Perfectly Imperfect Love

Shattered

A loud knocking caused a blonde haired man to fall out of his bed in his sleep.

Naruto blinked rapidly, trying to remember where he was. Ah. Home.

He picked himself up, not bothering to put a shirt or a pair of pants on over his boxers, and walked to his door where the loud knocking was coming from. He opened, and met the one-eyed gaze of his long-time sensei.

"Ah, Naruto, did I wake you?" He said cheerfully, causing the blonde to glare and mumble under his breath.

"Get dressed. We have a training exercise today. The Hokage wants us to brush up on our fighting and tactics; we haven't really done that since the war."

"We?"

The jounin sighed. "The team. As in, all of us. Can...you handle that?"

The blonde exhaled sharply. "Yeah. I'll meet you there." He said, before closing the door. He ran a hand through his hair as he walked back to his room to get dressed.

"Kit? You alright?"The bijuu sealed within him asked. Naruto mentally shrugged. I've been better. But I feel as though I can handle being around them now. Ino really has helped alot.

The Kyuubi said nothing back, and Naruto, now fully clothed in his black and orange jumpsuit, stood in front of his door. He scratched the back of his head, a nervous ball filling in the pits of his stomach. He didn't want to see either of his teammates at this moment. Things were finally looking up for the blonde.

Better sooner then later. Let's get this over with.

Naruto walked slowly to the training grounds, where not six years ago they became a team. He looked up to the sky and sighed deeply. He missed the innocent days, full of wonder and fun. When the only things he had to worry about was ramen and his crush on Sakura.

He exhaled his stress when he arrived, and saw Kakashi talking with the two other squad members. Naruto tensed when he overheard them speaking.

"So, we're already thinking of names, even though we're waiting for Sasuke-kun to become a jounin. I also want to go deeper into my medical career."

"Yeah. But doesn't stop us from...you know." Sasuke said slyly, winking at a blushing Sakura.

Naruto grit his teeth, hard, when he heard what they were talking about. He walked up to them, and gave a small, half-hearted wave when they glanced at him.

"'Bout time you got here." Kakashi said, and the blonde merely shrugged stiffly.

"Okay. Since we're all pretty rusty, being out of combat for the last two or so years, we're going to separate into teams of two and practice using all of the shinobi techniques, just like the bell test. Taijutsu, Ninjutsu, Genjutsu, and weaponry." The copy-nin said.

They all smiled in excitement, even Naruto. There was something about fighting that he missed; the thrill of it, the distraction it made from his emotions. It had been far too long since his last fight; training against clones didn't compare to real combat.

Sakura stole a glance at the determined blonde. That's it. We're going to have that talk today.

"So, me and Naruto against Sasuke and Sakura. That should work out kindly." Kakashi said happily, choosing not to put Naruto with the either of the others, before tossing a bell to each of his former students.

"The goal is to get the other teams bells. No restrictions, besides the Kyuubi's chakra, of course. We start now...go!" He yelled, before they jumped into the trees.