one.

(—holes in the wall)

"Lord Hokage, may I ask why I was summoned here?" A ninja with silver-white hair asked. He was wearing the usual Jonin attire of the Leaf Village with an addition of a mask that covers the bottom half of his face. His Leaf Hi-ate was tilted over his left eye, while his right eye was really the only part of his face that wasn't covered.

"Ah, Kakashi thank you for coming on short notice. I assume things with Team 7 are going well?" The Third Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi, asked smoking his pipe diligently.

 "Yes, I suppose." Kakashi Hatake answered warily, the Third Hokage wasn't necessarily known for early morning talks. 

"And I suppose that it isn't too stressful? That it is almost easy." The Third continued on. 

"Well, I wouldn't exactly call it easy."

"Hmm." The Hokage pondered on his decision. "Well, you are a capable ninja so I hope this won't be too much of a hassle. I will be adding a Genin to your team for a little while."

 Sharp laughter suddenly filled the Hokage's office. "You have got to be kidding me. She will not go along with this idea quietly. Psh, she is going to be so pissed that I wouldn't be surprised if you found another training ground destroyed." 

Kakashi turned his head slightly to the side, acknowledging the purple-haired Jonin in the corner. "Hello, Inazuma." 

"Hello, Kakashi." Her voice was cool, like always. Inazuma Kuro was a young Jonin, about 19 years old. She had dark purple hair that was wavy and pulled up into a messy ponytail. Small pieces fell free and framed her face. Her eyes are gray at the bottom and black at the top, with a gray mask covering the bottom half of her face. She had three piercings in each ear, all hoops that doubled as chakra stores. Her Hi-ate was across her forehead in the normal manner, and she wore the green Jonin vest unzipped showing her gray crop top that ended just above her belly button with mesh underneath and her pants were gray as well, just a shade darker. They ended mid-shin with bandages covering the rest of her legs. And on her feet were the stationary black ninja sandals with her ninja pouch resting on her left leg.

"Inazuma I called you here to help me pick a team for her, not to mention how badly she will react." The Hokage sighed deeply. 

"Not my problem. I told you she wants to stick with me, and if you just have to put her on a team, not one with fresh Genin. She will absolutely loathe the idea." Inazuma replied sharply.

 "Look." The Hokage brought out his crystal ball. Both Jonin stepped forward to see it, the scene inside was intriguing.

A young kunoichi, perhaps 12 or 13 years old, was at a more secluded training ground. Already, even though it was 6 AM, the targets were littered with sharp kunai thrown with deadly accuracy. A tree off to the side had hundreds of precise slashes made by the twin katanas gently resting against it, in their sheaths. The girl was busy throwing chakra enhanced punches and kicks at a giant tree. Her eyebrows were furrowed in concentration, and small beads of sweat were showing on her face. Her dark hair was thrown up into a careless bun, small pieces drifting into her face. Her dark turquoise eyes glinted dangerously, and the scar barely visible below and above her eye was still slightly pink for it was not all the way healed yet.

"I don't see what the big deal is," Inazuma told the Hokage, rolling most of her weight onto one foot and letting one hip stick out a little.

"Inazuma I have gotten several reports of her being found passed out at various training grounds. And mostly several more times that you didn't tell me about." 

The Jonin narrowed her eyes dangerously, "I don't think you understand what you are about to do. Training until she drops, that is how she copes. I understand you may be concerned about her, but she can't sleep! Every time she closes her eyes she wakes up within seconds. Putting her on a new team full of Genin that just barely graduated is going to destroy her. Don't do this, if you must have her put her on Gai's team! At least she knows them and knows that they can put up a fight. I can guarantee that if you put her on this team, she will not form the bonds you want her to, in fact, she will probably only show up for missions and spend the rest of her time training. I say you let her go on some simple missions with me, let her get her mind off of it."

"Inazuma I understand that you are concerned for her well being but I truly believe this is what she needs." The Hokage interrupted her, "I will inform her of this change. Kakashi here is your team's mission for today when you come to get the next one I will have her ready to go." The silver-haired Jounin sighed nearly inaudible, and took the mission, turning around to leave. 

A sharp slam made him look behind him to see Inazuma's fist and most of her forearm in the wall, she was shaking, no seething with anger. "You have no idea what you have done." Her voice was dark and her face was hidden in the shadows as she withdrew her arm. "Don't come crying to me when you finally see the monster you are about to create." 

***

"What?!" The scream rose in volume as the 12-year-old girl stared defiantly at the Hokage. 

"You agreed to be relocated to another team, I don't see what the problem is." The Third Hokage explained to the black haired kunoichi with a calm air surrounding him. 

