Oh god oh god oh god oh god.
Bark solid as stone and jagged as a rusty katana tugs at my clothes and leaves angry red scrapes on my hands as I scale one of the massive trees the Forest of Death is filled to the brim with.
My breath heaves in and out of my chest and blood pounds through my veins. A curious light headed feeling settled over me about an hour ago and has yet to clear up. There's something scuttling up the bark below me.
Oh god oh god oh god.
A thick branch reaches out from a nearby tree and I waste no time latching onto it, swinging up and into a crouch. The creature freezes in its tracks, shivers, and hisses. And then it leaps from the trunk, right at my face.
I shriek, leaping backwards and off the branch into a freefall. Desperately, I make a yanking motion with my right hand and my chakra slams into me like a brick wall, sending me back-first into the tree.
My head impacts it with an echoing crack and for a terrifying moment white noise is all I know. After an eternity my senses return to me and I find myself hugging the trunk with all my might, forehead pressed roughly up against it.
Leaves rustle above me. Another hiss.
Oh god.
Spotting a branch about ten feet below me, I shimmy down the trunk and set to getting back to ground level, one branch at a time. The creature is never far behind, spurring me on faster and more recklessly than is probably recommended while navigating trees the size of mountains. I couldn't really care less at this point, though.
I nearly cry when I spot the ground and my teammates, I'm so relieved. Dropping down from the final branch, I perform a beautiful diving roll behind Sakura, peeking over her shoulder fearfully.
Sasuke sighs, though whether it's from or annoyance or fatigue I can't tell, and flits quickly through the handseals for the Great Fireball. He unleashes it just as the hellbeast hits the ground, and the horse-sized creature goes up with a heavenly woosh. Its screeches are music to my ears.
I stay safely behind my pink-haired human shield until it's stopped making noise entirely and its various limbs are twitching in the air. Then I rush over and kick it as hard as I can, over and over and over.
"I hate spiders," I growl. Said spider's body suddenly gives under my mighty kicks with a sharp crack, and a nasty yellow goo spills out of the hole. I take a hasty step back, gagging.
Sasuke snorts. "You done, princess? Or do you have some more bugs you'd like me to swat for you?" I whirl around, jabbing my index finger at him.
"You can blow me, Uchiha. Spiders are evil in its purest form and I'll have no part-"
"Uh, guys?" Sakura breaks in hesitantly. "That's the tower over there, isn't it?" She points at said tower, obscured by some leaves but very very close. Never have I seen a more beautiful sight as that great red tower.
Not a minute later I slam the tower door's open, stumbling inside and just about collapsing into the arms of one very surprised Iruka-sensei. Sasuke and Sakura follow in at a perhaps saner pace.
"It was so awful, Iruka-sensei," I babble. "There were tigers as big as Ichiraku's and snakes longer than your lectures on Genjutsu-"
"So you three made it," Iruka-sensei observes, amused. "Just in time, too. Hokage-sama will be here at any moment with the jounin sensei for the final evaluations."
"-a pack of wolves tried to tear off my junk and a bear ate all my shuriken-"
"The rest of your classmates that got through the test will be on the top floor, and there's some food and medic nin on the third floor if you can't wait," Iruka-sensei explains. "You'll want to hurry though."
"-and a demon spider chased me up a tree!"
Iruka-sensei rolls his eyes in exasperation, setting me firmly on my feet. "Go on with your teammates, Naruto, before you get disqualified for messing around down here. You can tell me all about it later," he urges.
I sullenly comply, falling into step beside Sakura. I gaze forlornly at the third floor and the line of tables adorned with meats of all shapes and sizes as we pass, but somehow manage to power through to the top floor.
We emerge into a bare room about five times the size of Iruka-sensei's classroom speckled with various groups of three of my classmates from the Academy. The floor is smooth faded green stone and the walls a uniform gray. A few teams are sitting on a platform on the far side of the room with concrete steps. A quick sweep of the room shows that none of them look as disheveled as Sakura, Sasuke and I, to my annoyance.
"Hey, Naruto!" Oh, perfect.
Kiba waves enthusiastically from his spot across the room, breaking away from his huddle with a small girl in a beige coat and a tall boy in a fully body trenchcoat. Hinata and Shino, I vaguely recall. They follow dutifully behind the boisterous Inuzuka as he threads his way through the teams towards us.
"You guys finally showed up, eh?," Kiba asks, grinning tauntingly. "Didn't think you would manage to shake that bear. Good on you." My eye twitches.
"Thanks," Sakura says softly, inadvertently heading off the verbal kunai I was about to take to Kiba's face.
"No problem. So which task did they saddle you guys with?" Kiba asks, a bit more seriously. Something clenches in my gut. I knewthere was something I was missing. I knew-
"We were only told to make it to the tower before sunset," Sasuke answers. Kiba winces.
