Chapter 2 – The Other Rookies

Date: January 22nd, 13 years following the Kyuubi's attack

Time: 11 AM

Iruka Umino, the lead instructor of the Konoha Ninja Academy, stood before the second class of graduates for the term; a rare occasion for any shinobi village – even one as large as Konoha. His protective flak jacket with its six scroll pouches over his long-sleeved navy blue jumpsuit were freshly pressed, his gleaming forehead protector bearing the stylized Konoha leaf tied nearly perpendicular to the scar crossing the bridge of his nose. The scar was a constant reminder of the night his parents died fighting the Kyuubi thirteen years earlier.

It was a proud day for him: nearly 50 new proto-Genins had passed the graduation exam; either the official one or – as in the case of Naruto Uzumaki – a specialized one based on their particular skill sets. Many of these students would either be back for remedial education at a lesser school in one of the satellite villages or scrubbed from the Academy program completely; the Jonin instructors they would soon be assigned to would put the graduates through a more thorough evaluation than the Academy instructors had time to put them through and had final say as to which graduates had their Genin status confirmed by the village.

Statistically, only 1 in 3 graduates would be confirmed, but this year's crop – the eighth year where the students had not been directly affected by the Third Great War – had some serious raw talent; Iruka suspected this year's statistic might be as high as 2 in 5 being confirmed.

As he looked at the 24 graduates in this room, sitting behind the simple wooden desks for what they believed to be for the last time, Iruka mentally prepared his pride in his graduates to take its usual hit when the students reacted to the Squad assignments. The squads had been assembled by Iruka based on grades alone and then presented to the Sandaime Hokage for confirmation and Jonin assignment.

Most of the squads were accepted as-is, though every now and then, Sarutobi-sensei would change things around; for example, Umino had initially paired Shikamaru Nara – slacker supreme, but an over-all decent student – and Chouji Akimichi – Shikamaru's closest friend – with Sho Inugami – the mostly white-haired medic-nin who currently stood at the back of the classroom reading a book. The Hokage had swapped Inugami – whom was a year older than others, having been late to enroll in the Academy – for Ino Yamanaka and assigned Team 10 to his own son, Azuma Sarutobi.

Teams 1 through 10 had been given their assignments an hour earlier – Naruto's reaction at the revelation of the male partner of his team, Sasuke Uchiha, had been every bit as over-the-top as Iruka had anticipated – and now was the time for teams 11 through 17. The Jonins would be arriving in a little over an hour to pick up their charges.

Iruka only hoped that the argument that would undoubtedly erupt shortly over Team 13 would be over before the Jonin arrived… Miho-san was one of the Team leaders and it had been a long time since Iruka had seen her; facing her with bickering students would be rather embarrassing.

"All right, all right, settle down; I know you're all excited for your squad assignments." Umino said, interrupting the excited chatter from most of the class. "Starting today, you are all officially shinobi, but you're still inexperienced cadets. To correct this, you will be divided into groups of three and go on missions with a Jonin-level ninja and even get advanced training we simply do not have the time to give you within the walls of the Academy."

The instructor's words caused a buzz among the students that lacked older siblings or friends whom had already graduated; the classes rarely interacted between years to keep the students focused on their own studies rather than envying the activities afforded to upperclassmen.

"The twenty-four of you have been arranged into groups based on your grades in the Academy, so that the overall level of your team's strength averages out. As the Sandaime has told you all - on one occasion or another - those weak in one area may be strong in another and no one benefits if the strong do not help others learn from their example." He paused. "And these pairings have the Hokage's stamp of approval on them, so they ARE final for the foreseeable future."

His words caused a buzz amongst the stu… 'Genin!' Iruka reminded himself forcibly. Most of whom had met the Hokage only sparingly in their lives; with a few exceptions…

"The first ten teams have already gotten their assignments in an earlier meeting." He said as he raised the paper with the assignments. "So if there's a friend you were hoping to be paired up with that you don't see in this room, I'm afraid you're going to be disappointed." The faces of a few people fell at this news, but there was no major outcry over the matter.

