Kakashi frowned at Kurenai's door. He'd always gotten the impression that she found him sort of frustrating. They didn't really know each other beyond the general osmosis of being about the same age and living in the same village. Kakashi had done his level best to avoid his age mates when he was a child, because he'd found them annoyingly slow, and Kurenai had never been to the Ryouken Bakery outside of helping Asuma and Gai to invade it during the first of the exams. Maybe she was one of the polite disapprovers who had kept her opinion to herself. Too late to worry about that now.

Kakashi raised his hand and knocked.

Kurenai's eyebrows rose in surprise when she opened the door.

"Kakashi. Can I help you?"

Kakashi floundered for a brief second and then pulled himself together.

"Yes. I was wondering if you'd be willing to give Sakura some pointers on detailed genjutsu weaving. My strength is really more breaking them." He saw her dubious expression. "Her first opponent in the third exam is Gaara, that redhead from Suna who almost killed Lee. If she had the sharingan and a lightning affinity, I'd be teaching her the chidori. Honestly, if she didn't have an earth affinity, I'd be tempted to teach it to her anyway, because one-on-one the tunnel vision aspect would be less of an issue, but I can't. I'd offer a trade, but I can't think of anything useful that I could help an Aburame with." Kakashi shrugged a little helplessly. He really had nothing to bargain with, and it was galling.

Kurenai's eyes shifted from Kakashi's face to a point just over his left shoulder.

"Your team brought Hinata those flowers, didn't they?"

"Yes."

Kurenai's gaze returned to his face.

"I'll do it. But you're going to owe me a favor."

"Done." Kakashi held out a hand, and they shook on it.

"Tell her to meet me and my team at Training Field 10 first thing tomorrow morning."

Sasuke pulled the bandage off his shoulder and twisted to get a look at the scar on his shoulder in the mirror. Raised, red tissue formed something like a sunburst centralized on where the seal had been. Jiraiya had said that the visible part of the seal had only been 'the tip of the iceberg' – a meaningless metaphor to Sasuke, who 1) had never seen an iceberg and 2) wasn't even entirely certain what an iceberg was aside from, well, presumably large and icy. (Konoha's winters were mild, and snow was a rarity.) Confusing metaphors aside, the general gist had been that the curse seal had been much bigger than it looked, which had in turn resulted in a scar the size of Sasuke's palm. Sasuke ran his fingers over the scar tissue. It was still somewhat tender to the touch. The medics had said that the color should fade with time.

After a moment, he started rubbing in the lotion the medic had given him that would stop his healing skin from tightening and restricting his range of motion. Sasuke was doing his best not to dwell on the terrifying 'could-have-beens' of the curse seal. It was gone, it wasn't coming back, and that was the end of it.

Sasuke eyed the large rock Sakura was holding in her arms. When she'd asked him to help her with something for the chuunin exams, he'd assumed it would be something genjutsu or taijutsu related. When Sakura had headed out into the middle of the river, he'd thought that maybe she wanted to do some more water sparring. Now he had no idea what she was up to.

"Hold this for a minute." Sakura handed Sasuke the rock. It weighted a good ten or fifteen pounds. She uncoiled a length of rope from around her shoulder and started tying it around her waist. Once it was secure, she took the rock back from Sasuke and handed him the end of the rope. Was she trying to simulate being caught by a jutsu or something? Having to fight handicapped in close quarters?

Sasuke frowned.

"What's the rock for?" he finally asked.

"To counteract my natural buoyancy," Sakura told him cheerfully. "Pull me up in twenty seconds!"

Before Sasuke's brain had had a chance to comprehend what that meant, Sakura let go of the chakra under her feet and disappeared beneath the water with barely a splash.

Sasuke gaped down at the still rippling water. What the hell?!

Sakura was hauled back up after a lot less than twenty seconds. She scrunched her nose at Sasuke when she resurfaced.

"I'm pretty sure that wasn't twenty seconds."

"You didn't tell me you were going to try to drown yourself!" Sasuke almost shouted.

"I'm not trying to drown myself." Sakura pulled herself back onto the surface of the river. Her rock hadn't returned to the surface with her. "Kurenai-sensei said that the most important aspects of a good genjutsu are attention to detail and accuracy."

