, why are you chasing me? I thought you liked Sasuke?"

The orange haired boy laughed when she launched a kunai in response.

Shikamaru looked at them and smiled, 'Naruto isn't too troublesome, and Ino will be busy annoying him instead of me. Now all I have to worry about is our sensei, if he isn't a slave driver I can go back to cloud watching. God, I hope he isn't a she.'

Seeing their time was almost up, the pineapple haired boy got up and went back to the academy.

He knew that Naruto would eventually come too, bringing Ino with him in the process.

And indeed, not even a minute after he sat down, his two team mates joined him.

What surprised him was that Naruto didn't have a scratch on him, probably Ino couldn't keep up with him.

In fact despite the fact that his shogi partner was as lazy as him, he was a stamina freak and could outrun almost everyone if he wanted to.

Luckily for Naruto the wait for their sensei wasn't long enough to allow Ino to regain her breath and try again to kill him. The first two jounin to come were a woman with long black hair and red eyes, which caught Naruto's interest, and a bearded man who looked vaguely like a monkey.

"Team 8," called the female jounin, "training ground 16, you have five minutes."

"Team 10," spoke up the other, "come with me."

In Shikamaru's head chibi-Shika was doing the victory dance, displaying much more enthusiasm than the boy himself has ever had.

Once they reached their training ground their new sensei addressed them, "I'm Sarutobi Asuma, in charge of team ten starting today. I'll be strict on you guys, so be prepared."

He paused to search for something in his jacket, 'Damn, where did I put my cigarettes?'

"Mmh... why don't you say something about yourselves? You know, to get to know each other better." He added that continuing to rummage in his pockets,

"You can go first, goggles-boy."

"Ok. I'm Naruto Senju, adopted son of Tsunade of the Sannin. I like my family and friends, freedom, sponges and ramen. I dislike whoever insults those I care about. My hobbies are sleeping, doing pranks, and playing shogi.

My goals for the future are find certain people and have lots of s-something."

He seemed to think for a second, then he added "Asuma-sensei, my mother is a medic and she'll agree with me that you shouldn't smoke, it can cause hair loss, cancer, breathing trouble, impotence..."

Asuma froze. Then looked at the boy. He had his cigarettes in his hands. 'Now I know what hokage-sama meant, but when and how the hell did he steal those?'

Outwardly he just coughed and pointed towards Shikamaru.

"Troublesome. I'm Shikamaru Nara. I like cloud watching. I don't like troublesome things. My hobby is playing shogi. I plan to marry a girl who is neither beautiful nor ugly, have kids, and retire to a peaceful life."

Asuma sweat dropped 'Oh my god, this kid sounds like zombie. Let's hear what my last student is like.'

"I'm Ino Yamanaka, I like...someone, my hobby is arranging flowers and my dream..." She chuckled blushing.

The three males just rolled their eyes at her antics. "And I dislike Sakura and these two lazy asses."

Shikamaru and Naruto looked at each other, shrugged, and said in perfect synchrony, "You're loss. Troublesome girl."

Asuma noted with some satisfaction that his female student had already learned how to release some killing intent, and his other two pupils managed to ignore it quiet well.

"Ok, listen well. I want you to come here tomorrow at seven a.m., and bring all your gears, we're going to do a test to see if you're good enough to be a genin team. Obviously if you were to fail you'd be sent back into the academy."

Ino looked at him with wide eyes, Shikamaru muttered his favorite word, and Naruto... well, Asuma couldn't see his eyes, but judging from his posture and the light snoring...

"Wake up, kid! Jeez, how can you hope to be a ninja if you fall asleep during a briefing? Make one of your team mates tell you what I said, now go home you three, I'll see you tomorrow." Then with a single handseal and a poof of smoke he disappeared.

The following morning Naruto was sleeping like a log when he fell from the bed.

He sleepily looked up from the floor to see that his mother had lifted his bed to make him roll out of it. He sat up rubbing his head and yawning, "Whuzz up?"

Tsunade smiled down at him noticing he was holding a sponge in his hand, "Breakfast is ready. You should hurry or you'll end up being late. You have to meet your team, have you not?"

He yawned again before standing up. Once he was on his feet however Tsunade noted another thing, "Naru-chan, where do those boxers come from?"

Naruto looked at his boxers with frogs, "They're kyoufu's gift, he gave me them for my last birthday. Why?"

The medic nin blinked, "Ah... Nothing. Come on, don't waste time. You have a test that awaits you."

The red eyed boy changed and went to eat breakfast. Then, before going out, he strapped his kunai pouch on his right leg and put on his dark goggles.

When he was at the door he glanced back and saw Tsunade looking at him with a half smile.

He walked back, "What's wrong kaa-san?"

She shook her head and caught him in a hug, "Nothing's wrong. Be careful once you become a ninja, ok?"

"Kaa-san," he said hugging her back, "you know I'll be all right, it isn't like something can happen to me."

The blond woman chuckled and kissed his head, "I know. But it's my duty and my right to worry, no matter what. Now go, you're going to be late."

Naruto let go of his mother and ran out waving back at her. Ten minutes later he arrived at the same training ground they were at the day before, just at the same time Asuma appeared with a shunshin.

"Very well, you're all on time. Now let's get this over with, shall we? I've hidden two marked kunai in the hokage tower, your task is to retrieve them. The ninja who work there have been warned of this test, so if they see you they'll act as if you were enemy ninja. Whoever comes back with a kunai will pass, if you're seen you'll automatically fail. Any question?"

Naruto exchanged a look with Shikamaru.