"Genin Team 11 will consist of the Hata twins…"

"Hell yeah!" Raiden Hata crowed, jumping to his feet and throwing a brass knuckle-laden fist in the air. The short-haired taijutsu specialist was nearly as rambunctious as Naruto was, but because of a psychic bond that he shared with his twin sister who sat beside him – currently blushing in embarrassment at her brother's behavior – there were lines that Raiden wouldn't cross.

"Nii-san…" Motoko, who shared her twin's sunrise orange hair - albeit it shoulder-length – but was the mirror opposite personality, hissed at him as she reached up to grab him by his ear and pull him back into his seat; her annoyance overriding her naturally timid nature. "You're interrupting Iruka-sensei!"

"Ow, ow! Damn it, Nee-san…" He griped as he accepted her unspoken order. Several of the others laughed at the boy's expense and Umino thought he saw a wry lift to Inugami's lips behind the medic-nin's book.

Iruka nodded to Motoko. "Thank you, Hata-chan. Rounding out the team will be Takahashi."

"Sweet, a descent sparring partner." Raiden said as his sister rolled her eyes at her brother.

"Team 12: Riku, Haru, and Kaito." The three boys from one of the satellite villages whom had shown enough aptitude to be transferred to the main Academy nodded. Their skills weren't very distinguished, but they'd be minor celebrities back in their home village because of how advanced they were in comparison to their peers.

It was now the time that Umino had been dreading. "Now, Team 13…" He took a steadying breath. Two friends touched by tragedy and the consummate outsider. He looked to the back row on the right side of the room.

"Kimiko Itou…" He said, addressing the petite young woman with shoulder-length bronzed brown hair and slightly darker chocolate brown eyes wearing a sleeveless white top with blue edging and a nearly forgotten clan sigil above her right breast: a circle of red bisected by a golden yellow diamond. Her companion, a young man wearing a flame red padded jacket broken into geometric patterns adorned only by a white ring on the right side of his chest, tensed up in unspoken anticipation. "...Nakahito Haruno…"

"Yes!" The normally inseparable duo said; giving each other a high five before looking around the room for who their third member would be.

'And looking everywhere but the right spot.' Iruka thought to himself, bracing himself for the imminent explosion, as he looked to the opposite side of the room to the medic-nin who stood alone in his self-chosen isolation. "…and Sho Inugami."

The medic-nin looked up from his book, giving the instructor a nod of acknowledgement, before tucking it into his powder-blue on white uniform's pockets; as if anticipating confrontation. The teenager was a year older than all the others in the room, but his hair – save for a small curl above one eye – was stark white; a side effect from the explosion that had left him in a coma for the better part of nine months when he was younger, which is why he was in this year of graduates rather than the prior year. He adjusted a pair of green lensed glasses that hid his dual-colored eyes – steel gray under his lock of black hair and emerald green on the right.

"WHAT!?!" The explosion that Iruka had expected was every bit as violent as he'd anticipated as Haruno and Itou shouted in shocked unison; launching to their feet in protest.

Nakahito's black gloved hand pounded the desk before lashing out to point at Sho, unintentionally backhanding the graduate sitting beside him. Haruno was so agitated that he didn't even realize what he'd done. "Why the hell are WE stuck with Oni Inugami?!"

"Feh…" Sho said aloud before Iruka could reply; clearly dismissing Kimiko and Nakahito as a threat because he pulled his book back out and resumed reading it. "You clearly weren't paying attention, coal for brains…"

Without weaving signs, Sho used the Henge no jutsu – a technique the medic-nin was oddly gifted in – and transformed into a perfect copy of Umino and repeated the teacher's words exactly; thanks to the medic-nin's photographic memory. "The twenty-four of you have been arranged into groups based on your grades in the Academy, so that the overall level of your team's strength averages out."

With a puff of smoke, Inugami reverted to his natural appearance. "Which means," His smoky voice filled with equal parts of contempt and self-amusement, "You and the water rat there needed to be combined to balance out my prowess, so sit the hell down, shut the hell up, and let Iruka-sensei finish up before you embarrass yourself further!"

At the words 'water rat' – a rather derogatory reference to the fact that the Itou clan had defected from the Land of Water several generations ago – Haruno's face went positively livid even as Kimiko rolled her eyes. "I'LL KILL HIM!" He roared and began storming towards the medic-nin to make good on his promise. Several of the others – people who rather liked Nakahito – grabbed hold of the hot-headed young man to stop him. Most of the class – Motoko Hata the sole exception – glanced at Sho Inugami with thinly-veiled disgust or fear.