"And what does that have to do with dunking yourself in the river?"

"Did you know that Suna is located near no rivers or lakes? It sustains its entire population on ground water. While all Suna shinobi know how to water walk, most don't learn how to properly swim until after they make chuunin – if at all. What do you want to bet that Gaara can't swim?" Sakura's smile was the picture of perfect innocence. It was sort of terrifying.

Sasuke made a mental note not to piss off Sakura.

Chiharu Sasaki was a civilian nurse, and most days she loved her job. Yes, sometimes she wished that she could use medical jutsu like the med-nin she worked with, but she helped patients while they recovered and made sure that their hospital stay was as comfortable as possible, and that was equally important. Without well trained support staff, the hospital wouldn't be able to function.

Times like this, though, were hard. Chiharu hated seeing children in hospital rooms by themselves. Yes, she knew that they were both genin and, therefore, adults in the eyes of the village, but one was twelve and the other was thirteen. And neither of them had been visited by a single family member. The boy's – Lee's – file had implied that he was most likely an orphan, but the girl, Hinata, was a Hyuuga.

Chiharu was worried about both of them. It wasn't healthy for either of them to be spending hours on end alone during the day. She and her colleagues had already caught Lee trying to get out of bed twice.

She glanced over the two files in her hands. The doctor had apparently switched Hinata from an oxygen mask to a cannula last night. One of the hospital's small portable oxygen tanks caught her eye. Chiharu stared at it for a moment thoughtfully, and then picked it up and went to find a wheelchair.

Maybe she could take care of two birds with one stone.

Hinata looked up from the novel Kurenai had brought her at the soft knock on her door.

"Hello Hinata-san." Nurse Sasaki was smiling in the doorway. "Would you like to get out of your room for a little bit? There's something I was hoping you could help me with."

Hinata didn't know Lee beyond the fact that he was her cousin's teammate.

"Are you sure this will be all right?" she asked Nurse Sasaki as she pushed her wheelchair down the hall.

"Of course. Lee-san needs to stay off his leg as much as possible, but he's having troubles staying still without anything to distract him. Someone to talk to will do him wonders, and you must be tired of staring at the same four walls for so long."

"If you're sure…."

What if Lee didn't like her? What if Neji had spread his distain to his teammates? It felt almost easy to believe in herself when her teammates or Naruto were around, but on her own it was so much harder.

"Hello Lee-san!" Nurse Sasaki chirped as she opened Lee's door. "Hinata-san was feeling lonely, and I was hoping that you, being the lovely young gentleman that you are, would be willing to keep her company for a while."

Lee had been staring out his window, but now he turned his head to smile at Hinata.

"Of course."

Nurse Sasaki wheeled Hinata over to Lee's bedside and patted her shoulder.

"Just press the call button as soon as you start getting tired." Then she left.

Hinata and Lee were quiet as the door clicked shut.

"You fought most valiantly in your battle with Neji," Lee finally offered.

Hinata looked down and twisted her fingers together.

"Thank you. I- I'm not very good at the Gentle Fist style."

"Do you love the Gentle Fist style?"

Hinata blinked and looked up.

"Pardon?"

"Are you passionate about the Gentle Fist style – does your soul burn with purpose at the thought of mastering it?" Lee raised his good arm and waved it emphatically. "Gai-sensei has always told me that, in order to become a genius of hard work, you must have passion and love for what you are doing. Without it, it's impossible to keep the fires of your Youth burning for long."

"I… don't. I'm not." Hinata bit her lip and looked away again. Maybe once, long ago when she was first starting, she had loved the Gentle Fist style. Back before it had become abundantly clear that she would never match Neji's genius and before Hanabi had effortlessly performed the katas that Hinata still struggled with. She thought that she remember loving it once, but that had been such a long time ago. Now the thought of her clan's technique only filled her with anxiety and exhaustion.

