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teamwork makes the dream work.

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Kiyomi had woken up to the sound of a banging door. It usually wouldn't have bothered her, as her routine usually consisted of her waking up early and training, but she hadn't had decent sleep in a while and the bed was extremely comfortable.

"Ki-Chan! Open up, we'll be late!" Haru shouted through the door, followed by a chorus of 'shut ups' from the neighbours.

She begrudgingly got up and opened the door, "Instead of standing around, why don't you get breakfast for us? I know you have cash."

"You got it!" He saluted her and ran off.

A yawn escaped from her lips as she took her time to brush her teeth, go to the toilet, take a shower, brush her hair and slip into her usual attire. Since her hair was wet, it meant that she couldn't tie her hair up like usual. She exited her apartment but waited by the door for her friend.

"These onigiri (rice balls) were really cheap but they taste so good!" Haru shouted as he ran up the stairs towards the brunette, carrying a bag.

She clamped her hand over his mouth. "Lower your voice." Taking her hand off his mouth, she grabbed some onigiri out of the bag and took a bite out of it. "But, you're right, it's good."

"See, what did I say?" He grinned.

Kiyomi descended the stairs and headed to the training ground, with Haru trailing behind her due to him munching the onigiri like there was no tomorrow.

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"Kiyomi, Haru. Glad you could make it." Hiruzen teased.

"You failed to specify the time," the brunette retorted, looking away shyly.

"Right now, there are only two teams present, team eight led by Kurenai and team seven led by Kakashi. There are a total of four gennin teams, you'll meet the other two at a later time," he stated, moving aside to reveal the teams.

A loud sigh escaped her lips when she saw the trio and the copy ninja, whom she'd encountered on their previous mission. A sense of nervousness overcame her.

"Kiyomi proved to be the stronger of the two, but Haru is also quite strong so putting them on the same team would mean an unbalance," he informed them. "I believe that Haru would most likely benefit from team eight, Kurenai. Kiyomi on the other hand, I feel would fit well with your bunch Kakashi, team seven."

Only Kiyomi noticed, that the usually smiling Haru was shaking, he was scared. He didn't want to be separated from his dear friend. She nudged him gently, "you'll be fine."

"Be nice and friendly, welcoming too. Don't be surprised at their past, focus on the present." Hiruzen added with a smile. "Haru, Kiyomi, if you two ever need anything, just come to me. I'll leave you all to get settled in," he waved farewell and walked off.

"I'm Haru Mizushi," he introduced, breaking the tension.

"Kiyomi Ōzoku," she spoke in a monotone voice.

"How do we know those are you real names?" Sakura retorted.

Haru couldn't help but glare over her. "We were on a mission last time and we weren't really under good circumstances so, for safety we gave false names."

"What did he mean about your past?" Kurenai asked curiously.

Kiyomi hesitated because she was unsure of how they'd react. "We were associated with Orochimaru not long before we came here," she heard an audible gasp from both jonnins but the gennins looked confused. "I won't get into my backstory or Haru's but to put it simply, we didn't really have a choice."

"You have choice now and judging from your headbands, you've made it." Kakashi pointed out with a smile.

"Introduce yourselves." Kurenai nudged the trio.

"I'm Kiba Inuzuka," the boy with markings on his face grinned and pointed to the anime beside on his head, "and this is my dog, Akamaru.

"Hinata Hyuga," the clearly shy girl introduced rubbing her fingers together, "nice to meet you."

"Shino Aburame," he said, pushing his glasses up.

Kurenai smiled. "We all know each other now, why don't we head off? Let's go Haru, see you around Kiyomi."

Haru looked back at her, a frown on his face, "Ki-Chan.."

"Go on, you big lug, I'll be fine," she waved him off.

"See you later Ki-Chan!" He shouted, walking alongside his new team. I hope she's really okay, especially with the pinkette on her team.. She can handle it!

She looked over to her new team. "I apologise for tricking you again, it was never my intention."

"It's fine, given your situation. Welcome to team seven." Kakashi shot her a closed eyed smile. "We have missions that need to be done today and seeing as you're the official member of team seven now, you'll take part in those mission. They're all fairly easy."

Sasuke looked over at her inquisitively, he felt like her being here, it was destiny. It gave him a chance to get to know her better. Purely to satiate his curiosity.

Naruto didn't think much about it, he was simply happy he got to see the brunette again. Unlike the pinkette, he completely disregarded the previous issue about deceit and lies. He could tell she was good.

Sakura was anything but happy, now with her here, she had competition for Sasuke's love now. Not to mention she found the demon jinchuuriki scary.