The lone teenager, however, had resumed reading his book and was clearly unconcerned and uninterested in the attitudes of his new teammates or the class.

'No…' Iruka corrected himself, once again spotting the hint of a wry smile on Sho's face. 'No, he's enjoying the show but he's acting dismissive of Haruno to goad him further.'

"ENOUGH!" Umino finally shouted to bring the room to order.

Kimiko reached out to place a calming hand on Nakahito's shoulder, the pink sash at her waist flapping slightly from the movement. Haruno instantly ceased his efforts to struggle out of the grip of the others holding him back.

"We can discuss this AFTER the meeting." Iruka said, looking at the two instigators and their antagonist in turn. Haruno and Itou were still clearly angry, but nodded in agreement, while Inugami merely shrugged in apathy. "All right, Team 14…"

The remaining team assignments took another ten minutes, punctuated with cheers and groans from the remaining graduates, but thankfully free of any further drama.

"That's it for the assignments!" Iruka finished. "The Jonin instructors should be here around 12:30, so we'll have a lunch break until then..." Haruno and Itou stood up, glaring at their third teammate. "…Except for you, Team 13; we're going to the throwing practice grounds. NOW!"

* * *

The throwing practice grounds were an open-air, packed-dirt lot with an array of varying targets – simple bull's-eyes, human-shaped planks with the vital areas marked and three-dimensional targets made from woven straw – to allow the Academy students to practice with the shuriken and kunai. There were many other types of throwing weapons in the world, of course, but those two were the only ones explicitly part of the ninja school's curriculum. There were additional practice areas for other skills – taijutsu, agility, stealth and so forth – while most of the in-curriculum ninjutsu and nearly all genjutsu techniques could be honed in the classroom.

Iruka lead the three graduates into the middle of the field – Nakahito Haruno and Kimiko Itou walked beside each other while Sho Inugami walked ahead of them and to the side – before he turned around. "Now, without resulting to threats of bodily injury to your teammate, I'd like to hear your arguments as to why I should ask Lord Hokage-sama to reconsider all the Team assignments for the year."

Nakahito, who'd still been near-boiling mad, lost a bit of steam. "The Hokage chose our team himself?"

"Baka…" Sho mockingly retorted. The medic-nin was leaning up against one of the human plank targets. "Iruka-sensei said that at the very beginning of the meeting not half an hour ago." This caused Nakahito to look at Kimiko, who gave her best friend an apologetic nod of confirmation, resulting in a wince from Haruno's wounded pride. Inugami gave a disgusted snort of derision. "I take it back… You don't EVEN have coal for brains; you have mud in there."

"Sho!" Umino shouted in clear irritation as Itou had to hold Nakahito back… Again. "Not helping." Inugami chuckled and gave the instructor an exaggerated grin – apparently having sated his need to get a rise out of someone – as he pulled out his book and resumed reading.

Iruka sighed, looking back to the two that had caused the scene earlier. "But yes, the Sandaime-sama hand-selects each Genin team based on the recommendations by myself and the other instructors and has done so for the last forty years."

Kimiko Itou finally spoke up, sounding slightly pensive. "Iruka-sensei? Do you know why we got saddled with Oni Inugami? Did we do something wrong?"

"Yeah!" Nakahito said, nodding emphatically. "Even that spaz, Naruto would have been better than Oni over there…"

Iruka chuckled at Haruno's description of Naruto; Uzumaki was rather high-strung, but he'd proven himself rather impressively against the traitorous Mizuki just a few nights ago… Not that these raw Genin would have been privy to that knowledge. "That pleasure has already been given to your cousin Sakura… She's assigned to Team Seven under Kakashi with both Naruto and Sasuke Uchiha."

The hot-headed young man practically slumped. "Cra~p… She's going to be downright unbearable now; it's always 'Sasuke, this' and 'Sasuke, that' with her… The Hokage must really like her…"

Umino shook his head in slight disappointment. "The Sandaime does not show favoritism when assigning teams, Nakahito. Sakura was paired with Naruto and Sasuke for the same reason Sho was paired with the two of you."

