Chapter 3
Chapter 3
Akira soon tuned out the following lecture, looking out the window as he thought over his sparring partner’s warning a few days before. Apparently, their jōnin-sensei’s would be testing them as soon as they met them.
The redhead had decided against warning his brother because, from what he’d been told, the test varied depending on your sensei and there was no way to prepare for it. The only thing telling Naruto would accomplish would be to get the blond unnecessarily nervous and stressed over it.
“…Uzumaki Akira.” At the sound of his name, the redhead perked up and returned his attention to the room. “Uzumaki Naruto.”
As a tight knot of worry unwound on his chest, he realised just how very concerned he’d been over getting separated from his brother. The twins exchanged a relieved smile that disappeared soon afterwards.
“Uchiha Sasuke. Haruno Sakura.” Continued Iruka.
Akira and Naruto exchanged a look that was a strange mix between confused and horrified. Of all the people to get stuck with, why did it have to be those two? Unknown to them, their thoughts were being mirrored by their new teammates in that very moment.
“Next squad: Team 8. Hyūga Hinata. Inuzuka Kiba. Aburame Shino.”
Akira absently listened, his mind trying to work out why their team had four people instead of the usual three and which criteria had been used to pair them up. Iruka-sensei ha said it was to balance the teams and they had the top students as well as the worst two in the team, but surely there had to be more to it. Unless they were implying that Naruto and he were so bad that the team needed another member, but that couldn’t be it. Shikamaru was very smart, but his grades were still lower than Akira’s because of his laziness.
“Team 10. Yamanaka Ino. Nara shikamaru.” There were two simultaneous groans, one coming from their back ―Ino― and another from their right ―Shikamaru. “And Akimichi Choji.”
Ino groaned again, but Akira saw Shikamaru smile at getting to be on a team with his friend.
“That’s the last one-”
Akira should have seen it coming when Naruto suddenly stood up and interrupted their teacher. Loudly.
“Iruka-sensei, why do great shinobi like Akira and I need to be on a team with a teme like Sasuke!?”
“Sasuke had the highest scores out of the whole class, Naruto, and you had the lowest.” Said iruka, eliciting a few snickers. “To create a well balanced team, we’ve put the best student with the worst.”
“Just make sure you don’t get in my way, loser.”
“What are you saying!?” growled Naruto, turning around to face the Uchiha.
“Are you deaf, too!” mildly asked the black-haired boy, eliciting a good number of laugh from their classmates.
Before the blond could bodily launch himself at the other boy, Akira grabbed the back of his orange jumpsuit and shook his head slightly.
Naruto huffed, cheeks red in both anger and embarrassment, but turned and sat down again.
“These teams are going to be so troublesome…” muttered Shikamaru to their right.
Akira couldn’t help but agree.
“But, sensei, you said we’d be put in teams of three; why are there four in hours?” asked Sakura.
“Your jōnin-sensei will explain it later, I’m sure.” Dismissed the chūnin. “You’ll meet your jōnin-sensei after lunch break. Until then, you can go.”
Naruto and Akira waited until the class was vacated, most of their classmates leaving with their team to start getting to know each other as they ate. When the last of them left, Akira sighed.
“Great. And today had started out so well…”
“It could’ve been worse, you know.”
“We’ve got the Uchiha-teme and his fangirl. Sure, Sakura is pretty and it would be nice if we could get along with her, but she’s going to be unbearable with how obsessed she is with the bastard. How could it be worse?”
“One of us could’ve got stuck with them without the other.”
Naruto gave an overly exaggerated shiver that elicited a laugh from his brother.
“What now?”
“We get to know them; if they’re going to be our teammates, we’ll have to spend a lot of time with them. That means we need to get to know each other and find a way to work together without stepping on each other’s toes.”
“But I don’t want to work with the teme…” whined Naruto.
“It also means you can’t call him names, Naruto, and it’s not like any of us gets a say in this.”
“Right… We can prank jiji-chan until he gives us a new team.”
“Do you want to risk being dropped baclk to the Academy?”
“You think jiji-chan would go so far?” asked the blond with wide horrified eyes.
“There’s always a chance, if you annoy him enough.”
“Guess I’ll just have to prank Sasuke-teme until he turns into a decent person.”
Akira dropped his head to the desk. He just hoped their jōnin-sensei had a sense of humour to put up with Naruto or Team 7 was going to be a pain.
HPNHPNHPNHPN
Surprisingly ―to anyone not Akira―, it was Naruto who suggested that to get to know their teammates they should start by finding out what they thought of them.
It was decided that Naruto would speak with Sakura and Akira with Sasuke. Tasking Naruto with having a civil talk with the Uchiha from the get-go was bound to end up in a brawl, after all.
In the end, a brawl may have been preferable.