Team 8

Chapter 4: Geniuses of Hard Work

Naruto leapt from roof to roof as dawn began streaking the eastern sky. He flexed his left hand repeatedly, trying to work out the annoying tingles. On Kurenai-sensei's advice, he'd picked up a field alarm at one of the outfitter shops.

A shinobi on a mission might desire to wake at a specific time, or to limit the amount of rest he did allow himself to take. However, a conventional alarm clock was far too noisy to use when a mission might require stealth. At some point an extremely clever Cloud shinobi devised a portable clock powered by small, but powerful batteries, charged with a simple raiton jutsu. Instead of ringing a bell to wake its owner, the ninja-clock sent a pulse of electricity through a pair of wires attached to the owner's body.

Naruto slipped the metal rings onto his fingers before finally falling asleep the previous night, trusting the device to wake him for his training session. The problem was that he stayed up fairly late beforehand. He'd been upset after the confrontation at Ichiraku's, and the thought of his team-mates listening to Sakura berate him just made his stomach twist even worse.

He didn't really understand why Shino and Hinata were willing to treat him differently than the others. A small part of him wondered if they would suddenly 'wake up' and see him like everyone else. The niggling fear of that occurring kept him from even thinking about taking Kurenai's advice. He'd rather no one ever knew about his prisoner.

Such thoughts kept Naruto awake far later than he realized, and he'd evidently slept through the first several pulses of his new alarm clock. Whoever built this particular model must have had some experience with sound sleepers, though. The pulse that finally woke him up left his hand numb and tingling. That complicated things as he rushed around his small apartment, trying to get ready with only one hand working well.

Still, he did manage to make it on time, and arrived at the designated training area at the stroke of six. Of course, what he found there immediately had him wondering if he was still asleep and dreaming.

Gai... sensei... he supposed... was a large, muscular man in a green leotard. The outfit was loose on his frame, for which Naruto was grateful, and over it he wore a chuunin vest. Topping all of this was the ugliest bowl cut Naruto had ever seen.

Though the one on the kid standing next to him was close competition.

Standing next to Gai was a half-size duplicate that Naruto supposed was this Rock Lee person. He didn't have the vest, though he did have the orange leg-warmers that matched with nothing else. After meeting Kurenai-sensei, Naruto was beginning to dislike that color for some reason.

"Ah, you are right on time!" The man boomed in a loud voice that seemed to have no business belonging to a ninja. "You must be eager to start banking the fires of your youth!"

Naruto had no idea what that just meant, so he used one of Kurenai-sensei's parting words of advice. He just smiled and nodded.

OoOoO

Hours later, Naruto was bruised, tired, and hungry. Despite his 'handicap' with ninjutsus, Rock Lee was still a formidable opponent. He proved this by beating Naruto senseless every time they sparred. Possibly the most irritating thing about this experience was that eerie smile he wore the whole time. Naruto was used to a variety of expressions from his opponents. Sneers and emotionless masks he was used to, having known both Sasuke and Shino. Scowls were the norm with Kiba, and bored calculation was to be expected from Shikamaru.

But Rock and his teammates were from the previous year's graduating class at the Konoha Ninja Academy, so Naruto had never sparred with him before. It was a little odd to fight someone who never stopped grinning, even on the rare occasions when Naruto actually managed to land a blow.