The next morning, Uncle Minato and I were both getting ready at the same time. Aunt Kushina was already up and making breakfast.

"So, are you going to tell me what this exercise is?" I asked him as I passed by him in the hallway.

"No, that wouldn't be fair if you knew before they did," He replied. "Remember what I said about the special treatment,"

"I know, I know," I replied. "It was just a question,"

We joined Aunt Kushina at the table and she already had our breakfast ready.

We didn't really talk about the training exercise as we ate breakfast. I figured it would be better if we didn't talk about our tasks as a team every single morning.

Uncle Minato left first, saying that he had to make sure everything was ready for us.

Aunt Kushina picked up the dishes once we were all done and I helped her clean the table before leaving.

"I'm leaving now," I said as I put my boots on.

"Okay, have a good day!" She said from the kitchen.

I thought it was weird how Obito wasn't here waiting for me. Usually, he is and we always walked to the academy together.

Unless he wanted to walk with Rin instead. I guess that's fine.

I made my way to the training ground and saw that everyone was already here except for Obito.

"Obito wasn't with you?" Rin asked.

"No," I replied.

"Looks like he's late again," Kakashi rolled his eyes.

"Just give him a few more minutes," Rin said. "He'll be here,"

So we waited, but he still didn't show up and Kakashi was growing even more annoyed by the minute.

Why was he so late?

"Well, if he's not here within five minutes, we'll have to start the test without him," Uncle Minato said.

"He'll be here, I know he will," Rin said again.

"I hope so," I added. "He's almost an hour late,"

"Sorry I'm late!" We heard Obito from the distance and saw he was running up to us with candy in his mouth.

"I told you he'd be here," Rin smiled.

I was surprised that Uncle Minato wasn't mad at him for being late. Kakashi wasn't happy though.

"It's about time you're here," Kakashi crossed his arms. "Was it an old lady again, Obito?"

Obito narrowed his eyes. "For your information, it was! She needed help carrying a bunch of grocery bags!"

"Yeah, sure," Kakashi rolled his eyes.

"Anyway," Uncle Minato cut in. "For this exercise, I wanna see how good you are with teamwork. All you have to do is take these bells from me and practice will be over,"

He held up three bells.

"Simple enough, right?"

"Uh, but there's only three bells. Does that mean...?" I trailed off.

"That is exactly right," He replied.

I instantly felt nervous and Obito looked at all of us, confused.

"Huh? But what does that mean?" Obito asked.

Kakashi glared at him and Obito returned the glare. "One of us won't get a bell and will be off the team,"

Obito changed his demeanor. "Wait, what?!"

Uncle Minato sweat dropped. "Excellent observation. Let's begin,"

I already had a plan in my head.

I ran towards him with a kunai in hand. "I'm gonna take that bell from you right now, watch me!"

"Oh, really now?" He sweat dropped.

I formed water clones to distract him and I jumped up on the tree branch above. My plan was to keep him busy trying to find the real me, then I would jump down and take the bell when he was distracted.

"You shouldn't let your guard down," I suddenly heard Minato from behind me.

I just about had a heart attack. Startled, I fell out of the tree and caught my fall. I quickly stood back up, attempting a counterattack.

He was now in front of me in a flash and took me by surprise when he lunged at me. I quickly made a substitution and when I had the opening, I lunged towards him for a bell.

I grinned as I grabbed onto it, but my grin quickly dropped when I realized he was just a clone.

Damn.

I went face-first into the ground and stood back up, brushing the dirt off of my face.

"Wow, didn't expect him to be this strong," I muttered.

He was behind me again and had his arm around my neck in a light chokehold. I could tell he wasn't actually trying to hurt me.

"Hana, I appreciate the enthusiasm, but this is what happens when you get overly confident without analyzing a situation first. If this were to happen in the real world, it could get you killed," He lectured.

I squirmed my way out of the chokehold and panted, out of breath because of how I had to keep up with his speed the entire time.

"I forgot they call you the 'Yellow Flash'" I remarked, finally catching my breath.

I darted towards a bush so I could form a better plan.

Kakashi was in there as well.

