Chapter 9: Team Seven, Assemble
Naruto maintained a calm, faint smile on his face, but internally, his mind was racing through probabilities and scenarios. The butterfly effect of his presence was the great unknown. As Iruka began to call out names, he listened with focused intensity, each syllable a potential pivot point.
"Team Eight: Kiba Inuzuka, Hinata Hyuga, Shino Aburame. Your jonin sensei is Kurenai Yuhi."
Safe.
"Team Ten: Shikamaru Nara, Choji Akimichi, Ino Yamanaka. Your jonin sensei is Asuma Sarutobi."
Safe.
A pause. Naruto's breath hitched slightly.
"And Team Seven..."
Here it was.
"Uzumaki Naruto, Uchiha Sasuke, Haruno Sakura. Your jonin sensei is Kakashi Hatake."
A wave of quiet relief washed over him. The core trio remained intact. The only, crucial divergence was the gender of the Uchiha survivor. Sasuke is Sasuke, in essence, he reasoned. The trauma, the drive, the isolation—it's all the same. The container is different, but the contents are tragically familiar.
Sakura, however, felt a knot of anxiety tighten in her stomach. Being teamed with the aloof, genius Uchiha was intimidating enough. But Naruto… the boy with the monster's label who wore a mysterious calm like a second skin. His sunny smiles felt less like innocence and more like a mask hiding depths she couldn't fathom. This team felt like a minefield of extreme personalities.
Hinata's heart, which had soared at Naruto's arrival, sank like a stone. She watched his blond head from across the room, the distance between their assigned teams feeling like a chasm. We're on different paths now… A profound loneliness settled over her.
One by one, jonin sensei arrived to collect their new genin. The classroom emptied, the chatter and footsteps fading away until only the three members of Team Seven remained, sitting in a silence that grew heavier with each passing minute.
Sakura fidgeted, propping her chin on her hand and staring out the window with growing impatience. An hour crawled by. Naruto, however, used the time. He sat with his eyes half-closed, not in boredom, but in a state of light meditation, cycling a trickle of chakra, refining his control, treating the wait as an exercise in patience. Sasuke sat motionless, a statue of contained intensity, her gaze fixed on some middle distance only she could see.
Just when Sakura was about to groan aloud, the door slid open with a soft whoosh.
"Yo! Sorry I'm late. I got lost on the path of life." A man with gravity-defying silver hair, a mask covering the lower half of his face, and a single, lazily-curious eye peered in. "You must be my new team. Follow me."
Without waiting for a response, he turned. Sakura scrambled to her feet, offering a polite, if strained, "Hello, sensei!" Naruto and Sasuke rose more smoothly, falling into step behind the enigmatic jonin as he led them to the building's rooftop.
On the sun-warmed concrete, Kakashi Hatake leaned against the safety railing, regarding his three charges. "Alright then," he began, his voice a relaxed drawl. "Let's start with introductions. Tell me your names, what you like, what you dislike, your dreams for the future. I'll go first. My name is Kakashi Hatake. Things I like… and things I hate… I'm not telling. My dreams… are none of your business."
"…" Sakura stared, nonplussed. "So we only learned your name."
"More or less," Kakashi agreed cheerfully. "Your turn. You, with the pink hair."
Sakura stood a little straighter. "I'm Haruno Sakura! I like… well, I like all things nice and sweet! I hate mean people and laziness! My dream is to become a strong, respected kunoichi… and…" she blushed slightly, "…to find my one true love!"
Kakashi's visible eye crinkled. Ah, youth.
He nodded to Sasuke next.
She didn't move from her seated position, her voice flat and cold. "I don't like anything. I don't particularly hate anything. My dream is not a dream. It is an ambition. To kill a certain man." As she spoke the last words, a frigid, palpable wave of killing intent emanated from her, so sharp it made Sakura shiver and even Kakashi's lazy posture subtly stiffened. So it's true. The same darkness… just a different vessel.
Finally, all eyes turned to Naruto. He had been listening with quiet interest, cataloging the responses. Sakura's were standard, Sasuke's were the grim confirmation he expected. It all fit the framework, granting him a sliver of predictability in this changed world.
"Naruto," Sakura prompted softly when he didn't immediately speak.
He smiled, a simple, unreadable curve of his lips. He saw no need for the dramatic declarations of childhood. "My name is Uzumaki Naruto. I like the things I choose to like. I hate the things worthy of hatred. My dream…" He paused, his blue eyes looking past them, toward the Hokage monument. "…is for a lasting peace."
Kakashi's lone eye narrowed thoughtfully. Worthy of hatred? A lasting peace? The son of the Fourth Hokage indeed. Vague, noble, and utterly uninformative. The boy was more guarded than he appeared.
"World peace? How generic," Sakura muttered under her breath, unimpressed by what she saw as evasion.
"Alright," Kakashi clapped his hands once, the sound sharp in the rooftop air. "Introductions are done. Next is your real test."
"Test?" Sakura's eyes went wide. "But we already graduated!"
Kakashi's eye curved into a smile. "Graduation just means you're eligible to be genin. Whether you become my genin is up to me. There's a survival exercise tomorrow. Pass, and you're on the team. Fail…" He let the word hang. "You go back to the Academy. All of you."
Sakura paled. Go back? The humiliation was unthinkable.
"Meet me at Training Ground 3 at 0600 hours sharp. Don't be late. And…" his gaze swept over them, lingering for a fraction of a second on Naruto's calm face, "…do not eat breakfast. If you do, you'll regret it. Dismissed."
With a puff of smoke and a swirl of leaves, he was gone—a Shadow Clone dispersing.
Show-off, Naruto thought, but with a hint of professional appreciation. He stood, brushing off his pants. "I guess I'll head out too. Need to prepare for tomorrow. See you both then."
He had taken only two steps when Sakura called out, her voice hesitant. "Ah, Naruto… wait."
He turned. "Yes?"
She fidgeted, glancing at Sasuke's retreating back. "Since we're going to be a team… would you two like to get something to eat? My treat. To… you know, get to know each other a bit?"
Naruto understood. It was a smart move, an attempt to forge early team cohesion. He appreciated the initiative. "Sure, sounds good," he said with an easy nod. Then he looked toward Sasuke, who had paused at the rooftop exit. "What about you, Sasuke?"
Sasuke half-turned. Her dark eyes were chips of obsidian. "No. I have training." The refusal was absolute, devoid of interest. That ever-present, annoyingly serene smile on his face felt like an insult to the gravity of her purpose. It was a reminder of a lightness she had been forced to extinguish.
Naruto's smile didn't falter, but it grew a degree cooler. He walked over to her, stopping a respectful distance away. "Suit yourself. But don't train too hard. We have a big test tomorrow." His tone was light, but the words were pragmatic.
Sasuke didn't reply. She simply turned and disappeared down the stairs, leaving Naruto and a slightly dejected Sakura alone on the rooftop.
"Well," Naruto said, turning his sunny expression back to Sakura. "Looks like it's just us. Lead the way."
As they walked toward a nearby tea shop, Naruto's mind was already elsewhere, analyzing the coming test. The Bell Test. Survival exercise. No breakfast. Kakashi will be testing our willingness to break the rules, to work as a team under extreme pressure, to see the mission through. He knew the script. The challenge would be performing his part within it while maintaining the careful balance of his hidden capabilities. The facade of the mediocre, earnest genin needed to hold, even under a Sharingan's gaze.
The game was entering a new, more complex phase. And for the first time, his teammates were variables he couldn't fully predict.