1 Chapter - 1 : Beginning
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"Ugh," Naruto groaned, turning over in bed. The whiskered blond boy blinked twice, coming more awake as he realized something. The last thing he remembered was charging at that wall of blue light, whatever it was, trying to get to the old man, to save him from whatever that long-necked guy was doing.
He remembered hitting that screen, and then... nothing, just waking up here.
Surprisingly, the young boy did not feel as awful as he somehow expected to. His body was fine, although his mind was decidedly not. There was an odd mix in there of the afterimage of the worst headache of his life, and a strange sort of tiredness, just like he was exhausted after a hard day, ready for a full night of sleep instead of getting up from one.
So, deciding that since no one would need him for anything after the fight the other day he could get away with taking a sick day, he rolled over and went right back to sleep, so tired that he didn't even pause to wonder about how the old man Hokage did in that fight the boy had tried interrupting.
A few hours later his nap got interrupted, first by loud banging on his door, which he ignored by rolling over, then...
"NARUTO!" Sakura slammed open his unlocked door (the lock was broken, like almost everything else in the boy's run down apartment), eyes wild with rage and her aura actually visible, so lost to her temper that she actually looked more like Inner Sakura for once.
Before the boy had a chance to sit up, blink, and wipe at the corner of his eye mumbling a puzzled, "Sakura-chan?" his teammate had stormed into the apartment and turned over his bed, flipping him out onto the ground in a pile of not so clean blankets and sheets.
He got as far as blinking, sitting up from his new position, and muttering a puzzled "Saku..." before the pink demon of fury had hauled him to his feet by the front of his nightclothes and was shouting into his face.
"JUST WHAT DID YOU THINK YOU WERE DOING, SLEEPING IN TODAY OF ALL DAYS?"
Waking up at last, the demon container wiped his eyes, unperturbed by her anger. Sakura was always angry at him, though today she seemed more than usual. "Oy, Sakura-chan," he mumbled into her glazed fury. "Did I miss something?"
"YOU MADE US MISS OUT ON ENTERING THE CHUNIN EXAMS!" she shrieked into his face, shaking him feebly. As the rage induced adrenalin left her weak limbs she dropped her hold on the boy's clothes.
Mortified, the Kyubi container saw tear tracks coming down from her eyes as Sakura teared up once more. "Sasuke-kun was so disappointed!"
Naruto bounced back to his feet again. "Oy, Sakura-cha..."
She pierced him with a gaze a pure, unadulterated hatred, stopping his attempt at apology and request for what she was talking about in its tracks. "DON'T YOU EVER CALL ME THAT AGAIN UZUMAKI-BAKA!" the preteen girl shouted in his face, tears flying as she mixed both grief and anger. "IN FACT, DON'T EVER SPEAK TO ME AGAIN!"
And with that, she fled crying from his room and his house, leaving the young boy in total puzzlement over her behavior, while her inner-Sakura was doing flips and handstands over how much her Sasuke-kun would appreciate her punishing Naruto-baka for disappointing them!
Head still aching and still tired, though not as much, but no longer disposed to sleep, Naruto started puzzling over her inexplicable behavior while he went about his morning routine.
He was just coming out of the shower, having come up with no answers nor anything he'd done to upset her lately, when he stepped out, wearing a towel, only to see Sasuke standing there in his hallway, glaring at him in rage.
Ignoring the anger as he always did, Naruto raised a hand and greeted his teammate happily. "Oy, Sasuke-teme, what's up?"
His answer came in the form of one of the best right hooks the Last Uchiha had ever thrown.
Not even remotely expecting it, Naruto put up no resistance when his fellow member of Team 7 beat him to within an inch of his life. The loudmouthed blond boy had NEVER been subject to so much violence from this boy, who he'd often considered a friend, even a brother, and caught between his initial surprise and trying to keep his towel on, didn't put up too much of a fight.
Finally, the brooding avenger wore his arms out and left without once having said a word the entire visit, his knuckles split and bleeding, toes sore from too much kicking, and annoyed that Naruto had absorbed it all without dying.
Naruto was left laying there on his floor in shock. Oh, the cuts and bruises went away so quickly he'd been healed of some before the others had fallen, but the shock of the brutality of the attack had left him astonished, and he lay there coming to grips with it.
Sasuke-teme had done everything sort of drawing weapons or using jutsu on him! He'd never once seen him that angry! And Sakura-chan, too! What was up with them?
What had he missed by sleeping in one day?
Glancing at a clock, the village pariah rubbed at sores on the back of his head in confusion. Heck! Kakashi-sensei shouldn't even be to the group's regular meeting spot yet!
What could have gotten them so upset?
As if to answer his unspoken question, the rookie genin turned around and saw their teacher there, leaning against a wall in Naruto's hallway, his nose stuck deep in that orange-covered book he always carried.
"Oy! Kakashi-sensei!" the battered blond dove forward, scrambling closer on his hands and knees, trying to get some answers, only to be stopped by a hostile gaze once again.
There was anger there, but mostly disappointment, through there was also some disgust, which, while Naruto was used to being ignored by his teacher, having his sensei be disgusted by him was a whole new realm of hurt.
Kakashi snapped his book shut, uncoiling slowly to face his blue eyed student. "Naruto, you greatly disappointed your team today. I'd thought better of you. For a while I thought you understood how your role is to support your teammates. I was counting on you to be there to hold them together, so Sasuke could climb higher. Now you have failed when they needed you the most, and I can see that I made a mistake in letting you graduate."
And with that the jonin vanished in a swirl of leaves.
The much abused Naruto was nearly in tears from these repeated shocks, coming one after another. Suddenly he couldn't bear to be in his apartment anymore. It was the source of too much recent pain. Throwing on his clothes over still healing bruised flesh, he got out of there and began to walk around the city aimlessly, no real purpose or place to go.
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