"I am not going to another team! If anything why can't I just train with Gai's team or, even better, you just let me continue doing missions with Ina-sensei! I refuse to be on a team with new Genin." 

The Hokage sighed lowly and softly, "Do I need to remind you, that you yourself are a Genin? I don't get why a year of experience makes that big of a difference. Look as much as Inazuma likes you, she needs to cope with this also. I have gotten three reports this week of you being found at the training grounds passed out with such low levels of chakra, you should be dead. As for your other concern the Jonin in charge of this team is very experienced and can even rival your sensei, he'll be able to protect you just fine."

The girl breathed in and out, trying to control her anger. "The big difference is that Gai's team is experienced. I will not be put on a team that will die the second they get their first mission outside those gates. They are not ready." She was quieting down, looking down at the ground. 

The Hokage's eyes softened. "Listen to me Winter, they may be inexperienced, but they have Kakashi Hatake as their sensei." Winter closes her eyes, keeping her head tilted down at the ground, from this angle the Hokage can see the thin scar that runs parallel down her left eyelid, it is short and when she opens her eye you can only see about a half an inch of it on the top and bottom surrounding her eye. It was still slightly red, after all, she got it about two weeks ago. "Winter I'm going to make you a deal. Stay with Team 7 until the Chunin exams. Then you can either be put on a team that needs another member, on with experience or take the exams alone. If you make it to Chunin, which I can almost guarantee you will, then you can join Gai's team."

 Winter looked up and nodded her head once in a slow, controlled movement. "Fine."

"Team 7 is out on a mission right now, go home and rest for a little bit. I will summon you when they get here." Winter nodded her head once more in a robotic fashion and started to leave, pausing slightly.

 "I will be on this team, but I am not going to be all buddy-buddy with them. They have no idea about what it truly means to be a shinobi, and they are a bunch of brats. You can make me go on missions with them but you cannot force me to like them, at best I will tolerate them. If the training does not benefit me I will leave and train on my own. I will not be responsible for protecting them, and if they die then it is their own goddamn fault for being too weak." All throughout her speech Winter's voice was hollow with a soft hint of danger coating each word with precision. 

She disappeared, leaving the Hokage deep in thought.

***

"That old man sure knows how to get on my nerves." Winter breathed out deeply, walking on a beaten dirt path.

"It's not that bad, you could've been put back in Academy." 

Winter laughed shortly, "Ina-sensei I highly doubt that would have happened." 

The purple haired Jonin shrugged her shoulders, "Eh, you never know with him." 

The younger girl huffed "A team full of inexperienced brats with a Jonin that apparently can rival you. Tch, as if. I haven't seen anyone come even close to beating you." She muttered, ending her sentence with a huff of air escaping her lips quickly.

 Ina laughed and ruffled her student's hair, "Well I don't know if I can beat the Hokage." Ina paused, "I do know your new sensei though. Oh, the Copy-Cat ninja," She scrunched up her face slightly before bursting out into laughter, although it sounded somewhat forced. "You two are either going to get along perfectly or... hate each other's guts. If only—" She suddenly stopped talking and Winter paused, shutting her eyes from the hollow pain she felt in her heart. They both knew how that sentence was going to end.

"Hey, just don't work yourself too hard, okay?" Ina whispered before ruffling her hair on last time, disappearing into a cloud of smoke. 

Winter continues on walking mechanically, soon finding herself in front of a quaint cabin. Neat rows of gentle purple flowers were growing along the edges of the house, carefully trimmed ivy crawling up the walls. Opening up the wood door, she walked silently into her bedroom and went inside the bathroom. She turned the faucet on, letting the cool water run through her pale fingertips. She choked back a gasp as her mind sees not water, but scarlet blood dripping on her fingers. 

She rapidly blinks away the image and grips the sides of the porcelain sink. In, out. In, out. She breathes deeply, trying to dispel the memory from her mind. Winter looks up in the mirror and traces over her scar with shaking hands.

Turning off the faucet she quickly undid her messy bun before sweeping her pitch black hair into a much neater bun, leaving a few pieces to frame her face. Then she grabs her Hi-ate and ties it across her pale forehead— noting that there was a slight tan line from the hi-ate- carefully making sure the scarlet fabric is tied in a secure knot. She then walks out of her bathroom, grabs a black backpack and checks through to make sure all her gear is there in case of a harder mission. 

Sighing silently she peels off her sticky training clothes and pulls on a tight black tank top with a sleeveless dark scarlet jacket over it. Pulling on a pair of black shorts that stop mid-thigh and slipping on a pair of black ninja sandals on, she straps on her special sheaths onto her back before gently setting her twin katanas in the cases after gently fingering the engraves on each handle.

Ryu. Riku.

