It's just a few minutes past 9 in the morning and we find the more problematic members of Team 7 waiting at their regular meeting spot. They were far from happy though. Kakashi-sensei asked them to meet him at 7 in the morning, almost 2 hours ago! Even though they should have been used to his tardiness, it still irks them deeply.
So now they are standing around, fidgeting restlessly, whilst waiting for him to show up. What annoyed them even more is that the other member of their team hasn't shown up yet either.
Sasuke didn't care much about the dobe, but his attitude lately didn't sit right with the last loyal Uchiha. Normally he could rile Naruto up for his amusement, but the last few months, the dobe hasn't been reacting at all.
In fact he just directed those calm smiles at him, like he was dealing with some insolent child who was throwing a temper tantrum. It pissed Sasuke off greatly. Those looks of pity mixed with condescension made him want to set the annoying blonde on fire. He vowed to put the idiot in his place one of these days.
Sakura was at a loss. For years she had been trying to get that annoying blonde off her back. In her mind, he was an obstacle standing in the way of her and her true love, Sasuke-kun. So when he stopped pestering her for dates, she took it as a sign from above that things were finally going her way.
And now that Naruto-baka was out of the picture, her Sasuke-kun will see how womanly she is and return her love. That didn't happen. In fact nothing else changed. Sasuke-kun still coldly rejected her every day. However, out of habit, when she turned to Naruto-baka to reject his advances, she would see him casually walking away from her.
At first it annoyed her that she didn't have a target to vent her frustrations on. But as the months went by, and the pattern carried on, she began to question herself. Constant rejections from her true love coupleed with the 'dead-last' Naruto, who has been chasing after her your years like an eager puppy, losing interest in her made her question her worth.
She now honestly missed the attention that he used to give her. His unrelenting pursuit of her made her feel special and she honestly didn't know how to react to him completely losing interest in her. She also started to see a noticeable gap between her and her two teammates.
Naruto and Sasuke-kun were frontline fighters and she was honestly unsure what she brought to this team. She neglected her training for years, and now she's stuck. She started to wonder whether she made a mistake rejecting Naruto all those times…
'No! I can't think like that. Sasuke-kun is my one and only! He will definitely notice me soon. Naruto-baka will come crawling back to me any day now!' Thought Sakura. Clearly she was delusional.
"Good morning team." Greeted the placid voice of their wayward teammate. Even after all these months, it's hard for them to get used to him not shouting everything. His voice even sounded different. It was much smoother and had a velvety quality to it. If Sakura was honest with herself, it was quite sexy to listen to, but knowing it was Naruto totally turned her-off. She turned to berate the blonde idiot for being late, when her breath caught in her throat.
He was dressed in a totally different outfit. Most obvious was the absence of the glaring neon orange that usually blinded people when he walked by.
His new outfit consisted of a white yukata that reached just below his knees, with blue snowflake patterns on the bottom and ends of the sleeves, worn so that his arm only goes through the left sleeve, and the right half droops down over his azure obi and a mid-sized blue swirl on the back.
Over this, he wears a black belt buckled with a rectangular plated leaf hitai-ate as the buckle. Underneath, he wears a black, orange-lined high collar shirt with a popped collar and black pants.
He also wears knee-high black boots, buckled at the top and above his foot, which appear to add about half an inch to his height.
(/AN: Think Sakata Gintoki's outfit minus the sword plus the few design changes I mentioned/).
Now that his hitai-ate wasn't holding his hair back, she noticed that it was much longer than it usually was. Whereas before it was spiky, now that he grew it to reach his shoulders, it looked a lot shaggier. It still had a semi-spiky quality towards the top and back, but the front was a lot smoother.
He had long bangs that covered his forehead, with a longer portion falling just between his eyes, with two long chin length bangs framing his face. It was a bit longer in the back and she noticed that he could pull it into a small ponytail if he wanted to.
(/AN:For a visual, think of Natsu Dragneel's hair from the one year timeskip after the Tartarus arc but blonde/).