Kakashi was just pleased that his intuitions were right and he was happy that she was now on their side. He knew she would make a powerful ally.

The first mission, was to pluck the weeds from a garden. She noticed there were quite a few herbs in the garden so she left those and continued to pluck the weeds. Naruto, unfortunately couldn't tell the difference between a herb and a weed so he ended up pulling out everything, including the herbs, causing the lady to get angry at him and punch him in the face.

"Thi— this is Kurama's jinchuurki, oh my god."

The second mission, was to get the garbage from the river, fairly simple. Maybe even easier than the first one, she looked over to Naruto and stared at him, particularly his bruised eye from the lady. The task was boring and easy, that is until the blond slipped and fell down a waterfall, but Sasuke had managed to catch him. She shook her head, that boy was too reckless.

"HAHA! He's funny. Fox, what are you on about?"

The last mission for the day was to walk dogs, which she found the easiest, not to mention more cute since she loved dogs. They all took one small dog and Naruto, wanting to show off, took the one big dog. They were walking them near a mine field which wasn't really a good idea. Kiyomi knew that he shouldn't have taken a dog he couldn't control. As expected something bad happened. Naruto's dog led him to the field and the blond couldn't stop him because of the dog's sheer strength, so the blond ended up tripping on most of the traps. Thankfully, the dog remained unscathed, Naruto on the other hand not so much.

"Have I ever mentioned I'm so happy to have you as our friend and as our jinchuuriki? No? Well, I'm very grateful and happy."

"Make it anymore obvious fox."

Sasuke and Kiyomi ended up having to help him walk because he was injured, from simple missions. Sakura stood beside them and Kakashi trailed back behind them.

"Well! It's because you're so reckless." Sakura scoffed, lightly glaring at the blond.

A cocky smirk appeared on the ravenette's face and having practically covered for his teammate he felt as though he needed to say something, "geez, you're so much trouble."

Naruto's eyes opened and he jumped off them, "Sasuke!" He went to hit his rival but he was stopped by Sakura, obviously because that was her crush.

"If you act up anymore, I'll finish you!" She glared, scowling at the blond.

Kiyomi rose an eyebrow. "What's wrong with your teamwork and harmony?" She didn't particularly work well with others but, when she did, she made it work.

"Teamwork hasn't been good lately." Kakashi agreed with a sigh, looking over to the brunette.

"That's right! Sasuke, you're to blame for the poor teamwork! You're always attracting attention!" Naruto accused, pointing at him.

"That's you, you baka. If you don't want to owe me big time, you just need to become stronger than me.." Sasuke said, giving the blond a heated stare. This resulted to them having a staring contest, which then turned into glaring.

Kiyomi sighed and looked away from her team and up into the cloudy sky. And although she missed Haru, she'd never admit it to his face. They already worked well together but they needed to learn how to work with others more.

"Perhaps we should disperse," a sigh escaped from their sensei's lips. "I need to submit a report about this mission."

"Then I'm going home." Sasuke began walking away. 

"Sasuke-Kun, wait for me!" Sakura chased after him. 

Naruto sighed as he watched the pair with sad eyes, looking depressed and the brunette rose an eyebrow in curiosity at the love triangle.

"Hey, how about— why don't you and— why don't we work on improving our teamwork together?" She asked shyly, with a blush on her cheeks.

"You're just like Naruto. If you have time to spend on me, why don't you practice a jutsu? To tell you frankly, your abilities are less than his!" He scoffed almost glaring at her before walking away.

Naruto was practically beaming. "Sakura-Chan! Just let Sasuke be and let's practice together!"

Kakashi turned to the uninterested brunette, "watch over them for me Kiyomi." And though he said that, he disappeared without letting her give an answer.

She shook her head and looked behind her, frowning at the moving cardboard box. "What the..?" She watched the box follow the blond around, until he abruptly stopped.

"There's no such thing as a perfectly square rock with perfect holes!" He shouted at the box. "It's totally obvious."

"Just what you'd expect from the man I respect!" Konohamaru shouted from within the box so it came out muffled. "You're my rival aren't you!" The box exploded to reveal three kids. "Hey! That's too much gunpowder!" They coughed from the smoke going silent when they noticed the blond staring at them.

Kiyomi blinked and looked in the direction of the gate, she felt a huge amount of chakra. More people were coming into the village. What's going on?

"With an adult sexiness! I'm Moegi of the senior class at Kunoichi Preschool." She posed and grinned.

"I love factoring! Udon!" He announced.

"The most brilliant Ninja in the village! Konohamaru!" What seemed to be the leader of the group said.