"Courrier team, huh? That sucks, I'd never have guessed they'd put you two there. We got tracking." He holds up a scroll colored red around the edges with the kanji for track emblazoned on it.
"... I'm confused," I announce. Sakura nods in agreement.
"We weren't told that there were specific team categories," Sasuke says. Kiba frowns.
"You mean your sensei didn't tell you?"
"Our sensei threw us in here and wished us good luck and that's about it," I reply sourly. Kiba gapes.
"Seriously?"
"Seriously," Sasuke confirms dryly. Kiba makes to ask another question, but suddenly falls silent, staring at something behind us.
It's old man Hokage and a bunch of older looking shinobi with jounin vests that I don't recognize, and there's Kakashi in the very back, slouching along with his tiny orange book.
I step aside, allowing him to pass, followed by all but two jounin, Kakashi and an absolutely gorgeous woman dressed in bandages of all things with black hair and crimson eyes. Kakashi sidles up beside us, keeping his nose buried in his book, and the black haired woman walks over to Kiba and his team, murmuring lowly to them.
The rest of the jounin break off in a similar manner, each seeking out their respective teams until it's just the old man stepping up onto the platform on the far side of the room. He clears his throat, instantly silencing the quiet mutterings that had been drifting through the room. Clasping his hands together, he surveys the room with serious eyes. Hokage eyes.
"You are all here today because you've decided that you wish to spend your lives as one of Konoha's shinobi, protecting her and her interests alike. You are all here today because you've worked hard day in and day out to reach the level of skill necessary to become a shinobi of Konoha, and you're here because you had the force of will to make it through our infamous Training Ground 44 in pursuit of your goals.
"Not all of you here will become shinobi today, I am afraid. That does not mean this has all been for nothing, though. Not at all. Return to the Academy, study and practise hard, and I have no doubt I'll be adding your names to our roster come next year." He smiles.
"For those of you that do ascend to the rank of shinobi, I'd like to give you my sincerest congratulations and hopes that your career is a safe and prosperous one.
"If ever you find yourselves in need of assistance that isn't being provided by your jounin sensei or your teammates, know that your fellow shinobi are always willing to help. And myself too, if I can find the time." He nods sharply. "Your jounin sensei will take things from here, I believe. Best of luck to you all." And just like that he steps down from the platform and walks calmly back to the exit, sparing me a nod on his way out the door, and he's gone.
Noise kicks up once again, shouts of triumph and wails of dismay filling the room. I turn to find Kakashi heading for the stairs himself and hurry after him.
"You're the worst," I accuse, scowling fiercely. My apparent sensei peeks over his book.
"Whatever do you mean?"
"You didn't tell us anything about the test," Sasuke explains with a scowl of his own, on the other side of our apparent sensei. "You didn't even tell us what type of team we were."
"I told you all you needed to know," Kakashi disagrees. "And you're obviously heavy assault."
"Obviously?" I ask incredulously.
"Obviously," Kakashi confirms. "Why else would I bug you with pheromones to attract predators if not for heavy assault?"
And just like that my fragile grip on my temper shatters under the crushing weight of my rage.
"You what!?" I roar, leaping in front of him, shoving my index finger in his chest. "Do you know how close I came to not being able to father children because of your stupid pheromones, how many of my perfectly good shuriken got eaten? How did you even dothat?"
"When we were at the gate," Sasuke says, eyes widening in realization. "You slapped me on the back and ruffled Sakura's hair."
"What about me?" I demand. "I'm the one they went after every single time and he never even touched-" The words freeze in my throat. "The roof," I breathe. Kakashi's eye quirks up in a smile.
"I hit you with an extra large dose for starting fights without your sensei's consent." My hands spasm in a choking motion, and for a brief instant I see red.
"So, ah, sensei," Sakura hurriedly speaks up. "Did we pass?"
"Oh, with flying colors!" Kakashi says enthusiastically, and the earth-shattering fury subsides in me, just a bit. "You three are all mine now!" Somehow, that no longer sounds as happy a prospect as it did a few hours ago.
"When's our first training session?" Sasuke asks.
"Nine o' clock sharp tomorrow morning at training ground seven," Kakashi supplies. "I'd suggest getting a good night's sleep tonight. You'll be needing it." With that he brushes past me the rest of the way down the steps.
"Oh, and one more thing," he calls, stopping just inside the entrance. Reaching into his pocket, he pulls out a small purple pellet the size of my thumbnail and flicks it at me. My hand reaches out and snatches it from the air, and I stare at it, puzzled.
Then it explodes in my face.
Rancid purple smoke envelops me and Sasuke and Sakura, and I quickly jump down the rest of the stairs out of the cloud, coughing and waving a hand violently in front of my face.
"What the hell was that?" I choke out.
Kakashi grins. "The rest of the pheromones. See you tomorrow!" And with that he disappears in a swirl of leaves.
"Son of a bitch."
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