She also noticed that he was taller, at least a few inches above Sasuke without the added height the boots gave him. When they graduated from the academy, he was shorter than her. And she may have imagined it, but those whisker-like marks on his cheeks looked a little lighter. It was still very noticeable, but they looked thinner than before. She felt her cheeks heat up. He looked good. He looked really good.
Sakura felt a little drool escape the corner of her mouth. It was incomprehensible that the knucklehead blonde got this good looking without her even noticing. If he looked like this when he pestered her for dates, she might have been inclined to agree. She slapped her cheeks roughly, snapping her out of her daze. She needed to remind herself that she only loves her Sasuke-kun.
'CHA! That blonde looks delicious! Fuck that emo bastard….I would much rather take a ride on blondie's di-'. She quickly cut off the thoughts of 'inner' before she could finish that sentence, blushing furiously. She needed to get a hold of herself.
"Oi dobe….what's with the clothes?" Questioned emo-McBroody-pants in a sooty tone of voice.
"Yeah Naruto-baka! Are you trying to look cool like Sasuke-kun?! It won't make me go on a date with you!" She screeched. Her long ingrained fan-girl tendencies immediately kicked in after hearing Sasuke's voice, much to the annoyance of 'inner'.
Naruto was amused by the reaction of his team for something simple as a change of clothes. He honestly felt a little sorry for them. To him, they still had a lot of growing up to do. Sakura still looked at the world through rose tinted glasses, thinking Sasuke will swoop in to save her if she's ever in danger.
Sasuke, on the other hand, seemed to think being an Uchiha made him automatically superior to everyone else. But if someone did better than him, he became immensely jealous and insecure. He had a contrasting inferiority and superiority complex. He wasn't even as prodigal as those idiot civilians made him out to be.
The only reason he was regarded as a prodigy was because he was the only Uchiha in the village. If the clan was still around, he would probably be about average.
He only recently awakened his Sharingan, whereas the more talented members of his clan did it before even hitting double digits in terms of age. All the baseless praise he received made him start believing his own legend, making him think he's untouchable.
Naruto knew, without a doubt, that he would wipe the floor with the brooder without even breaking a sweat. Not only did Naruto feel he was more skilled right now, but it was far too easy to get under Sasuke's skin.
He had no control of his emotions if you simply just mentioned the name 'Itachi'. He was a walking flight risk and Naruto often wonders what the Sandaime was thinking allowing him to be a shinobi.
"They function in a way to keep the body warm and protected, not to mention preserving ones modesty. If you're asking however, why I am wearing new clothes, the answer is simply that my older ones don't fit me any longer.
This ensemble appealed to me. I didn't know you had such a keen interest in fashion Sasuke-san. Maybe our resident self-proclaimed 'fashion guru' Yamanaka Ino should know that you share such interests with her." Commented Naruto with a placid smile that came off as, almost, patronising and enraged Sasuke off fiercely.
The way he spoke was so sincere and gentle but the amusement dancing in his eyes told Sasuke that he was enjoying speaking to him in such a manner. If it was the old Naruto, he would have blown up and screamed obscenities at him. He honestly preferred that, compared the way Naruto seemed to toy with him now for his own amusement.
The rest of Naruto's sentence caught up with him causing him to pale rapidly. The thought of one the biggest 'Sasuke fan-girls' thinking that they shared such an interest. Sasuke, despite his arrogance, knew a losing battle when he saw one as rapidly shook his head negatively before backing away and going back to brooding.
Only this time, instead of picturing just Itachi, his blonde teammate also joined his traitorous brother in his fantasies of revenge.
"And Sakura-san, I can guarantee you that I have no interest in asking you out on a date of any kind. So you can rest assured." Declared Naruto calmly to his female teammate, who felt her ego take a massive blow. She got rejected by Naruto when she didn't even ask him out. The fact that he looked so good now made it even worse.