At this, Sho chuckled from behind his book as he followed the comparison instantly. "Sarutobi-dono shows his wisdom as usual."

Itou's and Haruno's faces bunched up in confusion. "Huh?" They asked in unison, eliciting another snort of amusement from the medic-nin.

Iruka smiled. "In case the two of you haven't noticed, there is a certain amount of similarity between the two of you and the pairing of Uzumaki and Uchiha…" At this, Kimiko and Nakahito gave the teacher a look as if the man had insulted them. This garnered a burst of laughter from Sho along with a shake of his head. Umino raised his voice to retake control. "IN the sense that all four of you have a tendency to make rash decisions in the heat of the moment."

"Oh…" Kimiko said, smiling ruefully. "Yeah, that does kinda describe us, doesn't it, 'Hito?" Haruno nodded in agreement.

"What both Sho and Sakura have in common is that they generally think things through before they leap…" Iruka looked at the medic-nin. "…sometimes OVERTHINKING the situation."

"That's fair." Inugami said, not looking up from his book. "Sarutobi-dono expects me to counter-balance their impulsiveness and hopes that some of their spontaneity will rub off on me. Not that it really needs to; I can be spontaneous, I just haven't seen the need."

Umino shrugged. "That may be the case, Sho, but my reports to the Hokage only contain what you have displayed in class." This caused a bit of a smile to appear on Inugami's face that Iruka read as secretive; the young man was nearly a year older than his teammates and tended to be a bit too serious. Had he been holding back? By how much? And for what reason?

"In this case, Sakura is not a combat specialist the way Sasuke or Naruto seem to be mentally geared to be. She'll probably be a support ninja, though which field catches her interest is anyone's guess. To be honest, I doubt she's thought that far ahead."

Kimiko snorted, grinning at her long-time friend. "You've got to admit, Iruka-sensei has Sakura pegged."

"True, she can't see past that pompous Uchiha…" Nakahito agreed. "But I still don't get why we ended up with Oni instead of someone else that is even-tempered: Shino would be cool, though the whole bug thing creeps me out… But I'd take the bugs over what Oni did to that pig in a heartbeat!"

"This again?" Sho asked in genuine exasperation, rolling his eyes. "One, it was seven years ago when I was nearly EIGHT and couldn't control my chakra scalpels. Two, it was just a bit of blood and guts... You idiots treat my survival as if it were some grand crime."

Kimiko and Nakahito shuddered, recalling that day shortly after they'd started their third year at the Ninja Academy… The instructors had taken the class out for survival training in one of the "safer" wilderness areas in the village to practice their tracking skills on the wild animals. At some point, Inugami had gotten separated from the class and, by the time the instructors and the rest of the class had found him waiting patiently at the locked gate back to the village, the young boy looked like something out of a horror movie… His clothes were hanging on him in tatters and he had been covered from head to toe in thick pig's blood and fragments of porcine body parts. According to him, he'd apparently stumbled into a wild boar's territory and had slaughtered the beast in self defense.

"IN ANY CASE," Iruka Umino spoke up again tersely; mentally rolling his eyes and thinking the word 'Teenagers!' "Sho there is also a support type: a medical ninja specialist – one of the more difficult support roles to train; even in families like his that have been medic-nins for generations. Given your mutual reckless nature, having a medic-nin on the team to patch you up seems to be a good idea. Not to mention that despite being only a year older than you, he's already been granted permission to work in the Konoha Hospital part time."

Itou sneered. "Yeah, playing with corpses probably has given him great insights into the living."

At this, Sho Inugami glowered at the kunoichi; feeling genuinely angry for the first time in this whole affair. His parents were in charge of the department that analyzed the bodies of slain enemy combatants to uncover the secrets of the other shinobi villages and ensure that Konoha was not left at a strategic disadvantage. It was a critical job in the village, albeit one that most of the people found distasteful. But for this girl to insult him, his profession and his family in such a fashion was more than the level-headed young man could tolerate.

"Speaking of which, your entire clan says 'Hi.'" Sho snapped back.

