Dedication to moonlightninja, EnderWolf_, and HilaryUchiha!

I don't own Naruto

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'God damn alarm clock, deciding to go off the moment I finally find some peaceful sleep,' I grumbled in my mind as I picked up some large splinters of wood, evidence of my training the night before. Because of the incident with Sasuke, I had forgotten to fix my mess, so I had to set my alarm clock to make sure I would have enough time before my 'teammates' showed up.

I was in a bit of a foul mood from lack of sleep because all my weapons were taken when I was kidnapped, so were my sleeping pills Tsunade gave me. But I knew that after a bit I would be fine. I've had troubles sleeping ever since I was little, mostly when I was indoors. But whenever I was on a mission and sleeping outdoors, I would be fine. But because of seeing my brother and grandfather in a puddle of blood, my troubles with sleeping increased tenfold, and my nightmares began.

'The one of many' I thought as I picked up the last piece and tossed it so it landed in the forest, my stomach growling in protest. I rolled my eyes and tried to not think of the food I wish I was eating. I found it a little odd that Fang had said not to eat and arrive so early. From what I could tell he was going to make us do the bell test, which Gramps had often told me about, and how no matter how many times he made his students do it, my uncle would always be tied to the stump.

'But Gramps never made them go without eating...' I thought as I walked over and leaned against in of the stumps. But because I've known Kakashi since I was five, and for the longest time rules were the most important thing to him, I decided to play it safe and not eat, though normally I would have brought my breakfast and have it right in front of him in spite. 'But if the rules were still so important to him, why did he take so long to arrive yesterday. Normally he would have been the first one to show up.'

"He's been acting so weird, why?' I wondered out loud.

"Who's been acting weird?" I jumped up straight when someone spoke behind me. I whirled around and saw that it was Naruto, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, who spoke. Sakura and Sasuke were beside him, looking just as tired as he was. I had been so wrapped up I hadn't noticed the three when they walked up to me, but I noticed that Kakashi was not with them.

"It's nothing. Just thinking of an old friend," I told Naruto and Sakura, as Sasuke moved a few feet away and sat down. "How long have you guys been here?"

Sakura looked at Naruto, who shrugged. She sighed and shook her head at him before looking back at me. "About half an hour? When did you get here? The three of us all got here at the same time, but you were already here."

I tilted my head to the side. I must have really been lost in my thoughts, but it was odd that for the second day in a row that Kakashi was late. "About fifteen minutes before you guys. I thought it would be best to get here a little early, but looks like it was for nothing." I shrugged at the end, and Naruto muttered something rude under his breath, making Sakura punch him to shut him up, which didn't go over so well with Naruto because he yelled at Sakura, which caused Sakura to get even more frustrated with him and chase him as Naruto ran away from her, Sakura's fist ready to strike the whole time.

I moved over to where Sasuke was sitting and joined him on the ground, all while never taking my eyes off Naruto and Sakura. It was all very entertaining to watch in a way, like an improv comedy showing that the village used to have a couple times a month to give the people at least a reason to smile during the war.

'I wonder if they still do them occasionally...' I wondered to myself as I watched the two, Sasuke not saying anything to me, but I'm guessing was glaring. We sat in silence for about a good hour and a half, just watching our two comedians as the played themselves out, before I finally spoke.

"Look, I'm sorry about last night. I wasn't expecting anyone being on the training grounds last night that late, so seeing you put my on guard and made my act kind of like a psychopathic bitch when it shouldn't have. I mean, we're 'teammates' now, so we shouldn't threaten each other that way I did," I tried to explain. In return Sasuke 'hn'-ed, but didn't say anything. When I turned to see if he was still looking at the comedians as I was, I saw that his attention was somewhere else. It was on the spot where I had been training last night, though I had made sure that all evidence of that was gone... Well, all physical evidence.

Sighing, I placed my chin in a hand. "I had to get up a little early to clean it all up. And if it helps, I lied about how much of it I did myself. I used a few light paper bombs on it to block out my thoughts."

