Prelude

The written test ended more quickly than Naruto thought but maybe it was because he knew the answers to these questions and he wasn't as nervous as he was the last three times he took this test.

After Iruka collected their test papers, they headed outside and lined up for their accuracy test. Naruto opened the system and looked at his shurikenjutsu skill.

[Shurikenjutsu: Lvl 10

Reduce strength needed to throw shuriken by 20% and increase shuriken flying speed by 20%.]

Naruto had realized long ago that the skill didn't improve his accuracy and that it was something he needed to improve himself and he was fine with it.

Training with Satsuki really improved his precision a lot since she specialized in shurikenjutsu. Since they were rivals, he improved a lot so he could match her skill.

It flew by quickly with Naruto gaining a 10/10 accuracy. Satsuki, Sakura and surprisingly Hinata achieved the same score as him.

"Woohoo!! Congrats Hinata! You're amazing!!" Naruto cheered Hinata who blushed and smiled warmly at him.

"Thank you, Naruto-kun." Hinata replied to him, making his grin widen. Naruto noticed that Hinata has gained a lot more confidence over the past few months. He didn't know how but he was glad that she was getting out of that shy and anxious shell that she's been covering herself with everyday.

Hinata knew the answer to his question. It's because she gained motivation to improve and be confident from him.

Hinata was a certified stalker. She would sometimes stalk Naruto because she was extremely afraid to approach him and had increased shyness and speechlessness when around him.

Hinata smiled as she stood beside her friends Kiba and Ino. She remembered the day that she decided to change.

Flashback.....

Months before the graduation exam. It was an off day for the students at the academy. Hinata was stalking Naruto. She followed him until he reached a clearing.

She hid behind a tree and saw that Naruto was warming up. She audibly gasped as she saw the people approaching him while he was warming up.

It was Satsuki and Sakura. Hinata was confused about what was going to happen. Are they going to fight? Or are they going to talk? Her questions were answered when Sakura started speaking.

"Hey, I have a new technique to share with you guys. It's a chakra control technique." Sakura revealed as she held up a scroll for Naruto and Satsuki to see. The two sat down as Sakura began explaining the importance of the technique and how to perform it.

Hinata understood now. They were training together. And it seems that this has been happening for a long time now.

"You guys understand?" Sakura asked her friends as she rolled up the scroll. Satsuki nodded.

"We'll have this down in a week." Satsuki answered confidently before getting up and walking away from them.

" Hey! Where are you going?! I thought you wanted to train! " Naruto shouted at Satsuki who glared at him.

"Shut up and let me pee in silence, Naruto." Satsuki muttered before activating her one Tomoe Sharingan to intimidate him. Naruto was taken aback by her outburst and pouted. He crossed his arms and looked away from her.

Satsuki smirked and deactivated her Sharingan before walking into the forest. Hinata looked on as Naruto began talking with a Sakura.

"So Naruto, what do you think about Hinata?" Sakura asked, making Hinata widen her lavender eyes at the question before giving her full attention to the topic.

"Oh Hinata? She's cool but very mysterious. The only thing I know about her is that she's from the Hyuga Clan's main branch and she has the Byakugan. I wanna be friends her, but she's always faints whenever I try to talk to her." Naruto pouted as he finished his sentence.

"Tell me more." Sakura replied as she sat beside him. Naruto hummed before continuing to speak.

"She's really shy and anxious. That's not gonna be good in the long run. She's gonna be a Shinobi y'know, being anxious in a mission isn't really a good thing. Believe it." Naruto then sighed as Sakura listened to him.

" I wanna help her out and be her friend. I wanna find out what problems she's going through and help her get over it as a friend should. But as I said before, she always has this weird reactions whenever I talk to her. It's making it impossible."

Hinata was on the verge of tears hearing Naruto's words. He was right, she was the one trying to run away from him instead of doing all that she can to face him.

But it wasn't entirely her fault that Naruto's attempts to befriend her was failing miserably. Hinata has overwhelming kindness that can render her unable to respond or act for fear of offending somebody. Her father's constant push to alter this personality trait when she was younger only made it worse.

It eroded Hinata's self-confidence and made her even more bashful because she gained so little faith in herself and her own opinions.

She sees herself as a failure. It got even worse when her father and much of the Hyūga clan had decided she was a lost cause who would never amount to anything.

Her primary motivation to keep going was Naruto with whom she has been fascinated since meeting him. Suddenly, a flying kunai stuck to a tree, making Hinata squeal in shock and tur around to see who threw it.

It was Satsuki. Satsuki had knew that Hinata was spying on them from the start. She used the excuse of going to pee to get to Hinata's position.

"S-S-Satsuki-san...." Hinata stuttered out. Satsuki sighed.

"Finally you noticed." Satsuki grumbled before approaching her. Hinata backed up against the tree as Satsuki looked down at her.

"Instead of trying to get physically and mentally stronger, you became a creepy stalker. Well, I ain't Naruto, but I'm 100% sure that he isn't going to like those kinds of people." Satsuki smirked at Hinata's horrified expression.