"The three of us together are the Konohamaru Gang! Here we are!" They shouted in unison which caused a  loud sigh to escape from the brunette's lips at the young kids gimmicks.

"Adult sexiness, they're in preschool right?"

"Damn straight, look how small they are!"

"Well, Kiyomi was around that height when she mastered weapons."

"True, but there's only one kid, for me that is."

"Wow, you can actually be sweet sometimes."

"Shut it."

"I knew it was Konohamaru and friends. Why are you all wearing goggles?" Naruto asked.

A giggle escaped from their lips as they grasped onto the goggles atop their heads, "we're just copying what you used to do, Nii-Chan!"

"Kiyomi, that kid you're with, the blond.. He's the jinchuuriki of the nine tails, Kurama. I don't know if I already told you that but just in case, I felt something strange about him on the boat but here and now, I know it's Kurama, his chakra's familiar."

"Stupid fox thinks he's better than everyone. Hageshi is way better."

"Anyways, just keep an eye out Kiyomi."

Kiyomi zoned out for a little while before listening back in the conversation. She saw Sakura trudging towards them, all gloomily probably because her crush rejected her, but not before shooting the blond an envious look.

Naruto clearly didn't know how to take a hint as he started blushing and smiling, which then evolved to awkward laughing.

"Naruto-Nii-Chan, who's she?" Konohamaru turned to the pinkette and finally, he'd noticed the brunette. "Who's she?" He continued to look at the pinkette, like he'd figured something out. "You've been busier than I thought, Nii-Chan."

He looked confused, "huh?"

"Is she your—" Konohamaru held out his pinky. "This?"

A smirk appeared on her face at their stupidity and she was thankful that at least her team was entertaining. Though, she wished that they would focus more.

Sakura looked absolutely offended and appalled.

Naruto laughed, "you guys are pretty sharp for kids!"

"No way!" She growled, punching Naruto in the face, causing him to bleed.

"Nii-Chan!" Konohamaru shouted, watching the blond hit a fence. Sakura breathed heavily, a green chakra emitting from her. "What are you doing?!" He shouted, looking over to Naruto. "You ugly, ugly wench!"

Kiyomi watched the pinkette crack her knuckles clearly irked about the whole thing. She slowly approached Konohamaru and gave him a beating much like Naruto. 

She made her way over to them. "Troublesome," the brunette uttered, shaking her head. Kiyomi placed her hand over the big lump on their heads. Her hands glowed gold as she healed them, but no one was really focusing on that. From what she saw when she was training with a certain Senju, when you heal someone your hands glow green, but hers glowed gold.

"Are you alright, Konohamaru-Kun?" Udon asked.

"Yomi-Chan, thank you!" Naruto grinned, feeling the swelling slowly start to go down.

"Thanks." Konohamaru rubbed his head.

"I'm Naruto's teammate, Kiyomi Ōzoku," the brunette introduced, watching the pinkette slowly walk away.

"Darn that broad forehead ugly wench? Is she a girl for real? Kiyomi-Chan is way prettier and nicer." Konohamaru claimed, really loudly.

Kiyomi was flattered, but she looked over to the pinkette knowing she would've heard the young boy. Sakura stopped and slowly turned her head glaring over at them, which even she found a little scary.

"Yikes!" They squealed, obviously scared.

The pinkette paused for a second and ran after them, she sighed and followed after the troublesome kids.

"Y'know Kiyo, thank god you were never like that."

A sad smile appeared on her face at his comment, she would never get her childhood back. All she could do now was enjoy what was left of her childhood. And she knew she was never like this because back when she was young, she preferred being alone. There weren't much people to interact with.

"Way to be insensitive Kuro."

Time seemed to stop when Konohamaru bumped into someone.

Kiyomi's grey hues instantly landed on their headbands, and she knew they weren't from here, they were from Suna. And with that, she couldn't help but remember the auburn haired male, Gaara. Focusing back to the present, she found the girl to be beautiful, and the boy to be rude.

"That hurt.." Kankuro grumbled, staring down at young boy.

Everyone seemed to calm down at this point, all staring at the 'foreigners' in surprise and shock.

From above and behind the tree, Gaara did a great job in masking is chakra. As soon as he stepped into Konoha, he felt a familiar chakra, one he'd encountered in Suna. Both he and Shukaku were excited to see her once more.

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▬▬▬▬▬ 𝐀𝐔𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐑'𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄

gaara is so so adorable shut up.
kurama is my fave tailed beast!
utakata is my fave jinchuuriki :)
but also naruto and gaara oop-