22 Chapter no.22 Bet

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All three of them blinked before standing up out of their fighting stances, two of them with confused looks, the other just slouched, yawned, and placed his hands in his pockets "Um, what?" Naruto said, conveying the thought he and Ino shared at the moment.

"Yeah." Asuma said with a laugh, "That was just to see if you would all turn on each other and fight over the single spot or work together. I was actually expecting you all to fight with Miss Bossy and the Airhead Kid over there, Lazy-Ass would have ended up getting dragged into it, and I would have failed your miserable asses and sent you back. Didn't really expect you all to turn on me though, that was entertaining."

"Damn…" Naruto said as he slouched his shoulders, "I swear I only sensed the first Asuma-sensei that entered the area." Naruto then told himself whenever he was doing anything like that again he needed to send out a pulse every once in a while, they had wasted all that time with a clone when the other entered the area right after the clone did. He knew Asuma was coming, too bad it was the wrong Asuma.

Asuma placed a cigarette in his mouth, "I was going to scare you all shitless one more time and then give you the option to fight over the apprenticeship, and if you turned that down I was going to make you fight the clone anyway seeing as how the point of all this was to ensure that you all act as a team, so all you really did was rush it all along." He finished and lit his cigarette.

"Knew it." Shikamaru said offhandedly, "Are we done? We pass so we're done right?"

Asuma sighed. Shikamaru straight killed his momentum. Damn kid just didn't understand the concept of cool, he was trying to be a role model here, "Yeah… we're done. Meet me back here tomorrow at 8 a.m. sharp for your first actual day as Konoha genin. Good work Team 10." With that he once again disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

Shikamaru heaved a sigh at his day finally being over, "Finally. I'm going straight home and taking a nap. See you guys tomorrow." He began to walk away from the field.

Ino smiled, "Well that worked out better than I thought it would. I'm going to tell dad I passed. Later guys!" Ino ran off in her own direction.

Naruto just stood still watching them both walk away before a smile crossed his face and he jumped into the air excitedly, "Yatta! I'm finally an actual ninja now!" He landed and looked around for anyone that might have seen that before shrugging and walking away.

"That seriously wasn't cool Naruto!" He heard Ino say from a distance away.

"Damn it!" Naruto said to himself before walking off with a proverbial raincloud over his head.

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Tenten was simply doing target practice on bulls-eyes she painted on trees at the edge of the training field. She felt someone tap her on the shoulder and she abruptly turned around and unloaded every shuriken in her hand at the person that had surprised her. She looked down oddly when she saw a log riddled with the weaponry she had just unleashed.

"You're so lucky I knew you were going to do that." Naruto said as he walked up beside her looking at the log she had murdered.

"How did you even sneak up on me?" Tenten asked. She had been alert the entire time in case one of her team members came looking for her to help them train.

"I wasn't trying to. I just walked up to you and tapped you on the shoulder." Naruto said honestly. Tenten frowned. She guessed she had to chalk it up to her not being used to Naruto's presence. It was still something she needed to work on, being surprised by someone that wasn't even trying to do it wasn't a good indicator of her awareness. Naruto glared at her, surprising her, "You could have told me there was a second test. I almost looked stupid out there today."

Tenten smiled apologetically, "Sorry, that would have been cheating. But you said almost so that means you passed right?"

"Yeah you bet!" Naruto said with a huge grin before he took on a pondering expression, complete with squinted eyes, "But are you leaving anything else out that I need to know? Because I'm supposed to start missions tomorrow too."

'Should I tell him about the D-ranked missions?' She asked herself. On one hand knowing would soften the blow of the wind being taken out of his sails. It was better to see a punch coming than to be hit with one you had no clue was there. However on the other hand why should she? No one fucking told her she would be picking up dog shit and painting fences for 'missions' when she started, 'Nah, he'll be fine.' She figured, "Nope! You're all set!" She chirped happily, confident in her decision to pass on the suffering to the next class of genin.

Naruto kept grinning at her, "Want to spar?" He asked spontaneously, "I haven't really done anything today."

Tenten shook her head, "No, but thanks anyway. This is the time of day where our sensei has us work on our own things, one of my team should be here any minute to get me. Or do you want a repeat of what happened the first time with Lee?"

Naruto paled and made a hand-self to send out a random pulse to check if anyone was coming. "Getting kicked in the face once out of the blue is enough thanks. I just wanted to see if I'm any better yet."

Tenten frowned and placed a hand on her hip, "It's been a week. How good could you expect to get in a week Naruto? You haven't even had a day under your sensei yet." Tenten began pulling her weapons from the bulls-eyes in the trees.

"But I've been training super-hard!" He assured her, "Something's got to have changed right? I still might not beat you, but I might do better than last time."

Tenten let out a laugh, "Unless you have a new trick like the one you used the first time, if we fight I don't think you will. I'm ready for your little surprises and you don't have anything new to get close to me. Just wait some more and make sure you actually improve or else you won't be any better than my teammate Lee repeatedly challenging my other one Neji."

"What?" Naruto said, "Lee loses? To your other teammate? He hasn't beaten him once?"

Tenten shook her head and sighed as she picked up the last of her weapons, "No. He works hard and he's clearly far better than he was last year when we became a team, but he still hasn't beaten Neji. He sees him as his 'eternal rival' and challenges him every chance he gets. The thing is though, he does it every chance he gets, everyday if Neji is willing, which means that he isn't giving himself much time to actually get better before trying again. I'm getting tired of watching him get beat up but he doesn't listen to me."

Naruto was surprised by that, "Wow, your other teammate is stronger than Lee?"

Tenten nodded, "Well, it doesn't hurt that Lee can only use taijutsu, and going up against Neji with just taijutsu is pretty much suicide if you aren't Gai-sensei good at it. He was the rookie of the year in our class… everyone calls him a natural genius."

"Oh." Naruto said dejectedly. That meant that there was someone else out there way stronger than him too. He perked back up somewhat, "Well enough of that, what about us? What's going on with you and me?"

Tenten gave him an odd look with a raised eyebrow begging him to repeat himself, "What? Care to try again with how you worded that or were you actually trying to hit on me?"

Naruto gave her a clueless look in reply, "Huh? I was wondering when we actually can spar again. If you say it won't matter until I get really, really better, then how will I know?"

"Oh, good." Tenten replied in a relieved voice. It would have been really weird if Naruto had started to have a crush on her, the him being shorter than her by so much thing was seriously noticeable, "Well, I'm going to need to see how I do against actual ninja in combat in a few months. Tell you what, if you're any better come back here in five months and challenge me and I'll see if you're any better."

"Five months…" Naruto whined, "That's a long time. I can't come back here for five months?"

Tenten giggled, "No Naruto, I didn't say you can't come back, I just said you can't challenge me like you have been for five months. You can still come back and ask me stuff. I mean I have been a genin longer than you and it's my responsibility to be a useful senpai to a rookie like you isn't it?" She said, ruffling his hair and getting a laugh out of his facial expression from it.

"Fine!" Naruto shouted, "In five months I'll knock your block of Tenten, just you wait."

"Like I would actually let you catch up to me and pull that miracle off." Tenten flicked Naruto's nose, "If you actually beat me in five months of training alone I'll… I don't know yet, we'll figure that out later."

Naruto held his nose and glared at her, "Alright then, it's a bet. For… something five months from now that I can beat you."

"Someone like you will never beat someone like Tenten."

A cool voice said.