"Whatever," Sasuke finally said, but as if he was almost looking down and making fun of me. I waited for half a minute for him to maybe say more, but he just kept quiet.

'He doesn't believe me,' sighing, I dropped my hand, pulled up my legs and rested my chin on my knees instead. 'There's no telling what he would say if he told someone. I have to do something to convince him to keep his curiosity at bay...' I slammed my forehead on my knees.

'There's only one way to do that, though, bargaining. Fuck.'

"Okay, here's the deal. As an apology, and a promise that you won't tell anyone about what happened last night. I'll let you ask any questions that you want, and I will answer them as truthfully as I can. I can't tell you everything though." My head was still resting on my knees, knowing I was going to regret this, but this was the only way to keep him from questioning later.

"How many?" I couldn't help but smile a little 'Got you Uchiha.'

"Five."

"Hn."

Shrugging, I finally looked up at him, "Take it or leave it, Uchiha."

"Where are really from?" he asked, finally looking, or glaring, at me.

"Originally, I was from a village close to the Otogakure*, but my family left when I was a baby. Since then I grew up close to Konohagakure, but then I moved to Tanigakure. And now I'm here."

"Fine. What rank are you? A normal genin can't sense someone and move so fast."

I blinked a few times before talking. "That's the most I've heard you ever say at once voluntarily, well besides when we were doing the whole introduction thing," Sasuke glare hardened, and I threw my hands up in defense. "Okay! I'll answer... Hmmm, I guess you could say a high ranked genin, and maybe pull off a chunin." Sasuke's eyes widen slightly, but I quickly added something before he could say anything, or call my bluff.

"But I was being trained for years back in Tanigakure, and I had a personal, eccentric, sensei. But because the education and ranking is slightly different here, I'm just a simple genin, just like the rest of the ones that passed the exam," I shivered slightly when the most eccentric person I know came to mine, and from what I've heard from Gramps, he was now a sensei with his own team. 'God, I pity his squad... Hope his students can handle his 'youthfulness'.'

He was still staring at me with slightly wide eyes when I shrugged again. "Next question?"

"How old are you?"

"I just turned thirteen right before I entered your class. We don't get to enter our academy to train a full year before someone here can." I answered simply, surprised that he would ask for my age. But I don't think he was all the surprised that I was year older than he was, because he wasted no time before asking his fourth.

"Who are Rin, Obito, Minato, and Kushina?"

'Crap!' I rubbed the pendant of my necklace and with the other hand pushed my bangs behind me ear, old nervous ticks. 'I knew he was going to ask that question again, just to see if I answer it this time. Damn it!' I took a deep breath, knowing had no chance if I wanted him to stay quiet later. But I have to twist this one more than the rest, because if I didn't, it would give away everything.

"Rin and Obito were friends of mine back in Tanigakure. They were in my class for a few years, and Minato was the brother of my sensei, the calmer of the two. I got really close to him, and he became like an uncle to me. Kushina was his wife. When I wasn't training, in class, or hanging out with Rin and Obito, I was with them. But when something happened to all of them, the leader of my village thought it would be best if I left. It's a small village, so there was not much he could have done to help me get over the trauma."

"What happened?"

"They were killed, every one of them. But not all at once, but within the time span of two years. They kept on taking on too dangerous of missions and ended up biting more than they could chew," I finished, not looking at Sasuke, my hair creating some sort of red wall between us. "It's funny, you remind me a bit of Obito because of you eyes and hair, but Naruto has nearly the same personality, and is a mirror image of my sensei's brother. Karma really is a bitch, isn't it?" I let a small sad laugh escape as my eyes turned to the sky, my fingers still rubbing the pendant that Fang had given me.

Sasuke was silent for a little bit, and I was grateful for it. Maybe me telling all of this reminded him of how he too really had no more loved ones. It was heartbreaking, to say the least, and the very day I was reminded of the pain. And I had no doubt that he was reminded just as much as I was of his own.

