Chapter 3 - Gathering

"Alrighhhtt, now that thats over, lets get to training like theres no tomorrow," Naruto shouted as he burst out the front door. "What do you guys think we should do today?"

After a whole day of review, Iruka had finally dismissed the class, telling them to prepare themselves for the graduation exam taking place tomorrow. There was to be a written exam followed by a test of ninjutsu, and if you passed both of them then youd move on to become a genin, ninjas of the lowest level.

"Hold your horses Naruto," Tora said as he walked out the door with Sasuke following behind him. "I have an idea but I need some of our classmates to participate in order for it to work. It'll be difficult to have people join us, but with the right words anything is possible."

Tora and the other two stopped next to the swing near the Academy entrance, waiting for their fellow classmates to come out. Whenever one was spotted, Tora would wave them over and explain his proposition, choosing his words carefully.

Kiba Inuzuka, Shino Aburame, and Shikamaru Nara were relatively easy to convince as Tora had known each of them since starting the academy. Kiba wanted to prove himself, Shino simply wanted to be a part of the action, and Shikamaru said that even though it was a drag he didn't have anything better to do. These three were simple to convince and so were the next ones to show up.

Sakura and Ino walked through the door and, after seeing Sasuke in the small group, came running in their directions, demanding to participate. Hinata Hyuga's face was flushed red when Tora waved at her, but she eventually made her way to the group, standing as far as she could from Tora and Naruto. Choji Akimichi, the guy who was constantly eating, also came on over and agreed to join as long as he could keep munching away on his bag of chips.

All of these people were easy to deal with, it was the next two people that Tora had trouble with. Setsuna "Suna" Yakaboshi and Itana Subiki, the two girls who refused to follow along with all the other girls in their pursuit of Sasuke. They were unique in many ways, not to mention they were strong, almost equalling Tora and Sasuke in strength and smarts. They were the top girls in class but that wasn't the real reason that Tora had trouble with them.

"Well well well, if it isnt Tora," Suna said with a smile as she and Itana approached the groups. "How come you were late? Did you really go so far just to avoid us? I mean, you know you cant avoid us forever."

"I wasn't trying to avoid the two of you," Tora said, giving them a small smile. "I actually overslept and couldn't make it on time. I would never try to avoid you girls even if your a tad bit annoying."

"The only person whose annoying around here is definitely you," Itana said as she returned the smile, her red eyes trained on Tora's featurless pale ones. "So whats on the agenda for today? Considering you have a whole bunch of people gathered here I would ȧssume that the Villages number one 'Hybrid freak' has some idea planned out."

Tora laughed a little and tapped both Suna and Itana on the shoulder as he walked past them. "Hybrid or not, I indeed have something planned. Go stand with the group and we'll begin. I plan on us having a little bit of fun before we all go our separate ways. One last thrill before we officially become genin and begin our journey as ninjas."

Tora walked to the front of the small huddle of 11 people and loudly cleared his throat, drawing everyone's attention as they had been chatting amongst themselves. "Welcome everyone to todays training session sponsored by your favorite outcast, me. Today we're gonna be doing something special in preparation for when we graduate."

"Is this gonna take too long?" Sakura asked as she raised a hand. "I have to get back home before sundown or my parents are gonna kill me."

"Is anyone stopping you from leaving?" Suna asked with an annoyed expression, her ruby red eyes focused on Sakura. "Its not like you'd be any use here anyways, Sakura!! All you and Ino are here for is to become Sasuke's cheerleaders so why bother even sticking around to train?"

"You should alll just shut up and listen," Sasuke interjected without even looking, his eyes trained on Tora. "Whose stronger then who isn't why we're here. Just keep quiet and quit being annoying."

Everyone fell silent as all eyes looked at Sasuke before turning back to Tora who was watching with obvious amusement. No one spoke up again, instead deciding to just seee what Tora had planned.

"As you all know, once we graduate, we'll all be separated into three man squads," Tora said, tucking his hands into his pockets. "What I have planned is for all of us to work on our teamwork by creating our own three man cells and duking it out over on the field. The teams will be decided by a draw of straws so its fair. If your in then follow me, and if not then feel free to leave."

Naruto ran to catch up to Tora while Sasuke chose to walk, hanging back with the more hesitant group as they all made their way to the training grounds. Of course, the moment Tora and Naruto were out of earshot, the complaints began to flow like water.

"Why are we even listening to that freak?" Sakura asked as she glared at Tora with hatred in her eyes. "That reject isn't good for anything else except causing trouble. Not to mention that Naruto is also with him, another nuisance."

"Yet he's the top of the class and Naruto just chooses to do nothing, whats your excuse?" Suna asked, slapping the back of Sakura's head.

"Well I also heard some stuff from my dad about Tora and why all the grown ups seem to hate him so much," Shikimaru said, interrupting the start of an argument. "Apparently he was born from an affair between two of the most powerful clans in the Hidden Leaf, the Hyuga and the Uchiha. Affairs are already looked down upon in the village from what I hear. However, due to how valuable the Byakugan is to the Hyuga, it must have been pretty bad when a possessor of the Byakugan interloped with someone who possessed the Sharingan."

"Sharingan? Byakugan? Whats that?" Sakura asked as she pried her head away from Suna.

"A bloodline trait, thats all my dad would say about it," Shikamaru said with a shake of his head. "In any case, my dad told me that there's some big decisions going on in the background on how to deal with Tora if he ever unlocks the Byakugan. The Huyga main branch is constantly pressuring the third hokage to allow them to do some sort of curse mark on him to protect the Byakugan. So far its been a no-go though."

"I didn't get an answer for that one," Shikamaru said. "I've asked about Naruto for a while now as he seems like a pretty okay guy even if he's annoying as they come. Dad always ignored the question and chose not to answer."

"I will say one thing though," Shikamaru said. "If we're talking about pure potential, Tora has the most by far even if we're talking about bloodline alone. It's a drag to admit, but that guy will easily outshine us all someday, wether we want him to or not."

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Not bad for a One-shot right??