moonlight

Chapter 5 - Survival Test

Tsuki nodded and started to unpack the bags, only to be stopped by her mother's hand. "Don't worry about this, how much did you train today?"

The younger Takeshi stayed silent and her mother understood.

With no other words uttered, Tsuki walked off towards the training grounds.

---

After the strange encounter with their teacher, Kakashi, the four genins met at the training grounds.

Sakura and Naruto looked sleepy and rubbed their eyes to get rid of their tiredness. Sasuke looked normal and Tsuki had dark eye-circles.

Sakura noticed that right away and asked her in shock. "Tsuki-chan, were you too excited for today that you couldn't sleep?"

The asked girl turned her head away and smirked. "No, I just didn't sleep at all. I was training until a few minutes ago."

Her smirk grew wider as she saw the shocked faces of her comrades.

"What?! You didn't sleep at all? When did you start your training?" Naruto asked curiously.

"When our meeting was finished I went straight to the training grounds. I perfected a jutsu I want to test out on the mission today." she stated and looked at her bandaged hands.

Sakura gasped, ran to Tsuki, and grabbed her hands gently, looking worriedly at the girl. "But aren't you too exhausted to take part in the mission?"

Tsuki only shook her hands away with a grunt. 'Heh, as if.'

Tsuki then sat down on the grass and started waiting for her sensei to show up. Naruto and Sakura layed in front of her, letting sleep get the better of them.

The only one who was wide awake was Sasuke who stood next to the Takeshi. He was staring at her hands interested.

The Uchiha got down on her level and whispered into her ear. "What new jutsu did you learn?"

He eyed her unchanged expression for a while and then decided to sit down next to her.

"Not just a jutsu, I trained my taijutsu as well. But for the jutsu... maybe you will see it in the mission." Tsuki said with a soft voice, her face was ever so determined.

But not satisfied with her answer, Sasuke took her hand in his and started to examine it. "Does it hurt?"

The girl huffed and yanked her hand away from the strong grip. "Not at all."

Letting out a breath Sasuke didn't know he was holding in, he decided to drop the conversation and stare forward.

The sun rose after a while and there was still no Kakashi insight. The Uchiha and Takeshi waited patiently and glanced sometimes at their sleeping comrades.

"Good morning." was suddenly heard from behind the kids. There he was, Kakashi finally arrived.

Naruto and Sakura jumped up and called him out for being late.

He only answered. "A black cat crossed my path so I had to take the long way." His students only growled at him angrily.

"Well." The older man cleared his throat. "Let's get started."

Kakashi walked to a log and put a clock on it, he continued explaining the task. "You will have time to take a bell from me until noon."

With a smooth swing, he revealed three shining bells to his students. "If you can't get one by noon, you won't get lunch. You will be tied to those posts and will watch while I eat my lunch in front of you." Kakashi gave them an evil smile.