"Then perhaps you've been focusing your youthful tenacity on the wrong thing," Lee suggested. "When I was at the Academy, I was dreadful at everything, but no matter how bad at it I was, I loved taijutsu. Even though I was a failure, Gai-sensei recognized that passion in me and told me that I could be a genius of hard work in taijutsu and a great shinobi just like I'd always dreamed. But even if I had the chakra coils for it, I never would have been able to become a genius of hard work in genjutsu no matter how much work I put in, because I have no passion for it. Is there something else that you are passionate about instead?"

Hinata knotted and unknotted her fingers. Even voicing the words felt like failing her clan yet again.

"I- I always thought… that I would like to be a medic," she whispered.

"Yosh!" Hinata startled at Lee's volume, and when she looked up he was smiling at her again. "A most worthy and admirable goal! Then you should turn your youthful energies towards becoming a medic, and you will be sure to succeed! You already have the spirit to become a genius of hard work, Hinata-san."

"Thank you, Lee-san, but… Father would never approve."

"Perhaps not," Lee agreed, his expression becoming serious, "but, from what little I know of Hyuuga-sama, there is very little that he approves of. There's no need to give up the Gentle Fist style – you don't need to pick only one. Perhaps, given time, you can even learn to be passionate about both."

Hinata bit her lip. What would it be like? To actually love what she did? To be able to summon that beautiful green corona around her hands and heal the hurts that the world had dealt out? In her mind, it felt wonderful.

"You're right. I think- I think I'd like that very much." She smiled at him, and Lee smiled back.

"Geniuses of hard work must stick together." His smile faltered. "I'm afraid it will be quite a while before I can return to my hard work, though." He stared glumly down at the blanket covering his legs. "Gai-sensei remains hopeful, but the medics… are not. It has been suggested that I may have to walk with a cane for the rest of my life."

Hinata wished that she could fix Lee's leg right then and there.

"I don't think… that even a cane would slow you down for long, Lee-san."

"Um… oops? Are you okay, nii-san?"

Kakashi carefully disentangled himself from the branches of the tree he'd ended up in. Ow. Kyoufuu no jutsu was a C-rank wind jutsu that was supposed to knock your opponent off their feet – not send them flying twenty feet into the tree behind them.

"Did you add an extra seal to that?" Kakashi asked as he managed to turn a topple into a fairly elegant landing. Naruto considered the question and then looked down at his hands contemplatively.

"I think I might have added an extra snake seal."

"Yeah, that would probably do it. Congratulations on accidentally modifying your first jutsu." Kakashi rolled his shoulders. He was definitely going to have a bruise. "It's usually best to get the original jutsu down first before you start modifying it."

Naruto grinned sheepishly.

"Sorry, nii-san."

"All right, let's try that again without any extra snake seals, and then we'll go check on how Sakura and Sasuke are doing."

Naruto and Sasuke sat under a tree and watched as Kakashi appeared to stand in the middle of an empty training field calling out seemingly random comments to Sakura, who was standing about ten feet away from him. Sakura had been kind enough not to include them in her genjutsu. Kakashi pressed one hand to his chest.

"Nicely done with the burning sensation, but I'm still not feeling enough current for the apparent speed of the water. There. Much better."

"Sakura-chan is scary."

"She hasn't even used that genjustsu on you," Sasuke shuddered. "Even when you know what's going on, it's really unnerving."

"I'm really glad she's on our side," Naruto nodded.

"How's your research on the byakugan going?" Sasuke asked. He readjusted the icepack he was holding on his shoulder. He and Naruto had been sparring until about ten minutes ago. Naruto's black eye was already starting to heal. The sharingan was awesome and all, but Sasuke occasionally still envied the ludicrous speed at which Naruto healed.

"I talked to Hinata briefly now that she's out of the hospital, and she agreed to meet up with me tomorrow to explain how the byakugan works. Sakura-chan says I should buy her lunch afterwards as a thank you for helping me."

"Probably." Sasuke suspected that Hinata would most likely faint if Naruto offered to take her out to lunch. He wondered if Naruto would ever notice Hinata's impressive case of hero worship/crush. Possibly not. He frowned at Naruto's rapidly healing eye. "Do you think that you could use your healing thing to reopen a tenketsu point if it got closed?"

"I'm not sure. Maybe Hinata can help me with that, too."

"Are y-you sure you want to try this?" Hinata asked dubiously. She and Naruto were sitting on a log in one of the more tree-filled training fields.