The two then turned towards their sensei, and the orange clad boy spoke up, "Do you really want us to try to do it or can we just give the solution now?"

Asuma seemed surprised while Ino looked at them in confusion "What do you mean? What solution?"

"Think Ino," Shikamaru said, "the hokage tower is the most guarded building in the whole village. There is a continuous flown of ninja who go there to have their missions, plus the anbu that make patrols around it. No one is supposed to be able to sneak in, let alone a genin."

"Besides," Naruto added, "if you stop to think about it, why only two kunais when we are three? It's clearly a trick to divide us. The best plan in a situation like this would be to create a diversion while someone else tries to infiltrate in the building, something that requires not only stealth, but also what this entire test is really about."

"Teamwork." Shikamaru concluded.

Asuma looked at the two boys in wonderment, 'Seems that all their playing shogi has created two masterminds.' He clapped at them, "Congratulations, it seems you're passed and already are officially team 10. However, since we already set up everything, go and try to retrieve those scrolls. Consider it as our first training exercise."

He regretted those words the second he said them, when a foxy grin had appeared on Naruto's face, "I'll provide the distraction."

Half an hour later team 8, lead by Kurenai, was coming back from their training ground after passing their test.

The genjutsu mistress had decided to celebrate inviting her new students for lunch, but as soon as they got in town she could fell that something was wrong.

An abnormal number of ninjas were running toward the south gate and many civilians were hurrying to their homes. Making a quick decision, she instructed her genin to go to their respective clan compounds while she herself made her way to the south gate.

Once she got there she immediately felt a faint and strange trace of chakra in the air, something the jounin easily connected to the use of genjutsu. Before she could do anything however an anbu not too far from her dispelled it, only to have another one being cast just as fast.

What caught Kurenai's eye was that said genjutsu was aimed to affect a large area, and the only ones who actually fell for it were the civilians and those who had definitely no talent whatsoever to dispel them, like some low level chuunin, all of whom started to chirp or bleat and behave like animals.

Looking up she could only sweat drop when an orange clad, goggles wearing laughing boy, ran using the chaos he created to dodge and hide from anbu and jounin. Was this how Asuma thought to help the boy? Letting him set up a large scale prank on the village while he should be tested?

Nonetheless, putting aside from his childish behavior, Kurenai couldn't help but be a little jealous that Asuma had gotten someone talented for her field on his team while her own students hadn't even shown interest for genjutsu. And speaking of her students...

"What are you doing here? Didn't I say you to go home?" she asked looking at them over her shoulder.

Hinata flushed lightly and looked down at her question, while Kiba, who obviously had dragged his two team mates there with him, answered, "But sensei, we too are ninja now, we wanted to know what's going on and help!"

For his part Chouji simply took out a bag of chips and chuckled saying that he didn't think Naruto would do a prank this big without warning him.

Naruto's fun time however was cut short a second after when, with a yellow flash, the Yondaime hokage appeared out of nowhere and grabbed him from his waist.

"Well," he said, "what do you think you're doing Naruto? Isn't this a little overboard for a prank?"

The civilians and other ninjas, now free from the genjutsu, stared at the two of them, some with irritation, others in interest.

Naruto scratched his head and looked around, "I'm sorry, I didn't want to cause trouble, but it's necessary for a good distraction. This way my team mates should have been able to retrieve the two marked kunai like sensei asked us to."

As the gathered people seemed to decide that he hadn't done anything unforgivable, Minato put him down sighing, "I suppose that by now your team mates will have completed their mission. You're with the Yamanaka girl right? If she has taken control of a ninja who works at the tower it should have been easy with all the anbu you have made come here."

He gave the boy a glance over and leaned over to add in a whisper, "Thanks for providing me an excuse for leaving my office for a minute." Then with another flash he was gone.

As soon as the blond hokage left Chouji neared Naruto and offered him a chip.

"That must have been your best prank ever, and you even had a perfect valid excuse to do it," the big boned boy commented.

"Thanks. Hey, what are you doing here with your team? Have you already done your test? Did you pass? You're Kurenai-san right? Nice to meet you, I've heard you're a genjutsu specialist, can you suggest me a good book on it?"

The young jounin was a bit taken aback when he said all of that without stopping to breathe. While she was saying him a couple of titles, she took notice of her female student who was stealing glances at the orange clad boy with growing blush on her face. Kurenai knew that Hiashi had tried to have the two engaged, as well as the agreement Naruto stipulated with the council about any arranged marriage; but if she could help Hinata making him choose her then...

Smiling slightly to herself she and her students left for their celebrating lunch, while Naruto went to meet his other two team mates that had successfully trapped and controlled a chuunin to retrieve the marked kunais.

That evening the jounin sensei reported to the hokage which team passed their test. There was no surprise when Asuma announced the success of his team, many ninja had already heard of the stunt Tsunade's son had pulled, and the Yamanaka and Nara kids were born for infiltration.

Even team Kurenai wasn't a big shock, after all it consisted of three clan heirs, and the Hyuuga girl, even if she wasn't what Hiashi hoped, was still a Hyuuga.

What people were most curious was Kakashi verdict on his team,

it was no secret that he had failed every single team assigned to him, but this year he got the Aburame boy, who was considered quiet clever and good at analyzing situations, and the last Uchiha. Some suspected that, even if he failed them, the civilian council may try to ask him to teach young Sasuke anyway, a stupid thing since they had lost all powers in military matters. Such a request would just anger the hokage and the clan heads.

However nothing of it would happen, in fact Kakashi announced that, for the first time in his career, his team had passed his test. Apparently Shino said that it was illogical leaving their female team mate to starve.