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Chapter 16:Meetings

"What are you two doing here again?" Naruto accused.

The silver-haired jounin addressed merely flipped a page of his book and shrugged. "Ask him," Kakashi answered, and pointed over his shoulder to Sasuke, who seemed to be meditating under a tree nearby.

Naruto scowled. "This is Team Seven's training ground, and Team Seven is going to train, so you'd better not complain if you get in our way!" she hollered at the brunet's still form. As expected, he didn't reply. She scowled again.

"Come on, team. We're going to have an all-out spar today, then lunch, then we'll work on water-walking," Naruto said briskly, and marched to the centre of the clearing with her team trotting behind her.

Without warning, she turned to attack Eriko, who squealed and jumped away, but got knocked down by a back-up kick from her sensei. The jounin turned her attention to the two Hyuuga, and whipped out a kunai in each hand to try and get behind their guard. Then she suddenly shifted her attention back to Eriko, who was just standing by the side watching them spar. The girl received a sweeping kick to the ankles, and Naruto crouched beside her prone form with both kunai pointed at Eriko's neck.

"What's with you guys today? The teamwork's almost nonexistent!" the jounin growled. "Eriko, why weren't you helping Ichiro and Nichiro to attack or defend? Instead, you were just watching! And you two, you work well with each other but forgot about your teammate! What if it were an actual situation? Eriko would be dead by now."

Eriko averted her eyes in shame, and the two Hyuuga hung their heads at their sensei's annoyance. Naruto jumped to her feet.

"Let's start again – this time think as a team!"

Sasuke watched the four of them spar with renewed energy. The genin's teamwork was better this time, although they were still no where near able to trap Naruto. He watched as Naruto grinned, jumping, almost dancing around her students. Her movements were graceful, but they were of power. He itched to spar with the dobe, but she was working with her team.

He rose gracefully to his feet and approached the giggling silver-haired jounin. "Training time."

"Naruto and her team are occupying the place. You want to move somewhere else?" Kakashi inquired from behind his smutty book.

"No."

Kakashi raised his gaze from the book to the man in front of him. "It wasn't exactly a suggestion, Sasuke. You'd be interrupting Naruto's training."

Sasuke rested a hand on the hilt of his Kusanagi. "They would benefit from having to train with distractions around them."

Kakashi regarded his charge silently, trying to read underneath the underneath of the brunet's mind. Just what was he up to? Without another word the jounin put his book away, stood up and stretched. "What do you want to work on today?"

"Just spar. Taijutsu and ninjutsu," he replied monotonously, heading for the clearing.

Naruto laughed as she watched Nichiro struggle to escape the rope his foot was tied to as he swung from a tree branch. "That was careless, Nichiro!" she called up to him as she ducked to avoid Eriko's kunai. Nichiro blushed – whether from the blood rushing to his head or embarrassment, she couldn't tell.

The skin at the back of her neck tingled, and she quickly whipped out a tri-pronged kunai and raised it in a blocking motion as she whipped around, just in time to block the upswing of Sasuke's chokuto as he was turning around behind her to slash at Kakashi.

"Teme! Go find somewhere else to train! Me and my team are sparring here!" she yelled at him angrily.

Without so much as a glance in her direction, he disengaged his Kusanagi from her kunai and shunshin-ed to Kakashi at the other end of the clearing, who raised his own katana to block Sasuke's swipe as he appeared beside him.