"How come... When you saw our sensei, you looking like you saw a ghost?" He asked slowly, breaking our silence filled with past pains, and for some reason, I couldn't help but laugh a little. I turned and gave him a small smirk with a shrug.

"Can't say Sasuke. I've already answered your five questions. Maybe some other day I'll tell you," with that I slowly got up and stretched my arms over my head and sighed, seeing what looked like a bloody lump of flesh with a mop of blonde hair on the ground about thirty feet from us with a still enrages pinkette standing over it. "I guess I should go and help Naruto before Sakura killed him, shouldn't I? I'm not sure if our sensei will be too happy is one of our teammates ends up dead on the first day."

Sasuke simply shrugged and looked away from me, a scowl on his face, but I saw the look in his eyes before he turned. 'I don't think he'll be harassing me for any more questions anytime soon... Unless I give him more reasons to be curious, which I don't plan to. Though I've always wondered how many times someone could lie to an Uchiha before they became too suspicious. But I know for sure that Rin would have my head if she heard how many lies I just told.'

"Sakura, I don't think it's wise to kill one of your teammates right off the bat," I told her as I walked over to them and tried to scrap Naruto off the ground. "And frankly, it's going to be extremely annoying if we have to go through this every day."

"Why you!" she growled, and I had to drop Naruto and duck to avoid the punch she swung at me.

"Whoa, calm down Sakura. Calm down!" I yelled as I had to continually dodged her attacks, but never struck back. Over time, I began smiling at her tries and starting laughing as I forced her to play a game of tag in a way. At first, it enraged her more and her hits got wild, but then she slowly started to smile as well, but still tried to hit me.

'You know, if Kakashi ever gets around to meeting us here and trains her properly, Sakura could end up being a very skilled kunoichi on the battlefield.' I thought to myself as she managed to land one on my arm, but it wasn't very hard and I knew there wouldn't be any bruising.

"Hey, try widening your stance a bit, with your dominant foot in front to steady yourself, like this," I showed her a proper stance.

"Like this?" Sakura asked as she tried to mimic me. I nodded but pushed her feet a little wider apart to get them to the correct stance.

"Mhm, this way you can put more force into your punches. It's also makes it easy to get into a counter or defensive stance after. Here, try and hit me again," I got into my stance as well. Sakura swung at me again, and this time after I ducked under I went into a crouch and swung out one of my legs, sweeping her feet out from under her, but I stopped short, letting her catch up to what I did.

"A good way to stop someone from disarming you this was is to obviously duck, but I prefer to jump so I end up behind them, that way you can strike back before they can center themselves again," Sakura followed what I said and tried to get behind me when I stood up, but she ended up messing up, so I stopped and helped her correct so she could attack properly.

We went on like that for another two hours, the whole time just practised sparring and me correcting her when she messed up. About half way through Naruto finally regained conscious, and after watching for about ten minutes decided to join in with us, but he was more rambunctious, and wouldn't listen as much, so I ended up having to personally show him what to do when in a real sparring match. After that he went over and sat near Sasuke, sulking and nursing his once again soar head.

"Okay, I think we should call it quits," I said as I dropped my stance. Sakura smiled and dropped her's too, before fixing her slightly messed up hair and rubbing the dirt off her face. I ran a hand through mine when my bangs got in the way but kept it down. We didn't say anything, just nodded our heads before we joined the boys and sat down.

'Where in the hell is Kakashi?!' I looked around with a frown. Not only was he late, it was by numerous hours. I could chalk up yesterday as a rare occurrence, a fluke, but to be this late two days in a row meant that something was wrong. And it bothered me deeply enough to put me back into the foul mood I was in much earlier. 'Fang does 'do' late.'

"How long do ya think it will take him to show up?" Naruto asked. I shrugged and pulled out my journal, a frown still on my face.

"Don't know," I replied, a little bit of venom in my voice, and turned to a black page. If he was going to make us wait for an even longer amount of time, I might as well use to write down the latest developments.

"I really hope this doesn't continue. It's not very good if a sensei keeps his new students waiting like this," Sakura pointed out, clearly not happy at all about having to wait for so long.