"Yup – believe it!" Naruto held out his arm. Hinata's explanation about the byakugan had been very helpful, but Naruto had always done best with practical demonstrations. "If I get anywhere near Neji when I fight him, the first thing he's probably going to do is start closing those point things, and I want to be prepared to deal with the side effects. Also, Sasuke-teme gave me an idea that I want to try."

"If you're sure." Hinata took ahold of Naruto's arm hesitantly. "This is going to hurt," she warned. He nodded. Hinata activated her byakugan and then carefully jabbed two fingers into the side of his forearm, leaving a circular welt.

"Oh, man," Naruto wiggled his fingers, "that feels funky."

"It takes most people the better part of a day to regain their normal chakra flow," Hinata explained softly. She eyed the red welt on Naruto's arm unhappily.

Naruto focused on his chakra. It felt like Hinata had erected a tiny chakra dam in his arm. Or maybe it was more like trying to suck water through a pinched straw. It wasn't that the chakra couldn't get through – there just wasn't enough room for it. Maybe if he forced enough chakra into the pathway, he could un-pinch the straw again. Naruto sent chakra flooding down his arm. It balked at the place where Hinata had blocked it, but he sent more and more and more until-

It felt almost like a pop.

"Freaking ow." Naruto shook his hand as chakra crackled back through his fingers. Hinata had deactivated her byakugan and was rubbing her eyes. "Are you okay?" Naruto asked with a frown of concern. The pain in his arm had already receded to a prickling sensation.

Hinata gave a tiny nod and lowered her hands.

"Y-your chakra got really bright, Naruto-kun. It was sort of like trying to stare at the sun."

"Huh." Naruto stared down at his hands thoughtfully. Then he held out his arm to Hinata again. "Let's try that again!" He lowered his arm slightly. "Unless you're too tired. I know Kakashi-nii had to take it easy for a while after they released him from the hospital."

Hinata did that odd finger-poking-together thing and looked away from Naruto with a light blush for some reason.

"I sh-should have enough energy to try one more time."

"Awesome! And then I owe you lunch."

"Y-you do?!"

"Yup! You've been super amazing helping me like this, so the least I can do is buy you lunch afterwards – believe it!"

Naruto wasn't sure why Hinata's entire head was now bright red. She must be more tired than she was letting on.

Kakashi was pretty sure that he had enough burnt croissants to build a miniature fortress. There was a knock on his window, and he opened it to let Tenzou in. Tenzou eyed the pile of blackened croissants.

"I thought you said they were doing well, sempai."

"They are." Kakashi stuck his hands in his pockets, trying to look relaxed. "The only sense that Sakura is struggling with for her genjutsus is smell which isn't a big issue for what she has planned, and Naruto is fairly confident that he's figured out a way of reopening his tenketsu points if Neji closes them. Apparently Hinata Hyuuga has been helping him practice. Your squad hasn't seen anyone so much as look at Sasuke strangely, and there's been no further word on Orochimaru since he attacked my team in the Forest of Death. The Sandaime thinks he's left the village again. Everything's fine." Tenzou raised an eyebrow, clearly not buying Kakashi's attempt to look calm. "Fine. Neji reminds me far too much of myself at that age, which means he'll go through anyone who gets in his way, and Naruto is definitely planning on getting in his way. I'm pretty sure that Suna snuck in their youngest jounin or something, because their team has been to the bakery a few times now, and that redhead's teammates are, quite frankly, terrified of him. Also, I remember what Orochimaru was like from the one or two times I met him, and he's persistent. He isn't going to stop after just one failed plan."

Tenzou nodded.

"I realize that Sandaime-sama doesn't want to lose face with the daimyos by canceling the third exam, but to think that Orochimaru has just left seems… unrealistically optimistic." Tenzou frowned to himself for a moment, old shadows darkening his eyes. He shook his head and picked up a charred croissant. He tapped it against the counter. "Can I have these?"

"All of them?"

"Mmm. Wolf's been getting a swollen head lately."

"Sure. You know, you'd think after all this time somebody would have made the connection between the cursed bread and me leaving ANBU to open a bakery." Kakashi dug through his cupboard and handed Tenzou a rolled up grocery bag to put the croissants in.

