Naruto sat in the middle of the empty classroom with Sasuke Uchiha and Sakura Haruno, who were now the official teammates of his genin team. While Naruto was hoping he'd be in a team with his best friend, Kiba, this team wasn't that bad. It'd be his chance to become friends with Sasuke again, and Sakura was a nice, smart girl. Sometimes she's a bit too obsessed with Sasuke, but she's still much more clever than Naruto is. The blonde boy had much more to learn.

They were currently waiting for their new sensei who would guide the three of them in their journey of becoming greater shinobi. Three hours, for three hours they had been sitting in this classroom with absolutely nothing to do. At this point, they'd be waiting the whole day here in the academy.

Naruto had already came up with his own conclusions in his mind. The sensei probably wasn't here because he didn't want to be the sensei of the demon brat. Arguing with the Hokage about this job, maybe? It's understandable that people wouldn't want to be anywhere near him. Poor Sakura and Sasuke, they'd have to suffer because he was here in the team. Or even better, his sensei would be able to focus more on the two of them instead! That'll be pretty nice.

"So...Naruto."

Naruto's head shot up in surprise to see Sakura who was now standing next to him. She glanced at the empty seat next to him and glanced back at him again. "Mind if I sit here?"

Naruto shook his head nervously, unsure of the purpose of Sakura approaching him like this. She seemed to be rather friendly at the moment, but who knows what she's thinking. Not like Naruto hated her or anything, he actually kind of liked her, to be honest. She's so nice to everyone (not exactly) and she's much smarter than Naruto. He felt so lucky to be on the same team with two geniuses.

"I just thought, since we're teammates now, we should probably try to become friends first. Uhm, you know, since we've never really talked much although we're in the same class," Sakura started off the conversation in a friendly tone. Naruto relaxed slightly, but was still a bit tense. "How did you become Genin? Didn't you fail the test?"

Aaaaah, for god's sake! Why is everyone so curious about that? It mentally hurt him thinking back about how dumb his actions were, and he really didn't want to embarrass himself talking about it again. But then again, this was his teammate now....

"Well, it's a rather long story. And embarrassing too," Naruto added, a faint blush on his cheeks. "Are you sure you want to hear it?"

"We seem to have plenty of time to spare," Sakura smiled at the blonde boy. At that moment, Naruto swore he felt his own heart skip a beat as it started to speed up slightly. Was he getting a heart attack? What?? Maybe this is the effect of having not more than five people you can trust to talk to.

"Well, so....you know, Mizuki sensei, how he didn't show up in school just now for the graduation?" Naruto started off from that. Sakura nodded to his question. It was pretty odd not seeing him there and without an explanation too. Did he get into an accident and Naruto saved him? That would've been a pretty cool way to become Genin.

"Yesterday, he saw me failing the test and offered another way to become Genin, which was stealing the forbidden scroll, you know, the one with the forbidden jutsu and stuff," Naruto continued nervously. Sakura's eyes widened. Wait, what? So after all these years of teaching at the academy, Mizuki sensei was a traitor to the leaf? Okay, maybe there was more behind that...she shouldn't come to conclusions so fast. But there wasn't any other possible explanation! Seeing Sakura's reaction, Naruto once again felt embarrassed of himself- look how damn fast Sakura was able to figure it out, and look at him.

"Well, I, uh, I.. I was kind of desperate, and dumb, so I stole it....and then I almost gave it to him," Naruto shamefully admitted. Sakura had to hold back from letting her jaw drop in surprise. Naruto?? The Naruto who couldn't make a simple clone, succeeded in stealing the goddamn forbidden scroll? What!?

"But then Iruka sensei popped up, and I came to my senses. There was this one jutsu in the forbidden scroll-" Naruto paused in the middle of his sentence. He just admitted he peeked into the forbidden scroll, but at that point, who wouldn't? "-called the Shadow Clone jutsu. It basically lets you create clones that are solid and can fight, but it takes a lot of your chakra. That's when I found out I actually have a lot of chakra, so it's not that I have too little. Ah-! I'm not trying to brag, I promise! It's just, uhm, it came to a surprise to me as well...."

"It's fine, I understand. Continue," Sakura seemed really invested into the story. Naruto nodded and thought back to yesterday as he continued to explain.

"So, I learnt it, and Iruka sensei distracted Mizuki sensei while I beat Mizuki sensei with my clones. I don't know what happened to Mizuki sensei after that though, but Iruka sensei gave me his hitai-ate and said that I passed," Naruto finished his story with a sharp breath, staring at Sakura to wait for her reaction. He wasn't ready for his teammates to find out about him, the Kyuubi, so he'd purposely left those parts out.

That was a lot of information for Sakura to progress. So, Naruto had lots of chakra which led to him being able to form solid clones. Note the 's'- it wasn't just one. It was more than one, heck, probably at least five. After all, he did say..he defeated a chunin!? That sounded unreal, but Sakura found herself believing Naruto's story. Naruto's current hitai-ate did seem pretty old as well, it only made it more believable.

".....Wow," Sakura uttered out after a long train of thoughts processing through her head one by one. She shot Naruto a bright smile, her eyes almost shining. "That's such a cool way of becoming Genin! I bet no one's ever had as cool as a story as yours before!"

'I'm sure there's probably somewhere out there where someone slaughtered a whole classroom to become Genin...it's the shinobi world,' Naruto thought to himself with a slight shudder. Somewhere, a tanned man with a bandaged face sneezed. 'Is Zabuza-sama catching a cold...?'