The effect of the medic-nin's words was instantaneous as Inugami crossed the line of good taste by about a light-year. Iruka's eyes bugged out and his jaw dropped in shocked disbelief as the white and blue clad shinobi's callous words. Kimiko Itou's eyes filled with tears as his words reminded her that – like Sasuke Uchiha – she was the last of the Itou in the most hurtful way possible. She wavered as if physically struck.

Nakahito Haruno – ever Itou's samurai in shining armor – turned nearly as red as his jacket. "THAT'S IT; YOU'RE DEAD!" He bellowed.

In a flash, Haruno had pulled all the shurikens from his thigh sheath and hurled them at Inugami with the deadly accuracy that had earned Nakahito the 3rd best in Weaponry for their class year. Five of the projectiles struck the medic-nin with lethal precision…

…When Sho Inugami suddenly turned into one of the straw practice dummies. Without its support pole being buried in the ground, the human-shaped object fell back against the wooden cut-out that the medic-nin had been leaning against.

Nakahito blinked in surprise. "Wha..? Substitution?! I couldn't have missed his hand signs!" His disbelief startled Kimiko out of her reverie of misery.

"You didn't miss them; I don't NEED them for such an elementary technique…" Sho Inugami's voice came mockingly from behind, causing everyone to turn around in surprise. There were now four Sho Inugamis leaning against the wall of the storage building, still reading their books as if Haruno hadn't just tried to kill him. "It's rather sad that you still need them… Not practicing enough, Haruno?"

'A seal-less substitution teleportation and a flawless Bushin no jutsu?' Iruka thought to himself in surprise. 'With that level of skill, Sho could have EASILY graduated last year; maybe even earlier…'

The lead instructor frowned as he turned the question around in his mind. 'Why would he sandbag his proficiency to stay with a class that fears and hates him?'

"Okay, Nakahito, that's enough; he's got…" Umino began in an effort to de-escalate the situation.

Haruno's blood, however, was still boiling in his ears; drowning out the teacher's words of caution. In another flash, four kunai were thrown from his hip bag at the four clones of his antagonist. Three of them disappeared on contact; the fourth dodged the kunai, but his book took the knife instead and found itself pinned to the wall.

Inugami glared at Haruno through his green-lensed glasses, his anger at Kimiko's words swelling like a balloon. "You ignorant bastard… That was an original copy of Lady Tsunade-dono's 'Dissertation on the Importance of Medical Ninja in the Field of Battle!' Do you have any clue how valuable it is?!"

"Ask me if I give a shit, Oni!"

Iruka tried to intercede, seeing things were beginning to spin out of control. "Boys…"

"Stop calling me 'Oni,' you brain-damaged goon!" Sho raged, his eyes flaring with murderous intent.

Haruno sneered. "And what if I don't, ONI?! I'm one of the best in the year in weapons and taijutsu. So what are you going to do about it, ONI?!"

"Boys..!"

A slight swirl of blue light appeared around Sho Inugami – a sign that a ninja was not channeling their chakra properly. It was something that Iruka saw rather often with Naruto, but he'd never seen the medic-nin ever improperly mix his chakra before.

"You don't learn very quickly, do you, Haruno?" The medic snarled, his eyes narrowing. "I've been so far ahead of you that you didn't even notice that I'VE BEEN HOLDING BACK. But since you INSIST on a demonstration, I'll give you a true ONI to fight against."

With a shout, the medic-nin suddenly swelled up to twice his size, taking on the appearance of a classical hell ogre: deep red skin, two stubby horns sprouting from his head, and an animal skin loincloth. The only thing missing was the massive spiked club. The ogre charged at Nakahito almost faster than the red clad ninja could react, dropping into a defensive stance; drawing a kunai in the process. As the ogre struck, however, it passed through him harmlessly before disappearing.

'He sent the illusion of the ogre forward and slipped away…' Iruka thought letting out a low whistle of surprise. 'His genjutsu is better than my reports would indicate as well; why did you hold back so much, Sho?'

"Where are you, coward?" Nakahito demanded.

"I'm EVERYWHERE, Haruno." Sho replied, his voice coming from different directions at different times. "Can't you keep up?"

