Chapter 09: The New Team

Disclaimer:

"Dialogue"

'Thoughts'

-Author notes-

Chapter 09: The New Team

"Ahh!, why is he taking so long?!" Sakura slammed her hands on the table.

They had already been waiting for three hours and the instructor was nowhere to be seen.

Naruto had been meditating in silence during all this time, so he didn't mind it that much since his time was being put to good use. But he could understand the girl's frustration.

He opened his eyes and peeked at his two teammates. The one called Sasuke had not complained once and remained in the same spot.

'He is neither meditating nor sleeping… he must be a very patient person then.' He found it very impressive for someone that young to have so much discipline.

His other companion, the girl called Sakura, turned to look at him and by her expression… she was extremely upset.

"Naruto!, what is wrong with you today?, why are you acting so strange?"

"I don't know what you mean." Of course, he did know what she meant.

From the things he had heard and the opinions people had of the past 'him'... he could get a good idea of what kind of person the previous owner of this body was.

'Loud, obnoxious, boisterous, loud, desperate for people's attention, loud, hyperactive… and liked the color orange.'

He was nothing like that. And he was not going to pretend to be like that.

It would not take long for people to discover that he was faking his attitude. That would make him seem more suspicious. It was better to stop the pretense from the beginning and let them think that his change in personality was due to his loss of memories and head trauma.

Sasuke lifted his head from the desk and turned to look at him. Despite not saying a word about it, he had also noticed the change in Naruto and had a tinge of curiosity about it. Not that he would ever admit it.

"You don't know what I mean?" Sakura raised an eyebrow. "You are not acting like yourself at all! You come here wearing those dark clothes and you haven't spoken in three hours! I have never seen you be silent for more than ten minutes."

"I see what you mean now… but what do you want me to say?" Naruto asked her.

This seemed to make her angrier.

"Stop this! It's not funny! Do you think that if you act more like Sasuke I will agree to go on a date with you? That will never happen, not in a million years!"

'I asked this girl out?...' He had no recollection of doing this in the fragments of memory left behind. But he had no reason to believe this girl was making things up, so it must be true.

After giving her a closer look, he would admit that the girl was attractive. She had a nice body, albeit a bit thin, and a very pretty face. But her loud and aggressive personality did not fit his tastes at all.

'Mmm… maybe I shouldn't be too hasty to judge her. She could be having a particularly bad day…' He decided to wait a bit longer before forming any opinions about his new teammates.

'Perhaps I should tell them about my loss of memories. They are bound to find out about it eventually as we interact more.' "The truth is…"

At that moment, the door was slammed open and someone walked in.

"Finally! Do you have any idea how long you made us wait?!" Sakura turned her frustrations back to the source.

On the other hand, Naruto and Sasuke observed the man with interest.

He was a tall man with spiky silver hair. He wore the typical uniform for Jonins with the addition of a face mask that covered the lower half of his face. His bandana was placed in a way that covered one of his eyes for some reason.

Naruto was unable to make any sort of assessment of this man's strength.

He had just begun his training and his senses were almost nonexistent. He could not feel anything from him.

However, his instincts honed over many decades of facing the most powerful warriors in the land… were telling him that this man was extremely dangerous, almost as much as the Hokage himself.

'Why would they send someone like that to serve as a mere instructor for three newbies?.... he feels overqualified.'

The silver-haired ninja gave the three of them a passing glance. "My first impression of you is… disappointing. Meet me at the rooftop in five minutes." He then disappeared, leaving behind a small cloud of smoke.

"What? Hey! Who is the disappointing one?!" Sakura was outraged now.

"Who does he think he is to call us disappointing after getting here three hours late?, right, Sasuke?"

The black-haired boy finally stood up from his chair and began walking out of the classroom.

"He said we had five minutes, so we should not waste time… there are a lot of stairs…" Naruto also began walking out.

"Oh, right…" Sakura frowned. For once, she had nothing else to add, so she hurried to follow them.

They arrived at the roof with just a few seconds to spare and found the instructor comfortably sitting on one of the benches while reading some small book.

"You are late." He told them without lifting his eyes from the book.

"No, we are not!" Sakura complained. She did not like this man. "Wait…. you are the one who arrived late!" She then realized the hypocrisy of his comment.

Naruto wondered if this man was performing some test on them.

Arriving a few minutes late would be careless but understandable, but three hours… that was deliberate.

Then he made us run through a lot of stairs and called us out for being late.

The instructor closed the book and looked at the three of them again.

He then sighed, now looking disappointed and tired at the same time. "Very well… let's do this. Go ahead… introduce yourselves."