Naruto: BELIEVE IT

Ninjutsu. Taijutsu. Genjutsu. Cooperation. Positivity. Finally, class attitude.

'Over the span of years, we collected the data of students—primarily in these six categories.'

Tired from his endless work, Hiruzen seemed to have decided to focus on the matter that interested him more than any other at the current moment: the new batch of fresh academy graduates.

'They aren't everything, but the statistics have proven that this methodology of accessing students have been, to part, effective. The title of 'Rookie of the Year' is given to the top graduate, and the way we determine this is by averaging all the scores they received throughout all years.'

Hiruzen turned his eyes to the profile of the familiar blonde.

In his first year at the academy, Naruto received the scores of F in all categories.

In contrast, the scores which he received at his last year was,

'A, A, A, A, A, and A.'

It was such a drastic change.

'But that's not the main point here, is it?'

The reason why he was looking into their profiles was to assign them into a four-men squad under the jonin leaders.

'Let's see...'

They were the future generation of Konoha. In other words, they were to become the main force of Konoha. In that sense, 'equity' or 'equality' weren't what Hiruzen was interested in.

It was the matter of maximizing the synergy and pulling out the growth potential of bright minds; to place the best ones with the best instructors to guarantee the production of new batch of jonins.

'Sharingan to keep Kyuubi at bay. Rivalry. Kakashi to pass down the knowledge of Sharingan to Sasuke.'

Tracking team that consists of Hyuga, Inuzuka, and Aburame. The proven Ino-Shika-Cho combination.

In the end, the teams that were determined were no different from the canon. Though Naruto from the current stantpoint clearly deviated from the canon, it wasn't in a way that changed the team assignment, it seemed.

__________

"Naruto! What are you doing here?"

That was the first thing spoken to Naruto as he attended his final day in the academy, by one of his peers who was a civilian-born.

"Class today is only for the students who didn't fail!"

Naruto couldn't help but deadpan.

"Quite slow to information, aren't you?"

"Huh?"

"You haven't heard the 'Mizuki incident?'"

"Uh..."

Naruto shook his head,

"I recommend you to give up becoming a ninja. How can one be expected to clear a confidential mission if he's deaf?"

Feeling that his surroundings fell silent, the boy looked around and saw that everyone was staring at him as if he was stupid.

Embarrassed, he returned to his seat, red-faced, without willing to argue with Naruto.

Not taking any further attention, Naruto turned the other way look at Shikamaru who was napping near him.

"Shika,"

"...What."

"Tell me how the team placement is going to go."

Shikamaru lifted his head from the table and stared at Naruto as if asking, 'Really?'

As Naruto's stare continued, however, he eventually yielded, knowing that once Naruto aims to achieve something, he doesn't stop until he does so.

"You, Sakura, and Sasuke. Kiba, Hinata, and Shino. Choji, Ino, and me."

Sighing, Shikamaru spoke. Naruto raised an eyebrow,

"What's the reason for Sakura being put with us?"

"Sakura is the best one to fill the hole. If not her, you get someone like Ami in team."

"Haa... this generation is hopeless."

"...You know that you are one of 'this generation', right?"

With the brief conversation having come to an end, Naruto turned to look forward in boredom, waiting for Iruka to arrive and give them the instruction.

"Good morning, Sasuke-kun, is this seat taken...?"

"...Hn."

Really, nothing seemed to be going on except Sakura and other girls fighting over the seat next to Sasuke.

As Sakura successfully won the battle and sat next to Sasuke to intently stare at the boy, Sasuke seemed deeply troubled. Though he tried to maintain his calm, he felt as if the eyes on him were going to drill holes through him.

"What's so great about him, huh?!!"

Then, Kiba, unable to hold in his jealousy, found his way onto the table in front of Sasuke, glaring at the latter.

"Oh?"

Choji, who was busy emptying yet another bag of chips, exclaimed excitedly for the new arrival of an entertainment.

Crouching down with his feet on the table, Kiba glared at Sasuke, bumping their foreheads together.

"KIBA!! LEAVE SASUKE ALONE!!"

Sakura screamed in rage. The girls erupted. One shoved Kiba angrily—

"...Ah."

Kiba tilted over. What happened after was the forced deep kiss between Kiba and Sasuke, enough to render everyone dumbfounded.

"Huh?"

Sakura stood still, with her brain trying to process what is going on.

Watching this scene, for some reason, Naruto felt goosebumps rising on his arms. He unintentionally shivered.

Then, Sakura quickly interjected the scene, kicking Kiba away.

"KIBA, YOU PIECE OF CRAP!!!"

Kiba stood up, panting heavily. Unknown to anyone, his cheeks were blushed.

"Kiba... you..."

Sasuke's expression turned pale as he observed Kiba.

"You are fucking aroused?!"

With her eyes burning in rage, Sakura walked up to Kiba with her fists trembling. Not backing down, Kiba growled back at her,

"Back off, woman!!"

Somehow, that seemed to have sent the wrong information to the classmates. His words... seemed as if it was the confirmation to their suspicion.

"I-I..."

Realizing what he said, Kiba quickly turned to where Hinata was seated.

Hinata seemed scared, looking at Kiba as if she was looking at something unknown.

"T-That's not what I meant!!"

He tried to clear himself one hour straight after that. No one believed him, however.

...