"'Hito, look out – he knows Shunshin no Jutsu; the Body Flicker technique!" Kimiko gasped in shock; her eyes red from crying, but now freed of tears and clearly agitated. "I can't believe it…"

Haruno's head was on a swivel, trying to follow the medic-nin's near invisible movements and failing miserably. "Body Flicker's insanely draining; he can't keep it up for long… Hell, I can barely do it by accident…"

'I wouldn't be so sure of that, Nakahito,' Iruka thought, glancing in one direction or the other as he sensed Inugami change directions. 'This is an almost Chuunin-level technique and he's using it like he's got years of experience. The energy wastage earlier must have been for dramatic effect because he's not wasting a drop of chakra now…'

Umino frowned to himself. 'Why..? Why would he hide this from me or his class…? It's as if he didn't want to be famous or respected…'

An image of Naruto popped into Iruka's mind. 'My dream is to become the greatest Hokage, that way the whole village will stop disrespecting me and treat me like I'm somebody, somebody important!'

'Respect? Could it be just that simple?' Umino's jaw dropped slightly… He thought of Inugami's sharp tongue and whit; the boy never used it on those whom he respected and showed respect to him in turn. 'But why act the way he does if he wants respect..?"

"You HOPE that I can't keep it up long!" Sho mocked back. "Heck, I might have to slow down; better grab a weapon to be ready…"

"You jackass…" Nakahito growled, reaching for kunai for his other hand… And found only the fabric of his clothing instead. "What the… When did he grab my weapon bag?!" A mocking whistle was the medic-nin's answer.

Kimiko began to reach for one of her kunai, but Iruka saw something the kunoichi couldn't – a letter bomb attached to her pouch; the kind designed to detonate when touched. Umino body flickered over to her, catching her hand before it could get close enough to the harmless-looking paper rectangle. "Stop, Kimiko; there's a paper bomb over the flap of your bag."

'Shit!' Nakahito thought, his mind spiraling in genuine fear. 'How the hell did he get this good? And what can I do about it with only one knife left?!'

Haruno's eyes fell on the medic-nin's prized book, still pinned to the wall by his first knife. "That's IT!" He said, hurling his last knife at the defenseless object.

As expected, Sho appeared between the book and the thrown knife.

Contrary to expectations, however, Inugami didn't block the weapon from the stolen bag in his left hand but instead extended his right hand – palm out – and accepted the blow. The medic grits his teeth, but didn't cry out from the injury.

The red-clad ninja, eager to grasp his perceived advantage, raced forward, eager to bring this fight to the close combat level. Before he could reach his white and blue clothed opponent, Iruka Umino appeared between the two, preventing Haruno's assault.

"This has gone far ENOUGH!" Iruka growled, one hand on Nakahito's chest while the other took the weapon pouch back from the wounded student. "Sho, you okay?"

"You know us dog spirits, Sensei." Inugami said, making a play on his last name as he pulled the knife free. There was a little blood from the wound, but far less than there should have been. "Unless you use the right weapon the right way, we're damn near indestructible… Shame my clothing can't say the same; I'll be getting some practice with my physical stitching skill later." He said, looking at the inch-wide incision in his glove's palm.

"The letter bomb was going a bit far, though." Umino said crossly as he accepted the slightly bloody knife. "I should report you for that."

Inugami chuckled. "Report what?" He pointed at the explosive tag. "I didn't even take the safety off. I just stuck it on Itou's bag to make you stop her from helping after I took Haruno's weapons. I knew you wouldn't take a chance on my 'merciful nature' and react without looking. If either of you had taken a longer look, you'd have noticed it's a dud."

Iruka and Kimiko now took that longer look at the tag and saw the glyphs that indicated there was no energy held in the explosive. A sigh of relief escaped the teacher's face and a blush of embarrassment flushed Kimiko's cheeks as she pulled the tag off and tore it apart.

"Still, you also…" Iruka tried to resume, only pausing when Sho turned his back to address the issue of his pinned book. Across his back was his family crest – a staff with two intertwined winged serpents stitched out of gold thread and a Konoha leaf stitched with braided metallic red and gold in one of the lopsided O shapes made where the snakes crossed each other.

Inugami let off a sigh of relief. "Oh, good; it only went through the binding, not the pages… That's easy to fix…"

"SHO! Would you at least pay attention when I'm berating you?!" Iruka shouted, causing the medic-nin to flinch in surprise; so focused on the damage to the book to remember where he was. The medic whirled about giving the teacher a sheepish grin in unspoken apology. "Fake out or not, you went too far when you brought up Kimiko's family."

