24 - Shippuden Begins

Fuyuka sat at a sushi store.

Two years were over quite quickly. Fuyuka had busied herself with training herself, working on new jutsu and things, as well as training Yozora. In fact, despite his unwillingness to be too violent, the purple haired boy was strong enough to achieve genin rank. However, he still remained as Fuyuka's apprentice, not suited for the usual three man squads.

Naruto had left the village with Pervy Sage Jiraiya (the blond called him Pervy Sage so much Fuyuka forgot what the old man was supposed to be called) to train, while Sakura trained under Tsunade. Sasuke had still not returned, still pursuing Orochimaru.

Not everything was shiny and happy, as Shigetsu's condition had slowly gotten worse. Miyabi is basically permanently at the hospital at this point, only resting when she's dry of chakra. Even with constant healing, the blond's injuries were worsening at such a pace that Miyabi's 'slow but universal' healing technique couldn't keep up.

Her long dark blue hair was tied in a low ponytail as usual, with short tufts falling down to ear length framing her face. She was dressed in a blue jacket, a shade lighter than her hair, and jeans. The Night Star hair clip from Ino was in her hair, while her Night Star pendant hung from her neck. Paired with her signature blue satchel, she was extra blue.

She still didn't wear her headband because it did not go with her hair. Technically, plenty of people wore it on places other than their forehead, Fuyuka simply wore it inside her bag. So she totally wasn't breaking any rules.

Regardless, Tsunade had called for her earlier, so Fuyuka should probably finish eating. Shame, sushi should be savored.

"Tsunade-sama, you calle-"

Fuyuka's eyes widened at the sight of the other people in the Hokage's office. "Oh, Naruto. You're back."

The blond boy grinned at the sight of his blue haired teammate. "Oh, hey, Fuyuka! Nice to see you too!"

Oh, and Fuyuka's a chunin now, same with Sakura and most others in the Konoha 12. That meant the girls outranked Naruto and could boss him around.

Tsunade explained that they will be once more facing Kakashi in a new bell test, not for any specific reason but to see how far they've improved in the two years. Fuyuka was only slightly salty that she was the only one to not have been trained by a Sannin, but hey, she's qualified to train a purple genius already, she's naturally awesome!

Three bells, three 15 year old ninja.

Can't be that hard.

Fuyuka summoned the new and improved version of Stellar Snare- which is basically the same as Pentagonal Web but it's a hexagon instead. Also, it was stronger, not just bigger, okay?

The three ninja stood before Kakashi for a moment, before Naruto summoned some shadow clones and charged. However, Kakashi managed to stop him without too much difficulty.

"I didn't even say start yet, don't be so impatient," Kakashi scolded, before poofing out of existence. "Start."

The three prepared defensive stances as they waited for the silver haired man to emerge. Sakura, however, took the initiative and punched the ground, splitting the entire ground and revealing Kakashi.

While he's surprised, Fuyuka launched her snare, sticking the jonin to the stone before hefting out a kunai. However, the silver haired jonin quickly cast a substitution jutsu to free himself. Kakashi proceeded to whip around and dash into the forest, where it's more camouflaged.

The three Team 7 members attacked at once, throwing out all their jutsu and techniques. While it was difficult to snatch the bells, their teamwork was quite strong despite the two years of zero team training.

While Naruto spammed shadow clones and Fuyuka chucked Stellar Snares, Sakura kept unleashing literal ground-breaking punches. Soon enough, though, Kakashi escaped once more and vanished into the forest.

"N-naruto, Sakura, F-fuyuka-" The genjutsu Sasuke couldn't even finish talking before Fuyuka kicked him in the shins and he vanished. "Done and dusted. Now where the hell is Kakashi-sensei?"

"Behind that tree," Sakura announced, pointing to a certain tree. Naruto rasengan'd the tree, causing Kakashi to dash away. "You have gotten better, haven't you?"

It resumed for a while, with Kakashi fighting them off before temporarily retreating, and being found again.

"This is getting nowhere," Fuyuka announced with a string of colorful curses when Kakashi escaped again. "We need a strategy."

...

"Wait, I got one," Naruto announced with an evil smirk. He whispered his plan to the girls. Fuyuka blinked in shock. "You're not that much of an idiot anymore, are you?"

The three found Kakashi once more, pretending to launch a frontal assault. Fuyuka tried to sneak Triple Binds between shuriken assaults, while Sakura and Naruto charged up front.

"You really think a direct attack will work?" Kakashi scoffed. However, Sakura smirked. "Naruto, go."

"At the end of the new Icha Icha book I gave you, the protagonist and-"

Kakashi internally screamed, clasping his hands over his ears. He then proceeded to internally scream some more at remembering he could read lips.

"No, no, don't say it, stop talking, Naruto!" When the blond genin continued to describe the ending of Jiraiya's book in more detail than Fuyuka wanted to hear, Kakashi gave in and shut his eyes. Naruto continued talking, while Fuyuka and Sakura lunged in to take the three bells jingling in his hands.

They passed out the bells to Naruto.

"Gotcha, Kakashi-sensei," Sakura declared with a proud grin.

Team Kakashi was now officially formed, led by Kakashi (duh), members being Naruto, Sakura, Fuyuka and by extension, Yozora.

Today, the team stood in the Hokage's office to receive a lousy C Rank escort mission. At least, until a messenger rushed in, muttering something to Tsunade.

"Change of plan," the blonde Hokage announced. "Team Kakashi, you will go to Sunagakure to check out the situation and provide backup. However- Fuyuka, we received some other news, so you'll have to do something else before you join your team. And Yozora, you'll be going with the rest of the team to see how well you perform without Fuyuka."

Fuyuka blinked. "Hah? Only me? Why?"

"The rest of Team Kakashi, go now." Tsunade turned to Fuyuka, holding out a scroll as the rest of her team left for Suna. "On top of that, we also received intel about the routes of one of the Akatsuki's major information suppliers. I would assign a squad, but I suspect they are quite weak. I need as much stealth as possible while retaining combat capabilities- I believe you are the best choice."

It sounded kind of dumb, but alright. "Okay, where do I go?"

Tsunade unsealed the scroll, showing the chunin the contents. "This shouldn't take too long, afterwards, join your team in Suna."

So now Fuyuka was walking around. Without her headband visible, she shouldn't look too visible. Plus, she didn't have much presence anyways despite the blatant blue-ness.

She kept her chakra suppressed, carefully standing behind a tree as she noticed her targets- an irrelevant background character with his irrelevant background guards. Tsunade wasn't kidding about weak.

The blue haired girl lifted a kunai. Time to get the extra stuff done with.