"No, no it is not. It's also breaking an unspoken rule for shinobi to be on time for important things," I explained without looking up. We sat there for little for another two hours, Sasuke and I was not saying anything as Sakura and Naruto continued their grumbling. But I did often agree or disagree with them in my mind.

'Who is ever late by six hours?!' I growled in my mind when Kakashi finally did show up and was greeted by the shouts of Naruto and Sakura, pointing out the redundant fact.

"Sorry, a black cat crossed my path, so I had to take a long way here," Kakashi said with what I could only assume was his 'I'm so not sorry' smile. Sakura, Naruto, and Sasuke were still glaring at him as they stood up, but I tried to keep my face emotionless as I joined them.

"That's one of the worst lies I have ever heard, sensei," adding my disapproval on his new title. "Who knew you were the type to sleep in, and so late. I really hope this is not a recurring habit of yours."

'That excuse was right out of Obito's book. But the only reason we believed him half the times was because we knew he was that kind of person, and that it happened every single day.' I thoughts as I carefully watched Kakashi place an alarm clock on one of the three posts that we were still close to before.

"Okay, this clock has a timer set for noon," he explained as he pressed the alarm button down, then pulled out two little silver bells. "Here are two bells. Your task is to take these from me before the time's up. Those who don't have a bell by noon, get no lunch. I'll not only the two of you to one of those posts, but I'll also eat right in front of you."

'Wait... So that's why he told us not to eat?!' my stomach, just like the other three, growled at the thought. 'That's too mean! Gramps never even did that!'

"You only have to get one bell. There are only two, so two of you will definitely be tied to the posts. And, the people who don't take a bell fails. So at least two of you will be sent back to the academy,' my anger was pushed back by the shock of how quickly dark he spoke as he continued his explanation, and then how he equally quickly returned to her nearly bored expressions. "If you want you can use shurikens and kunais. You won't succeed unless you come at me intending to kill."

"But you'll be in danger!" Sakura exclaimed, and Naruto just laughed and folded his arms behind his head.

"Yeah, you're so slow, you can't even dodge a blackboard eraser! We'll definitely kill you!"

'What delusional planet are you from? Even when Fang was a chunin he couldn't probably take you down with both arms tied behind his back!' I rolled my eyes and then bit my tongue. 'Dammit! Damn loyalty. I'm supposed to be mad at him, not complimenting!'

"In the real world, those with no talent often bark the loudest. Well... Ignore Mr. dead last and start when I say-"I didn't even think when I say Naruto grab on of his kunai and aimed at Kakashi. I spun around and wrapped my arm around him, putting Naruto in a headlock, then I grabbed his hand and twisted it so it was pointing the tip of his own weapon to his neck. I blinked a few times a second after I had done so a frowned again, but didn't let him go. 'God damn loyalty!'

"W-What?! How?! Harmony?!" Naruto gasped in shock.

"Thank you Harmony, though I could have done that myself," Kakashi said from his spot a few feet away from us still. I nodded my head and released Naruto.

"What's the rush Naruto?" I asked as I let go of his head. "He hasn't even said start yet." I took a few steps away from Naruto and let out a nervous chuckle.

"And sorry. I didn't think before I moved, but that was some killer intent you had there, Naruto," I gave him a thumbs up, and wince internally at the looks that Sasuke and Sakura were giving me.

"I have to agree with Harmony on that. it seems you're finally prepared to come at me with the intent to kill. So you've finally acknowledged me?" Kakashi looked at the four of us and let out a small chuckle. "Hehe, it seems like I'm beginning to like you guys."

The other three cracked a small smile at that and then got into ready stance's when Kakashi spoke again. "Okay, let's get going. Read... BEGIN!" He yelled as the four of us jumped off into different directions, and started the trial to prove our worth in this new world.

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Otogakure* - Hidden Village of the Sound. But her family left before the war and long before Orochimaru took over/created his village. In this story, it's the original village of the Katureta Merodi clan, before their curse drove them to near extension. I'll go into more details later in the story.