Return of The Whirlpool (NaruHina)

Chapter 2/ A Ninja...Finally!

Chapter 2: A Ninja…Finally!

Naruto awoke early the next morning. He had finally done it. He was now officially a ninja. Yesterday, he and his team, Sakura Haruno and Sasuke-teme Uchiha, had passed the true genin exam and they were slated to start as true ninja today. Naruto went through his usual morning routine before leaving his apartment to meet up with his team.

Meeting up at the training ground, he found that Sasuke and Sakura had already arrived, but Kakashi was nowhere to be seen. He remembered from the past two days that Kakashi had been late by atleast 2 hours. Hopefully this wouldn't be a regular occurrence. Sadly it was.

"You're late!" shouted Naruto and Sakura simultaneously as Kakashi arrived two hours late.

"Sorry guys, you see there was this old lady who needed help crossing the street and then she needed help…" Kakashi was interrupted.

"Can it!" shouted Sakura.

"Yeah, come on sensei, what sort of cool ninja stuff are we going to be doing today?" asked Naruto.

"Well someone looks eager to get started. So we will. Today we will be working on your teamwork" said Kakashi.

"Huh?" All three of them looked at Kakashi with a dumbfounded look. "Why do we need to do that? Come on, we are ninja now. Can't we get either an exciting mission or a cool new jutsu?" asked Naruto.

"No, not today anyways. I told you yesterday that the three of you will be working together in a team so we will work on making sure the three of you can work together" said Kakashi.

"But come on Kakashi. We are ninja now" argued Naruto.

"No 'but's. You are ninja and as ninja, you need to work together in teams" explained Kakashi. "Do you have a problem, or would you rather go back to the academy?"

"Err…no. Teamwork is great" said Naruto sarcastically.

For the rest of the week, Kakashi had them working on simple trust exercises, such as throwing a ball back and forth blindfolded or having someone guide another around a course while the one being guided was blindfolded. For the most part, these exercises went smooth, for the first hour that is. There came a point every time when Naruto would become fed up with the exercise and slip up somehow, creating tension within the group. Most of this tension was between him and Sasuke with Sakura siding with Sasuke, always. As such, the exercise would go downhill from there. Kakashi sighed at his teams progress. Perhaps a mission might help things out. He had the right mission in mind that was designed to serve as a good first mission and help build teamwork.

"Is everyone in position?" Kakashi called out through the wireless radios his team was wearing.

"I'm ready" called out Sakura.

"I'm in position" said Sasuke.

"I'm here" replied Naruto.

"Alright, where's the target?" asked Kakashi.

"Target is five meters. We are ready to go" said Sasuke.

"Alright, on my mark…go" ordered Kakashi.

With that, the three newly minted genin dove forward on their target. Naruto came up the one to catch it, although he was wishing he hadn't. Their target just so happened to be a pretty angry cat, known around the village as Tora, the Fire Damyio's Wife's pet and the Demon Cat of the Leaf.

Team 7 reported that they had caught the intended cat, indicating that it had a pink ribbon in its ear. They quickly made their way back to the Konoha mission hall and Naruto couldn't get rid of the cat any sooner. By the time Tora was back in the suffocating arms of its owner, Naruto's face looked like it had just been put through a blender five times over. Kakashi called that enough for the day, citing Naruto's health as an excuse to dismiss his team for the day and to read his book.