"From this day forward, you are no longer mere students, but full-fledged ninja. On the other perspective, however, you are simply the mere novices among the ranks of the ninja. What you will face from now on will be incomparable to your life up until now."

With the incident having passed, Iruka now stood, giving his final words to the students.

"The next step is the assignment of official duties to you all on behalf of our village. We will divide you into three-man team, and each team will be mentored by a jonin—the elites of the village."

Taking out the file, Iruka took a glance of it.

"...I made the selections so that each team's abilities would be approximately equal."

That was a white lie, of course. It was Iruka's kindness and at the same time, selfishness, filled with his wish to have students realize how unfair life is as late as possible.

"Team number one..."

The assignment has now started. Some students erupted in joy and some seemed to have been filled with doubts—for themselves and for their now-to-be teammates.

"Next, team number seven."

Naruto narrowed his eyes here.

Roughly almost all the students were assigned, and relatively average ones at that.

Currently, nine students were left over, those who could be considered the 'elites' of the class.

Iruka stated,

"Haruno Sakura, Uzumaki Naruto, and Uchiha Sasuke."

Leaning back, Naruto chuckled, for he was amazed by the fact that Shikamaru did indeed guess it correctly.

Looking ahead, Naruto saw Sakura looking at him with a complicated expression.

'Sakura, huh.'

He hasn't spoken to her for years, and wondered what she thought of him now.

Well, as long as she was willing to cooperate with him, he found nothing in problem.

The bigger problem, rather, was...

'Sasuke.'

The black-haired boy who was staring at him as well. Knowing his attitude and partially, the background that made him become who he was today, Naruto couldn't help but wonder if he would be willing to work as one team.

'Chance is, if Sasuke refuses to contribute, Sakura may do the same, considering how she's obsessed with him.'

"..."

Taking his eyes off Naruto, Sasuke gazed at Sakura through the corner of his eyes and snorted,

"Just don't drag me down."

"Y-Yeah, for sure!"

Sakura gulped at that.

After that,

"Team number eight, Inuzuka Kiba, Aburame Shino, and Hyuga Hinata."

"Team number nine still remains active."

"Team number ten, Nara Shikamaru, Yamanaka Ino, and Akimichi Choji."

Taking a deep breath as he placed the file down, Iruka spoke,

"And that's the end of it, everyone. I'll be introducing your instructors this afternoon. Until then, you're dismissed!"

...

There was a reason why Naruto and Shikamaru ended up becoming close friends.

Above all else, they simply paired off too well—in a sense that Naruto was great at gathering information, and Shikamaru was great at interpreting them.

Choji stuck as their clueless third person, sometimes understanding what they said and sometimes not.

In today's lunch period, the topic wasn't that complicated for Choji to not understand, however.

"Jonins are the best military force that hidden villages have. It's only nine teams, but still, the fact that village is willing to allocate nine jonins to teach novices don't make sense."

Currently, Shikamaru was relaying his thoughts.

"Furthermore, the exams which we took to graduate were far too easy. I doubted that this exam is effective in determining who's fit to be ninjas and who's not."

"Then, the purpose of those exams is?"

"Morale boost. The village doesn't necessary aims to fail those who doesn't meet the standard; everyone has the potential of his or her own. However, the village didn't pass them with a particular expectation in them either."

Naruto hummed, nodding as he thought over Shikamaru's words.

"I'm expecting for a potential 'second exam'. The majority will probably fail,"

"Fail, and then what?"

"be sent to some boot camp whatsoever, receiving practical education in a more strict settings to become... as far as I don't want to say this, 'cannon fodders.'"

"...Now that makes more sense."

Agreeing to what Shikamaru said, Naruto then took out a note from his pocket. Going through many scribbles which he made, he flipped to one particular page.

"What's that?"

As Choji asked curiously, Naruto replied,

"The list of jonins that I know of. If you listen carefully to the words that go around the village, there are, surprisingly, many things that you can learn."

Shakamaru, taking a glance over it, commented,

"...There aren't that many names."

"Information about ninjas isn't an easy thing to obtain, and jonin at that. You know very well what I'm trying to say here."

As Naruto stated, Shikamaru nodded,

"The village intentionally leaked the information. Those jonins are technically, the 'public faces' of Konoha."

"And these jonins are the ones that are likely to be our mentors, since pulling out other additional jonins mean the village has to sacrifice some degree of secrecy."

Among the list of jonins which were on Naruto's notes, the names of Hatake Kakashi, Yuhi Kurenai, and Sarutobi Asuma were included.

Choji simply scratched his head, not understanding how Naruto and Shikamaru reached such a conclusion.

"Well then,"

Naruto finally said,

"If there really is another assessment as you say, Shika, good luck."

"...Man, this is troublesome."

Shikamaru sighed.

__________

"Urghhhh, where is our mentor?!!"

Being the only three left in the empty academy classroom, Sakura shouted out of frustration.

Sasuke, maintaining the same position for the past three hours, seemed to be losing his patience as well.

'Yep,'

And at this point, Naruto knew,

'Our mentor is Hatake Kakashi. For sure.'

And it was just after such a thought that the entrance opened and the certain white-haired man with a headband covering one of his eyes and a mask that covered his facial feature, entered.

"YOU'RE LATE!!!"

"My first impression of you... is that you are annoying."