" Why don't you just accept that Naruto isn't going to notice you if you keep on being a stuttering mess? Why don't you try to change that? As far as I can tell, you're an aspiring Shinobi and you want to prove yourself to someone like me and Naruto." Satsuki grabbed Hinata's collar and pulled her in, scaring the shit out of her.

" Standing here being a stalker won't do anything but ruin your already crumbling life. Why don't you change that? You get what you work for, princess of the Hyuga, not what you wish for. They think you're a no good failure, prove those assholes wrong. " Satsuki released her grip on Hinata and started walking away from her.

"It's on you to get you where you wanna be, Hinata. "

.

.

'Thank you for telling me what I needed to hear, Satsuki-san." Hinata thought before looking at Satsuki who nodded at her. Hinata smiled and nodded back at the Uchiha.

The shuriken accuracy test ended smoothly. Then came the taijutsu tournament. Naruto took stood among the crowd of students, waiting to be called up by Iruka. What the students didn't notice was that there were jonins hiding in the back watching them.

Kakashi who was hiding with his fellow jonin was staring at Naruto. He smiled warmly under the mask. 'Minato sensei, Kushina-san. If you two were here, you two would be the proudest parents in the world.' He thought to himself.

"Hey Kakashi, what team did the old man assign you?" Someone asked him. Kakashi turned his head to look at Asuma Sarutobi, jonin of Konohagakure's Sarutobi clan and a former member of the Twelve Guardian Ninja, the bodyguards of the Land of Fire's daimyō. Asuma is also the son of Hiruzen.

Asuma is a tall man, with brown eyes, olive skin, short black spiky hair, and a beard. His clothing consisted of the standard Konoha ninja uniform with the sleeves rolled up half way, flak jacket, regular shinobi sandals and forehead protector. He also wore a sash that had the kanji for 'Fire' marked on it around his waist, a pair of black bangles, and bandages wrapped around the arms of his sleeves.

"He assigned me Team 7, which is historically designated as a first response team. But I made a specific request for specific Shinobi to be in the team. " Kakashi explained lazily while reading his Icha Icha Paradise. Asuma was surprised.

" Wait, you can do that?" Asuma asked, a little bit baffled at Kakashi's revelation. Kakashi looked at him with his signature lazy expression.

" Yes Asuma, you can do that. But it's too late for you to put in a request now because you already have your team assigned to you by Lord Hokage." Kakashi replied. Asuma sighed and nodded before taking out a cigarette. He lighted it and started smoking it.

"Yeah, I was assigned Team 10. I'm gonna be training the next generation of the Ino–Shika–Cho Trio." Asuma explained. Kakashi hummed.

" You better train them good, Asuma. It's a big responsibility for someone new to taking teams like you, especially one as big as training the next generation of the Ino-Shika-Cho Trio."

" You talk as if you've trained a Genin team before." Asuma grumbled, Kakashi smirked under his mask.

" They're all incompetent Shinobi. If they don't even know what teamwork is, then they have no chance of surviving out in the real world." Kakashi replied, Asuma sighed, finding no reason to argue against him.

" How about you, Kurenai? What team are you assigned to lead?" Asuma asked a woman standing quietly beside him. She was Kurenai Yūhi.

Kurenai is a fair-skinned woman of slender build. She has long black untamed hair reaching her upper back, and very unique eyes that are red in colour, with an additional ring in them. She wears make-up consisting of red lipstick and purple eye shadow.

Her regular outfit consists of a red mesh armour blouse with only the right sleeve visible. Overall, this is very broad material which resembles bandages with a pattern on it similar to those of rose thorns. Her hands and upper thighs are also wrapped in bandages and she wears the Konoha forehead protector and regular shinobi sandals.

"Although I just became a jonin, Lord Third assigned me to be the leader of Team 8, a tracking team." Kurenai explained. Kakashi was surprised a little although he didn't show it.

" A tracking team? That's interesting considering you specialize in Genjutsu and your prowess in it." The Copy Ninja commented. Kurenai shook her head.

"You shouldn't see it that way, Kakashi. Whether or not I'm incompatible with my team's fighting style, I will still train them to be some of the most upstanding Shinobi this generation has ever seen." Kurenai replied seriously. Asuma smirked as he wrapped his arm around Kurenai's shoulders.

"That's my Kurenai for ya, Kakashi." Asuma replied, making Kurenai blush and push the jonin away.

"Please be professional, Asuma. Even though we are in a relationship, we are still Shinobi so we still need to have the competence or skill expected of a professional. " Kurenai scolded. Asuma chuckled.

" Yeah yeah. " Asuma chuckled before crossing his arms.

" It's a shame Guy isn't here. He loves taijutsu fights." Asuma commented. Kakashi shook his head while reading his adult novel.

"I'm glad he isn't here, Asuma. He'll reveal our positions with his youth talk."

"You're right about that."

" Be quiet you two, it's starting. "

To be continued.....