Konoha fox

Chapter 8

Iruka was walking out of the hokage tower with a folder in his hands.

He still couldn't believe how Mizuki tried to betray the village, nor would he have imagined that Naruto had it in him to stop him.

Although, now that he thought about it, it was to be expected that Tsunade-sama had taught him some things.

After all he performed always almost flawlessly in class, just a couple of points below Sasuke.

Always one or two points below him.

Iruka stopped in his track, a sudden thought on his mind. 'Could it be that he purposely held back?

After all his grades are just too precise, he's always been just behind Sasuke.

Even that one time that Sakura managed to perform best in a written test, Naruto ended up making less points than usual to be just behind Sasuke.

But why? It doesn't makesense! Maybe I'm just imaging things.'

He shook his head and looked at the folder in his hand. In that there were his now ex-students' future teams, assuming that they'd pass their jounin sensei's test.

Iruka was optimistic though, there were a lot of promising shinobi this year.

'Well,' he thought, 'I shouldn't make them wait.'

Haruno Sakura fixed her pink her and looked in the mirror for the last time.

Satisfied with her reflex, she said goodbye to her mother and went out to get to the academy.

Today they'll announce the team assignment, and she hoped with all her might to be on Sasuke's team.

They'd get to know each other better and then...

She blushed furiously and almost walked into a wall.

"Hey forehead-girl, what's up? Can't you even walk straight any more?"

"Shut up, Ino-pig! I was just thinking about how I'll spend my time with Sasuke-kun once we'll be on the same team."

"Tsk, right, keep dreaming billboard. I'm going to see my Sasuke-kun at the academy now."

The blond then walked ahead, but was soon joined the other who left her a couple of steps behind.

From then on they started to run as if the first would have won Sasuke's heart.

Their contest ended with the both of them flying through the classroom door at the same time, quickly followed by an argument about how there was a mile between them.

Naruto, who was peacefully sleeping in his seat, grumbled something before taking two empty bags of chips from Chouji, rolled them into two pellets, and tried to cover his ears with them.

Chouji chuckled at him while Shikamaru complained about 'troublesome women'.

Just when the two girls were about to start a fight, however, Iruka came in shouting to shut up and sit down.

Once they did that he started a speech about how proud he was of them and the life that awaited them as Konoha ninja.

As usual Naruto didn't hear a word, choosing instead to look around the class at the other graduated.

Sakura and Ino where glaring at each other, while at the same time stealing glances at Sasuke.

They weren't exactly what you can call strong and dependable kunoichi, in fact they spent almost all their time chasing after the Uchiha instead of training.