"You seem like a really nice person, Naruto. I wonder why no one really talks to you.. other than Kiba. You always seem to be alone in a corner when Kiba isn't there," Sakura spoke curiously. But who was she to speak? She had avoided Naruto as well, following her mother's words. It was only today she knew how wrong her mother was to say that. She swore, one day, that she will change her parents' views on Naruto for the better.

"U-Um, I, uhh... T-Thank you?" Naruto stuttered as he clutched onto the sides of his seat. He felt really awkward, terribly unsure of what to say in this situation. It's a compliment, right? The smartest girl in class just complimented him, wow. He felt so honoured, even though he knew he couldn't really live up to that praise. "I think I can live without that much attention. People seem to be enjoying their time without me, so I don't think I need to butt in."

"Oh, Naruto," her voice softened along with her gaze. She had always been too focused on trying to harass- I mean, learn from Sasuke, she'd never thought about trying to approach Naruto sooner. Now that she had talked to him, she realised how cute he was. He was so adorable in the way that makes you want to pinch his cheeks and squeal. Sakura had decided- he was too pure for this world like that. "Well, you better butt in the next time I'm with someone, or else I'm bothering you every minute of your life! I'll make sure you have lots of friends by the end of this month!"

That seemed like a pretty weird deal to Naruto. Why would she want him to interrupt her conversations with other people? Isn't that usually deemed annoying, does she want Naruto to be hated by everyone even more? Is she in the phase where she hates everyone and wants to run from the world's reality right now? 

Maybe he was thinking too much, but it's asking a lot from him at this point. Naruto wasn't confident enough to talk unless someone talked to him first, let alone butt into a conversation without an invitation. Kiba was really enough, he didn't need a whole big group of friends everywhere. He thought carefully about it, and realised that's just exactly like what he wanted- smiles everywhere he went instead of the hateful glares. Maybe it wouldn't be that bad after all.

"Um, what about Sasuke..? I wouldn't want to interrupt your...ehh...with him.... You seem to really like Sasuke a lot," Naruto asked nervously. Was it really alright to ask her straight like that?

Sakura seemed slightly surprised at the question, but gave it some thought anyway. "Alright, Sasuke is an exception. But no one ever said you can't help with setting us up! Well, not like I'm asking you to do that, of course, but just saying. That can be left for when we're deeper into our friendship. Closer friends," Sakura smiled at the blonde boy.

Naruto was extremely confused. Setting them up? Help her? But don't butt in? Not asking him to do that, just saying? Deeper into the friendship? What exactly did Sakura mean? Naruto was getting more and more confused by the second. Making friends is so complicated, maybe he should give up on his impossible dream of becoming Hokage after all. Socializing didn't suit him. He'll just become a shinobi, do missions, save up, don't die, retire and live a happy life in his own house far off in the woods.

He'd completely forgotten that he was the Kyuubi's jinchuuriki.

"O..kay, I'll try my best," Naruto answered, head spinning from all the confusion. Sakura resisted the urge to coo at him. Who made this bright, adorable boy? He was way too precious for this whole world to handle. Anyone who ever talked shit about him is so, so horribly wrong. They should probably look back at their own lives and realise it was nothing but a gigantic pile of turd and that their existence had never mattered since they were completely useless in their whole life. Alright, maybe she went a bit overboard with that.

"Naruto, wanna walk home together after we meet our sensei? It'll be our team bonding session. If we get lucky, Sasuke can join us too," Sakura suggested. Naruto blinked before he nodded with a bright beam. Seems like a pretty nice idea! They should walk Sasuke home first, Naruto really wanted to see what Sasuke's house is like. He probably doesn't live in the ghost compound anymore, does he? Sakura would be fine too, she's his new friend after all. "Alright, then! Let's go to your house first, Naruto!"

Aw man. Understandable, though. Of course Sakura would want her alone time with Sasuke. It made Naruto kind of sad that she'd prefer the Uchiha over him, but who was he to complain when Sakura was already giving him such kindness? He's already asking for too much. He knew better than anyone that it's best to stop asking for too much until they get tired of you and you end up not having anything left.....

Okay, that's getting dark. Naruto cleared his throat to himself quietly, staring at the door. Speaking of meeting the sensei, where was he? He hadn't been here the whole chapter at all....

Speak of the devil! The door slammed open and the first thing that caught the fresh Genin's eyes was a spiky grey hair before a masked man holding a book walked in. His lone eye scanned the three genins, waiting for any greetings. Sakura and Naruto hurriedly stood up to give a bow. "O-Oh! Sensei?"

'Well, they're polite,' the man thought to himself. Of course, he was none other than Kakashi Hatake, the closet pervert- Or you could say, Kakashi of the Sharingan. But his cute little genins did not know of his greatness yet. "Well, hello. I must say, you're quite the polite bunch." 'Maybe not the Uchiha over there, though.' "I have a good impression of you guys. Meet me up at the rooftop in a minute. One minute, alright? I'm not joking."

With that, he disappeared in a blur, no trace of him left in the classroom. Now, that's a jounin. At the same time, the three genins shared the same thought in their minds.

'He's pretty damn late.'

(i wrote this and the last chapter in a row at 2 am, u can see how im slowly startin to trip more ballz as i continue)