"I tell people that you started the bakery to appease the baker's spirit and prevent an even greater curse befalling the ANBU base."

Kakashi frowned,

"And they believe that?"

Tenzou put on an innocent smile,

"I can be very convincing. Besides, some of the new recruits seem to be under the impression that Itachi used to eat cursed bread."

"Well, in fairness, he did, but that's only because Shisui would hand him pieces of toast without telling him where they came from."

After two weeks of practice, Naruto only needed a second or two to reopen a closed tenketsu point. It hurt like hell to do, so it definitely wasn't going to be the first thing he tried against Neji, but it was an awesome ace to have up his sleeve.

"So I want to try a worst case scenario today." Naruto rubbed the back of his head as Hinata wrinkled her eyebrows at him in confusion. "I want you to close all of my tenketsu points."

"Naruto-kun, that can be dangerous." Naruto had noticed that she'd stopped stuttering so much around him over the past couple of weeks. "It can badly damage your chakra pathways."

"Just this once. You've seen how quickly I heal from stuff. I just want to see if I can reopen them all at once. If it all goes sideways, you can say, 'I told you so.'" He saw the uncertain look on Hinata's face. "Please?"

"All right, but you need to sit down first otherwise you'll probably fall over when I close the ones in your legs."

Having two or three tenketsu points closed had made Naruto's effected limb feel strangely numb. Having all of them closed actually hurt. His arms and legs ached and prickled. Naruto took a deep breath in and out and tried to focus on his chakra. He could feel it flickering faintly, but he couldn't make it flare like he had before. Damn it, maybe this hadn't been such a good idea.

"Naruto-kun, do you have two chakra affinities?" Hinata suddenly asked.

"Huh?" Naruto opened his eyes. "Not as far as I know. Why?"

"Because now all your blue chakra is blocked off, I can see swirls of red."

Naruto blinked. Red swirls? She must mean the Kyuubi's chakra. Well, Kakashi had said that he ought to be able to use it sometimes. He closed his eyes again and reached out mentally, searching for that fire and anger that he'd felt in the Forest of Death.

One moment Naruto was sitting on the grass beneath a tree. The next he was running through a maze of poorly lit corridors. Puddles splashed beneath his feet. Was this his mind or a representation of the seal? Either way it was sort of creepy. Was the Kyuubi hiding somewhere in all this mess?

Naruto raced down corridor after corridor, checking doors at random. The further he ran, the hotter the air become until he rounded a corner and-

Woah.

Naruto gaped up at the massive, snarling visage of the Kyuubi no Kitsune. Malevolent chakra burned through the air, and the single paper seal holding the bars of the cage shut didn't seem nearly enough to hold back such a massive creature.

"Finally dared to come down here, brat?" The Kyuubi's voice rumbled through his bones. "If I could get out of this cages, I'd rend you limb from limb."

Naruto briefly wondered if this had been a good idea. …Possibly not. Oh, well – too late to back out now.

"Can I borrow some of your chakra?" Naruto asked. Just taking someone else's chakra seemed rude – even if he'd had any idea how to do it.

For a very brief second, the Kyuubi seemed taken aback.

"Borrow? BORROW?!" it roared. "All you humans ever do is take! You won't give my chakra back, so why should I give you anything, brat?"

Naruto frowned. It was a fair point. What could he give a giant demon fox in exchange for some chakra? He looked around the gloomy, almost cavern-like room, doing his best to ignore the trembling in his knees.

"Do you like trees?" he finally asked.

The Kyuubi blinked eyes the size of doors.

"What?"

"Do you like trees?" Naruto repeated. "I'd be angry, too, if I had to be stuck in a place as miserable as this all the time, but I can't let you out, because you'd just go and stomp Konoha flat. So what if I made this place nicer?"

The Kyuubi stared at him, and for a moment Naruto thought it was just going to threaten to rip him to pieces again. Then laughter boomed through the air.

"I've been staring at these same damn walls for nearly a century. Give me something better to look at, and I'll give you all the chakra you want and kill you quickly when I finally escape."

