Stream of past

The Tower

And so, after half an hour of scolding, yelling, swearing and nagging from Sakura, team 7 finally started making their way towards the tower. Though, Naruto and Sasuke were holding their cheeks after a painful pinching session. Although they should count themselves lucky...Sakura could have easily kicked the everliving marshmallow fluff out of them, but instead she choose to only pinch their cheeks, painfully. But still, better.

Right now the 3 of them were jumping from tree to tree with Naruto keeping a light conversation with Sakura and occasionally asking Sasuke for his opinion. Not that Naruto could understand any of his grunts and "hns", but Sakura was a great translator, so whatever.

"You know I can't help but wonder what we'll be doing once we get out of the forest. I mean that crazy lady said this was only the second part, so there might be a third one." said Naruto, hand under chin and thoughtful expression. Then he glanced at Sakura. "Riiiiiight?"

Sakura nodded. "Mhhhm, usually the chunin exams have 3 parts, and in some rare cases preliminaries. The third round is always a battle tournament, so look forward to that I guess."

"Alright! Can't wait to kick some ass and then become chunin!" said the excited blonde.

Sakura laughed at his antics, before voicing her own opinion. "Yeah, well I don't know about you guys but I can't wait to get out of this stupid forest. We're arriving a day early so we can probably go home after we get to the tower."

"What do you plan to do once u get home, Sakura-chan?"

Suddenly the pinkette turned her head towards her teammates with a tired and maniac expression. "Fucking sleep, duuuuh!" before answering more calmly. "But I also have a new project that I'm working on..."

"New project?" asked Naruto, confused.

"A new poison?" asked Sasuke.

The medic smirked their way. "Wouldn't you two like to know..." before she leaped away farther from them, her evil laughter echoing in the forest.

The boys shared a slightly concerned glance before shrugging and going after their teammate.

...

A few hours later, the 3 genin reached the tower. They all landed neatly on the ground in front of the door before swinging it open to reveal...absolutely no one. The hell?

"There's no one here!" exclaimed an enraged Naruto.

"No shit dobe..." said a mildly annoyed Sasuke.

"Well now what? Do you think were late? What if they left without us!" said Naruto.

"Ok, let's calm down. I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation for this...Let's uhhh...Let's check the scrolls, maybe they'll have some answers..." said Sakura.

Sasuke looked at her with a sceptical look before nodding slowly. "Worth a shot I guess...It's not like they told us not to open them in the tower." And so the genin opened the scrolls on the ground, so they can read them better. The scrolls revealed a summoning jutsu. The 3 of them backed away from the scroll and Iruka popped out. The man quickly congratulated the 3 of them before more chunin proctor assistants showed up. They took them to a side room filled with food where Kakashi waited for them.

"Yo! Good to see you three back in one piece." said the man before seeing the dried blood on their clothes. "Er- mostly."

"Good to see you too, sensei. What are you doing here?" said Sakura as she picked a bowl of katsudon. Naruto already dived for the ramen while Sasuke calmly picked a few onigiri that he dipped in ketchup.

"Ah well, I came to see you 3 and congratulate you. You even managed to make it a day earlier. Though it seems you had a few interesting encounters..." Kakashi's lone eye looking at Sakura's bandaged shoulder.

Naruto paused from his ramen to look back at his sensei. "You could say that again, sensei. It was crazy, we barely got in the forest when-" And so team 7 explained their encounters in the forest, the battle against Orochimaru, with a few things missing, since the boys promised not to say anything about Katsuyu.

The white haired man stayed in thought for a while before giving them an eye smile. "Well, I have to say, I'm quite impressed. You guys handled that situation very well and managed to drive the man away. I'm proud of you 3...You certainly aren't the same baby genin I met a few months ago."

The Naruto and Sakura grinned brightly at Kakashi while Sasuke had a small smile on his face. For the next hours team 7 ate the food provided to them, telling jokes and just talking in general about everything and nothing.

"Well this was great and all, but I honestly want to get home so, if you'll excuse me." said Sakura.

"Um...actually Sakura. Participants aren't allowed to leave the tower until the 4 days are up." said Kakashi.

"What?"

"Look, I'm sorry, but those are the rules-"

"Sensei if you don't find us a place to sleep in right now, I'll make you a funeral pyre out of all your limited edition icha icha paradise books." said Sakura in a terrifying tone.

The jonin gulped before answering. "W-well good thing the tower provided rooms for early participants. Follow me team."

And so the 3 tired genins made their way to a room with 3 beds, a table and a balcony.

"Down the hall are common bathrooms, yes they are divided by gender Sakura. You 3 go take a shower, you stink. I'll go tell the hokage about your new snake 'friend'." said Kakashi before disappearing in a puff of smoke.

An hour later the team was standing in their room, all in bathrobes as their clothes were drying on the balcony. Sakura, who's hair was pulled back in a very messy braided ponytail, was attempting to braid Naruto's very short hair while the blonde was having a civilized conversation with Sasuke for once. By the end, Naruto's blonde hair was sporting a million small blonde braids and even Sasuke had his bangs braided.

"I'm booored, let's play a game." said Naruto.

"With what, dobe? It's not like we have cards or anything..." said Sasuke.

Naruto was about to retort, but Sakura interrupted him. "Actually, we technically have." She started rummaging through her bag and pulled out exactly 52 senbons, that she quickly transformed into cards. Sasuke looked at her weirdly while Naruto beamed. "Oh don't look at me like that, it'll be fun, and I can always change them back later. And it's not like you have to play if you don't want to.""

"Unless you're a chicken." said Naruto.

Sasuke glared at the 2 of them before saying "Deal me in."

Team 7 played poker until late in the night, and by the end of it, Sasuke owned Naruto 41 bowls of ramen and Sakura 6 bowls of anmitsu. He's never playing cards with those 2 again.