Why wasn't he interested in her anymore? Was she not pretty enough? Was her forehead too big? These were the kind of thoughts that plagued her mind as she tried to keep herself from breaking down. She wished things could go back to the way they were. She was much happier then.
Naruto just tuned out his 'teammates', not really interested in their business. While he would work with them and protect them on missions, as was expected of him, he was in no way going to be any closer to them than the absolute minimum requirement.
He instead took the time to admire his new clothes. It was comfortable and provided easy movement. And even he had to admit, he looked damn good in it. Thanks to the extra strength Durability Seals, Self-Repair Seals and Seal-Cleaning Seals he drew on all the sets he had, he didn't worry about them being damaged too badly.
Seals really were a godsend to him. It also made carrying around his equipment much simpler, as instead of having holsters strapped to his thigh, he had some intricately drawn modified storage seals on his forearms allowing easy access to his shinobi gear.
He was able to modify the seal in such a way that it sunk into his skin and wasn't visible, giving him a bit of an edge when drawing weapons with an element of surprise. He also had resistance seals on his body to continue his physical training, even when doing something simple as walking. He was on level 6, out of 10 levels.
He always dropped them at the end of the day to get reacquainted with his body so that it's in sync with his mind. It won't do for him to drop his seals and not be able to keep up with his own body. He can honestly say he's probably one of the fastest people in the village in terms of pure speed.
The face that he tore his muscles daily and repaired them over night for almost 6 months have made his body almost inhuman in terms of strength, durability and dexterity.
But he knew better than anyone, not to get too over confident. While he had a lot of pure power, he had very little experience. Not to mention, as a successful prankster, he knew that a well-placed trap could take down even the most powerful people. The proof is living within him after all. The Kyuubi made sure to remind him of that fact every day to prevent him from getting a big head from his training success. Something he was thankful for from his friend.
His attention was drawn by the rapidly approaching charka signature. He honed his senses to be able to detect such movements, along with his special ability, he doubted there was a better sensor in Konoha than him.
POOF!!!!
His teammate's attention was immediately drawn to the newcomer. You didn't have to be a rocket science to guess who it was.
"Good morning my cute little Genins." Was the annoyingly condescending greeting from their Jounin sensei, Kakashi. Both Sakura and Sasuke had tick marks on their forehead it his nonchalance despite being 3 hours late! Again! "I got lost today, so-"
"YOU'RE LATE!" Screeched Sakura, cutting him off. It was somewhat of a team tradition by this point. Didn't make it any less annoying to them though.
Kakashi just giggled inwardly at the faces of his students. It was just so much fun to mess with them. Their reactions were priceless.
"Well team, we've got a day of missions today so-" He had to do a double take when he finally spotted Naruto. His mind was working a mile a minute, categorising all the differences in his student in his new attire.
It was almost like seeing Minato-sensei, but he notices that while the features were similar, Naruto had his own unique flair, much like his mother in that regard. He had to admit though, he looked good. It was a major improvement from his orange jumpsuit.
"Well Naruto you're certainly looking different today. Nice digs." He commented, giving his student a thumbs up.
"Ara, thank you for your kind words Kakashi-sensei. It relieves me that you find my attire appropriate." Replied Naruto with a tranquil smile. Kakashi just sweat dropped at that. That was another thing he noticed about Naruto in the past few months.
He spoke in such a polite and calm way, that sometimes you couldn't be sure if he was being sarcastic or not. Even though Kakashi knew he probably was, given his prankster nature. He wondered if he did it on purpose, just to annoy people.
No, that was probably exactly why he did it. He knew first hand, seeing as how Sasuke blows a gasket every time Naruto compliments him in the same manner, and even though Sasuke isn't the most social person, even he can pick up the underlying sarcasm and condescension in Naruto's tone, regardless of how sincere he sounded. Kakashi cried anime tears in his mind at the thought of at least one of his students took after him in some way.
"Anyway. Let's get some missions done today." He said as they made their way to the mission centre.
...
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