"Then I promise to make this place better," Naruto decided. "And I always keep my promises – believe it!"

"Humans never keep their promises, brat." Red chakra oozed from between the bars like lava. "All they ever do is lie and die. But for trees, it might be worth the risk."

The red chakra swirled up around Naruto's legs and torso like liquid fire.

Naruto's eyes snapped open. The Kyuubi's chakra cascaded through his body, and his tenketsu points burst back open like they had never been shut.

Hinata yelped in shock, and Naruto held one hand to his head as he let the Kyuubi's chakra sink back into the seal again.

Oh, man. How the hell did you change the… spiritual representation of a seal? Naruto was going to have to do so much research, but he'd made a promise, and he was going to prove that damn fox wrong, because he never made a promise lightly.

"Hey nii-san." Naruto watched as Kakashi pulled a tray of buns from one of the bakery ovens. He'd specifically come to the bakery extra early, so that he could talk to Kakashi before Sasuke and Sakura got there. "How do you change what a mindscape looks like?"

"You mean like what you see during deep meditation? Not sure. I've never had the patience for meditation outside of chakra exercises. Why?" Kakashi prodded the buns and hummed approvingly to himself.

Naruto rubbed the back of his head and laughed nervously.

"'Cause I promised the Kyuubi yesterday that I'd find it something better to stare at than shitty concrete walls."

The tray of buns clattered across the floor.

"You what?!"

"Promised to make the Kyuubi's cage nicer in exchange for ready access to its chakra. Just taking it seemed rude, and I wouldn't want to stare at blank walls all the time either, so it seemed like a fair trade."

Kakashi pressed a hand to his face.

"Only you, Naruto."

SMASH!

Fragments of glass rained down onto the floor. Orochimaru stared at them for a moment before picking up another beaker and throwing that at the wall as well. It exploded it a shower of glittering shards. He reached for the next nearest object that was both fragile and expendable. He didn't usually indulge in fits of temper like this, but it felt earned. The report from Kabuto was crumple in his other hand.

His plan had been going so well. With the seal in place, the Uchiha brat would have walked straight in his hands – willingly – so that Orochimaru could mold and train the boy until he was ready to take him on as a vessel. At long last, Orochimaru would have had unrestricted access to the sharingan. But no! For once in his miserable life, that wretch Jiraiya had to be competent and actually in Konoha. Sasuke should have been primed by his trauma to be thoroughly and irreversibly entangled by the curse seal! It had all been going so well! And now Sasuke wasn't even participating in the third exam.

Orochimaru threw one last test tube at the wall before taking a deep, calming breath. He stared at the glass shards littering the floor for a moment. Then he folded his hands into a careful seal.

"Sai kumitate." The shards juttered as their pre-applied seals activated and the pieces of beakers and test tubes began to reassemble themselves. (It had been Jiraiya's idea, years and years ago when the wretch had still been tolerable and Tsunade had still had a spine. A seal that would repair Orochimaru's lab equipment when it was accidentally broken. Jiraiya's original design had been crude, but Orochimaru had improved it. Orochimaru had also used it as a base to build the seal that let him possess another's body. Jiraiya would hate that, and that made Orochimaru smile.)

The situation wasn't a total loss. Instead of waiting for Sasuke to come to him, Orochimaru would just have Kabuto snatch Sasuke during the chaos caused by Suna's invasion force. If a barely trained thirteen year old could successfully transplant a sharingan in the middle of a forest, then Orochimaru could do it in his labs and do it better. (It was such a shame that Hatake had never spiraled into anger and despair properly and remained foolishly loyal to Konoha – he would have made a useful tool.) Kabuto ought to be competent enough, at least, to subdue and kidnap a child unsupervised.

There had been one good piece of news in Kabuto's missive – that fool Jiraiya had taken the bait and was chasing another false lead that Orochimaru had laid out for him. Kabuto had intercepted a message to Sarutobi containing Jiraiya's carefully coded message that he wouldn't be able to make it back to Konoha in time for the third exam. Jiraiya had never managed to come up with a code that Orochimaru couldn't crack, and he'd never been able to resist a rumor about Akatsuki activity. By the time he realized his mistake, the fool would be far too late.