"What exactly did you think you were going to accomplish there?" He asked me.

"Hey, he's a lot faster than you think he is," I retorted. "I thought I was going to be able to distract him with my clones,"

Kakashi didn't respond to that and dashed out of the bush, lunging towards him. His attack didn't work either.

Rin and Obito's attempts didn't go well either. We were all trying to attack him individually and it wasn't going well at all.

His speed was a lot faster than the average shinobi, so trying to find an opening was a lot harder than you would think it was.

Rin then teamed up with Obito and they encouraged me to team up with them too, so I did. Kakashi wasn't interested at all in teaming up with us and stated that he was going to get the bell on his own.

Rin and Obito had him tied up, so I finally found my opening and snatched the bell from him when he wasn't looking. I grinned and ran forward to secure the bell in my pocket. My little victory was over though, I didn't realize that I accidentally triggered a trap and a rope tied around my ankle, pulling me up off the ground.

I could feel the bell starting to fall out of my pocket, so I quickly grabbed it. Since my pouch wasn't closed properly, all of my kunais went falling onto the ground, leaving me with no way to cut the rope myself.

Just my luck.

Soon, Kakashi got a bell and then the training exercise was over because Rin got a bell.

Uncle Minato started lecturing me for being overly confident when I first tried to attack him, lectured Kakashi for not teaming up with us, and then lectured Obito for trying to make it a competition with Kakashi the whole time.

He didn't lecture Rin, since she was the first one to think of teaming up.

"So does this mean I'm off the team?" Obito asked, looking down.

"No," Uncle Minato replied. "This was all just a test. I wanted to see where your skills are at,"

Obito looked relieved.

"But, you guys need to improve your teamwork. You're not going to be successful if you guys can't work as a team," He continued.

He dismissed us and Obito started walking away with Rin.

"Hey! Obito! Get back here and help me!" I shouted after him.

He didn't hear me.

"Obito!"

I rolled my eyes when he still didn't hear me. He was too entranced by Rin's presence.

"Here," I heard Kakashi's voice.

He moved my weapons out of the way and then climbed up the tree, untying the knot around the branch. I panicked a bit when I felt myself starting to fall, but he caught the rope before that could happen.

"Are you ready?" He asked.

I put both of my hands up. "I'm ready!"

He gently let the rope down and once I had my hands on the ground, he let go of the rope and I was able to catch my fall. It felt nice being able to stand upright again. I was a little dizzy from being upside down for that long.

Kakashi jumped back down from the tree and the dizziness went away. I kneeled down to pick up my weapons off the ground and put them back inside my pouch, closing it properly this time.

"Thanks, Kakashi," I said, as he started walking away.

"No problem," He replied.

He walked away after that and a small smile started spreading on my face. I guess he wasn't as rude as I thought he would be. That was nice of him to help me down.

I didn't see Uncle Minato anywhere, so I left the training ground and checked the time, seeing that it was lunchtime.

I decided to have my lunch at the cat cafe and I immediately spotted Yuki. I was glad to see that she was still here. I was worried someone would've adopted her already.

The cashier took my order and then came back with my iced tea and deli sandwich. I chose a table that only had one chair and I called Yuki over. She seemed to have remembered me. She was already rubbing against my leg.

I should've asked Kakashi to join me for lunch. Obito probably went to go have lunch with Rin.

I finished my sandwich and started petting Yuki. She jumped up onto my lap and I started petting her again.

"So yeah, my father plans to give me this special ritual if I can show him I'm strong enough," Naomi's voice loudly broke my thoughts.

I looked to the entrance and saw that she was with Shinji and another guy I didn't recognize.

She continued bragging to Shinji and I rolled my eyes at how arrogant she sounded.

I always hated how she thought she was better than everyone else just because she had the Byakugan.

After our friendship was ruined, she started bullying me and always picked on me for my hair color and other stupid stuff. She also liked to say that she was stronger than me and that I'd always be weaker than her.

I shrunk down in my seat when she turned in my direction, trying not to be seen by her.

I sighed with relief when she didn't see me and walked to a table with her teammates. I finished up my drink and then gave Yuki one last pet before going back home.