To the surprise of the other two, Sho sighed, bowing his head in acknowledgement of his wrong. "You're right, Sensei. My ire at the slight to my family – something I should be used to by now – is no excuse to insult hers." The medic-nin gave the kunoichi a solemn bow of apology. "Gomen-ne, Itou-san. You have my word I will never say anything disrespectful of your family again."

Itou nodded briefly in acceptance as Iruka Umino turned back to face the other two members of the cell. "As for both of you; I trust you now see why Sho was paired with you?"

The two shook their heads in confusion.

Iruka gave a 'Gods help me' sigh and shook his head. "You two made three critical errors since you were told that you were going to be paired with Inugami here." He ticked off his fingers as he said them. "First, you judged him based on a SINGLE incident in the past – a ninja's reputation is more than any one event in their life. If you believe you know your opponent strictly because of their 'legend,' they can take advantage of your willful ignorance as Sho just did."

"But the Yellow Flash…" Nakahito attempted to say.

"Yes, sometimes the myths measure up to the facts, Nakahito." Umino said, cutting him off. "But even then, the Fourth Hokage's reputation was equal parts reality and propaganda. Many lives were spared on both sides of the Great War because when he would take to the field, lesser opponents would surrender rather than die in a one-sided fight. Sho's now infamous 'Boar Butchery' incident has been inflated to cloud your perception of him. You assumed that someone capable of such barbarity must be 'evil' and therefore can't be as strong as a 'hero' like you."

Now the duo gave the teacher a sheepish look as they nodded ruefully.

"The first mistake led to your second one: you ASSUMED that the skills Sho displayed in class were the extent of his skills. Deception is a part of being a shinobi – if you saw someone with, say, the Inuzaka fangs on their cheeks alone in the open; you would EXPECT that a ninja-dog would be lurking about somewhere. But what if it were actually a member of the Hyuuga clan using the Transformation technique?"

Kimiko winced; she was friends with the mild-mannered Hinata Hyuuga and had seen just how vicious her younger sister Hanabi could be. "Total defeat; you're protecting your flanks and they come at you head-on and knock out your chakra network."

"Precisely. Young shinobi are all very eager to show off what they know… It takes a cunning mind to deliberately shackle yourself – even around members of your own village – to mask your true skill set. Sho used both of your mistakes to cause a third – the one mistake he himself made – and then pounced on you. What was your third mistake?"

"Anger and pride." Nakahito said after a second. It was the only thing the two of them had had in common in the last few minutes, so it wasn't hard to guess. "What he said to Kimiko angered me, so I jumped to battle in reaction. Sho evaded and – if I'd calmed myself down after he showed his skill – I could have stopped it there. Instead, I damaged something important to him and he got angry in return. He wanted to kill me – I could feel it – but he settled for stomping my pride to mush."

"Rage is a double-edge sword in the hands of a shinobi." Iruka agreed. "A bit of rage can spur you to action, to fight. Too much can blind you and make you make sloppy mistakes… Had Sho been an enemy ninja; you'd both be dead right now…" A chuckle escaped the teacher's mouth and a massive grin creased Inugami's face as the Academy Headmaster saw something he'd missed before. "Especially you, Nakahito..." He turned to the medic-nin with an incredulous look on his face that Inugami practically basked in.

"Why especially me?" Haruno asked, upset; feeling that the teacher was calling him out unfairly. "I mean, Kimi I understand; he could have put an active explosive tag on her bag and she would have died if not for you, Sensei… But he never touched me beyond taking my weapon bag!"

"Sure of that, huh?" Iruka looked at Itou. "You've got a mirror on you right?" The kunoichi nodded and pulled a polished metal plate out of her bag. "Hand it to your friend, please."

Nakahito turned to accept the mirror and, as she laid sight on her friend's face, the hand holding the mirror began to shake. A tittering giggle escaped her lips before she clapped her free hand over her mouth. The young shinobi gave his friend a hurt look as she fell to her knees, laughing so hard, her hand wobbling so much he could barely get the mirror from her.