Orochimaru picked up a reassembled beaker from the floor. Very soon it would be time to leave this particular hidden lab and replace that useless Kazekage, who couldn't even properly control his village's jinchuuriki. Honestly, it was almost embarrassing, but at least there shouldn't be any difficulty in replacing someone who had so thoroughly isolated himself.

The more he thought about it, perhaps the curse seal not taking on Sasuke was for the best. Why settle for just an Uchiha body when he could simply transplant the sharingan into a better body? Why limit himself to only one kekkei genkai? Oh, yes, now there was an idea. It would certainly give him something to think about during the very dull trip to Konoha.

Sasuke wasn't entirely sure when his apartment had become Team 7's unofficial secondary hang out after the Ryouken Bakery, but he didn't particularly mind. Sakura accepted the cup of tea he offered her. His mother had always made guests tea, and Kakashi usually made tea when they were at his apartment, too. It seemed like the thing to do.

"What's Naruto doing?" Sakura asked.

"Using my bonsai as a meditation focal point. He said it would help to have a reference – whatever that means." Sasuke blew on his own tea.

"It's hard to believe that the third exam starts in less than two days," Sakura murmured.

Sasuke nodded.

"Feeling ready?"

"As I'll ever be."

"I think Kakashi-sensei is planning on locking all of us in the bakery with him tomorrow."

Sakura's mouth pulled up into a smile.

"I think he's worried."

"Hn." Sasuke took a sip of his tea. "You and Naruto will be fine."

The smile widened a little.

"Thanks, Sasuke-kun."

Sasuke picked up the third cup of tea he'd made.

"Hey, dobe! Sakura's here, and your tea's getting cold!"

"Damn it, teme, what part of meditating don't you understand?" grumbled Naruto, standing and returning the bonsai to its usual windowsill.

"The part where you have to do it in my apartment."

"I told you – I need Ki-san's help!"

Over the past several days, the far right corner of the space outside of Kurama's cage had been taking on a sort of melted quality. Ever so slowly it was stretching and reshaping itself. A long, cylindrical section now protruded from the wall. It tapered to a point and had smaller segments fanning out from it. It was still the same color and texture and the rest of the wall, but it looked rather like an antler or, possibly, a branch.

Kurama had been watching its slow progress, because it was marginally more interesting than staring at an unchanging wall or sleeping. He definitely wouldn't call it a tree, but it was still more than he'd been expecting.

Gaara stared thoughtfully through the front window of the bakery with his sand eye. He wasn't in the least concerned about his pink haired first opponent for tomorrow's exam. Kankuro was right – she looked more like a housewife with her dress and the lace-edged cover on her bun than a kunoichi. Killing her would barely reaffirm his existence. But something about this bakery kept drawing him back.

At first, Gaara had thought it was idle curiosity. No jounin in Suna would open a bakery. Then he'd thought that perhaps he felt some sort of connection with the Uchiha, but the other boy lacked the spark of pure, lonely hatred that Gaara had thought he'd recognized in him. Now Gaara was at a loss for any sort of explanation.

Inside the bakery, the pink haired kunoichi and the Uchiha were shelving fresh loaves of bread, and their blond teammate was seated behind the counter. Why weren't they training? Weren't they worried about tomorrow or were they simply too naïve to understand that they would soon be dead?

Their sensei emerged from the back of the bakery. He was dressed like a civilian again, and his hitai-ate was slung around his neck like Temari's. The man placed a hand on the pink haired kunoichi's head, and she grinned up at him. Something ached with desperate pain in Gaara's chest. A sudden, visceral loathing for the girl swelled in him. He let his sand eye disperse.

Tomorrow she would die to reaffirm Gaara's existence, and he would be glad when she was gone. Perhaps he'd get the chance to kill her teammates during the invasion as well. Mother was looking forward to the invasion.

Gaara slid down from the tree he'd been sitting in. He was looking forward to leaving Konoha, and its far too frequent rain that made Mother howl with irritation. The people here smiled too much.

Kakashi stared around his kitchen. Nearly every surface was liberally dusted in white, including himself.

Well, Soyokaze no jutsu wasn't going to be enough to clean up this one, and he was officially out of flour. At least nothing was on fire.

"What the hell?" Iruka stuck his head in the kitchen. He'd come over to keep Kakashi company and had been marking papers in the sitting area. The Academy was back in session since most of the foreign chuunin-hopefuls had gone home once the second exam was over. The daimyos would most likely be bringing shinobi bodyguards with them tomorrow, but the majority of the foreign spectators would be civilians.

"My last bag of flour got knocked off the counter, so I guess I'm done baking for the night." Kakashi stared down a little sadly at the exploded package of flour on the floor. He really should have caught it, but his brain had initially processed it as 'not a threat' rather than 'oh, shit – my last bag of flour.' Well, cleaning wasn't as good as baking, but at least it was still a distraction.

"Well, I was just about done marking anyway. I'll grab your vacuum, so you don't track flour anywhere else."

"Thanks."

Kakashi opened a drawer and grabbed a dry dish towel. Minato must have been the most Zen person in the history of the village, Kakashi decided as he wiped flour off his counter and onto the floor where it would be easier to vacuum up. One more day and the chuunin exams would finally be over. Sakura and Naruto were as prepared as they would ever be, and he'd be with Sasuke in the stands the entire time in case Orochimaru or one of his minions tried anything else. It would be fine.

Kakashi would be more inclined to believe that if he didn't also know that his students were disaster magnets.

The Sandaime, whether he believed that Orochimaru was still in the village or not, would have the ANBU on high alert tomorrow. It was standard procedure. Kakashi remembered doing guard duty during one of the previous exams in Konoha. And Hayate was back in the hospital with another bout of pneumonia, so Genma would be proctoring the third exam tomorrow. Genma would step in if things went too far. Despite the dramatic 'until one concedes, can no longer fight, or is dead,' the preference really was that none of the chuunin-hopefuls died. It took a lot of time and effort to train a shinobi of any level, and genin weren't exactly an endless resource even in a village as big as Konoha. (Maybe Kiri didn't understand the necessity of not killing off the next generation willie-nillie, but then again the Bloody Mist wasn't really known for its long term planning.)

It was going to be fine, and if one of the fights went sideways and Sakura or Naruto got severely injured, well… Kakashi would just hunt done Tsunade himself and bribe her with sake to come back to the village to make sure that they made a full recovery. Jiraiya probably had some idea of where she was. Though, if Jiraiya was back in Konoha, Kakashi hadn't seen him.

It was a totally unfeasible and unrealistic plan, but Kakashi felt better for having come up with it. It gave the part of his brain that was naturally inclined towards pessimism and paranoia something else to focus on.

Kakashi finished wiping down his counter and cupboards while theorizing what sort of sake would be best to bribe Tsunade with and how much of it he would need instead of being inundated with a million worst case scenarios that almost all featured his students being horribly killed or maimed in front of him.

Sakura and Naruto were both ready for the third exam tomorrow. There was even a pretty good chance that one of them might make chuunin despite their desire to make chuunin as a team. Sakura's plan to concede if/when things got out of hand was exactly the sort of mature, cut-your-losses thinking that the judges liked to see in chuunin in a no-win situation, and if Naruto managed to beat the Hyuuga clan's resident genius, that was definitely going to turn heads.

Sasuke had already rejected Orochimaru once, and the curse seal couldn't be reapplied. The Sasuke of several months ago might have been tempted by the lure of quick and seemingly easy power, but he'd grown so much since then. You couldn't separate Team 7 with a crowbar at this point.

…

Would Tsunade prefer quantity or quality from her sake?

Iruka returned with the vacuum.

"What's your favorite type of sake?" Kakashi asked.

Iruka blinked.

"If I'm paying, whatever's cheapest. If you're paying, ginjo. Why?"

"Trying to decide what type of sake to bribe Tsunade to come back to the village with if things go wrong tomorrow."

Iruka gave this a moment of proper consideration.

"From the few stories I've heard, I'd go for volume. Maybe a couple crates of table sake and then one bottle of the really good stuff just to round things out."

That sounded like a good place to start.

Unreliable Translations:

Kyoufuu - gale wind
Sai kumitate - reassemble