"Honestly, Kimiko, doing that could hurt a guy's…" He froze as he looked at his reflection in the mirror. He blinked a few times in disbelief. "Oh, what the hell..?" Haruno's eyes shot over to Sho and then back to the mirror in utter disbelief. "WHEN the hell?!"

On his forehead, directly underneath where his protector was pushed up the way he liked it, was a series of dark blotches that long experience told him were purplish-red blood bruises – breaks in the capillaries that were painless to experience. The darker sections of his skin were chained together in a set of three glyphs that, in the mirror, read 'bakamono' – idiot. There was a similar bruising in a straight line across his neck.

Inugami shrugged. "Sometime between taking your bag and sticking the tag on Itou-san's."

"HOW? I didn't even feel you touch me! I mean, I'm seeing it and I still don't even feel it!"

The older young man rolled his eyes, extending one finger which began to glow with the blue light of a chakra scalpel. "Hello, Medic-nin here..? I set the length just long enough to pierce your skin, but weak enough that only the capillaries would burst. If you take off your shirt, you'll see similar bruising over your heart, liver, and kidneys." He paused. "Hell, you were so wide open that I had the time to write the kanji backwards to ensure you remember this lesson every time you look in the mirror for the 10 days it will take for them to fade…"

At that last point, Kimiko's peals of laughter got even louder, earning her another hurt look from Haruno.

"Hence my point." Iruka resumed the impromptu lesson. "Had he truly wanted to kill you, any one of the areas that he's bruised would be potentially fatal: even with a medic-nin standing beside you." His words sobered Kimiko up immediately; the thought of losing Nakahito was no laughing matter. The teacher paused. "…But if you had that kind of time, why only the fake-out with the explosive tag against Kimiko, Sho?"

The mostly white-haired student shrugged. "Meh. Three reasons: one, Itou only annoyed me with the crack against my family; Haruno pissed me off by damaging one of my favorite books. Two, it's no fun GROPING cute girls if they can't feel it." This caused a blush of embarrassment to flush both of his teammates' cheeks. "And three, mixing pleasure and business is a dumb mistake… Besides…" He held up a foot long strip of blue cloth about two inches wide, the shade of which was oddly familiar to Nakahito and Kimiko. "I already took a souvenir."

At the word "souvenir," Kimiko jumped to her feet with a dismayed squeak and began looking at the blue fabric of her shorts. "That had better not be from my pants, Inugami!" She raged, feeling around.

"They look intact, Kimi…" Haruno said, now getting the chance to return the laugh. "At least from the front."

"Et tu, 'Hito?!" She shrieked, but after a few seconds, it was clear the fabric wasn't from her clothing. "Wha..?"

Sho coughed loudly to get their attention, turning one corner of his shirt backwards to reveal where the strip had come from. It just so happened that the shade of Itou's pants was the same as the normally hidden inner layer of Inugami's top. Through the removed section they could see interwoven links of chain mail; stitched into place to prevent the rings from rattling as the medic-nin moved. "Like I said, 'Mixing business and pleasure is a dumb mistake.'"

Umino let off a long-suffering sigh. 'As smart as Sakura, as mischievous as Naruto, and as skilled as Sasuke; Inugami's a Biju and a potential Sharingan short of being Team 7 in a single body…' Then he paused as the final piece of the mystery fell into place. 'Oh, of course! He doesn't want to be respected for what he can DO… He wants respect for who he IS! Those that can see past the persona he projects at the Academy are spared his tricks; those that can't are fair game. Miho-chan is going to have her hands full with this team…'

"Ah! Here he is!" A man's voice spoke up.

Iruka blinked, turning to see the Jonin instructors gathered around. "Huh, that late already?" He looked at Haruno and Itou. "No more immediate objections, right?" They shook their heads. Umino leaned forward to whisper to them. "I honestly didn't know how good he was, but clearly Hokage-sama did when he picked your team… Just try and keep an open mind. Judge him on who he IS, not what he may have DONE."

"Hai, Iruka-sensei." They agreed immediately. Misbehaving for Iruka was one thing; doing it in front of Jonin was a career-limiting action…

"Good!" He said, clapping both their shoulders before turning to the group of advanced ninja. "Ah, Miho-san, are you in there somewhere..?