A sudden cry of a hawk startles her, and she opens up the window sticking my head out of it. The hawk circles once, twice. She wrinkles her nose with distaste, time to meet her new team. Oh, the joy. 

She locks the door and races alongside the pathway. As soon as she reached the more crowded areas of Konoha she jumps and lands safely on the rooftop of a nearby building. She sprints alongside the shingles and does neat flips over the gaps separating the building. She half-heartedly waves to people below who shout hellos recognizing the girl. Soon she nears the Hokage's office and sees the open window. Well, old habits do die hard. She launches through the window doing a neat backflip to land in front of the Hokage ignoring the gasps coming from behind me.

"I thought you said I would be able to rest? A ten-minute break isn't really resting, it's just me walking to my house and back." Her voice comes out sharp. 

The Hokage chuckled, "Even underneath the cold exterior you still love doing this. Just to let you know, it was exactly one minute, just like it has been the past two hundred some odd times you've done this."

 She shrugs her shoulders, "One day, old man, I might consider it important enough get here in under a minute." 

"Who do you thi- wait, Winter?" Iruka asks, cutting off his sharp tone when he sees the girl's face. 

She raises one slim eyebrow, "Who else?"

Iruka sighs heavily, "Will you ever stop doing that?" He questions. 

"Hmm... no." She says in a monotone voice.

 "Kakashi-sensei who is she?" She closes her eyes in annoyance as a high-pitched, female voice pipes up. 

Please, dear Kami, let me live through this without severely harming someone. 

"Sakura that is your new teammate." The Hokage answers for Kakashi releasing a puff of smoke from his pipe.

"Temporary teammate." Winter corrects him. 

"WHAT? WHY?" A new voice shouts, rising in volume and making her wish to cover her ears.

"A situation I guess you could say, lead to Team Arashi being disbanded." The Hokage tried to explain without giving away too much sensitive information. Not to mention it was classified, and the Genin of Team Seven didn't need to know about the incident.

 "Oh, so did your team just suck then?" The same boisterous voice asked, clearly the type to talk first and then think. "I mean it must have if it got disbanded." 

Winter's hands tightened into fists as she struggled to resist punching the kid in the face. Turning to her left she suddenly raised her hand punching the wall, causing her forearm to disappear in the wall as well. Sighing she withdrew her fist noticing the nearly identical hole close by, just higher up. Definitely sensei's. 

Gasps echoed through the room while the Hokage pinched the bridge of his nose in irritation, "Can you and Inazuma stop doing that?" He questioned the young girl. She turned around with dead eyes making him inwardly flinch. At least before she would have a spark of anger or some sort of emotion but now... he released a nearly inaudible sigh. 

Maybe Inazuma was right. 

"It was either the wall or his face." Was her cool reply, frost biting at every word.

Winter turned around and stared at her new teammates. The pink haired girl, who must be Sakura, looked weak and most likely didn't do any training outside of the Academy. She must have some smarts or else there was no way she could be made a ninja. "No," Winter muttered underneath her breath before moving her gaze to the next person. This must be their sensei. Oh no, Winter knew him or rather knew of him. The guy who was always late and had his nose stuck in those perverted books. She rolled her eyes, "Nope." Then she moved to the next person. He was dressed in orange and was grinning recklessly. He was the person who insulted her team. However, he did have a large amount of chakra. "Oh, hell no." This was said in her regular voice. 

"Uh, what's she doing?" Sakura asked softly.

 The Hokage sighed, "She is deciding if she likes you, or if she is going to never accept you. I wouldn't worry too much about it."

 The last member had black hair and stood off to the side, with his hands stuck in his pockets. He had an air of arrogance about him but he was an Uchiha after all. Winter tapped her chin thoughtfully with one finger, he was powerful and looked like he could take care of himself. Plus he looked quiet and didn't seem like someone who wouldn't want to become friends with her. "Nop— actually... hmm, maybe." She snorted and then shook her head. "Who am I kidding this team is a joke. You're a no." Then Winter turned around and promptly stated, "Put me on a different team."

The Hokage looked at her evenly, "You are on this team, we already discussed this. Now Naruto here wanted a C-Rank mission so that is what you all will be going on. Bring the client in." 

Winter growled underneath her breath, then narrowed her eyes as a man walked in. He was obviously a traveler, and from the way he was dressed, he came from the Land of the Water. Maybe a fisher or builder of some sort. "This is Tazuna a bridge builder, your mission will be to escort him to his home in the Land of the Waves." Tazuna scoffed and looked at the people standing in front of him, taking a drink of sake.

"What the..." He said in disgust, his cheeks slightly flushed from the alcohol. "A bunch of snot-nosed kids." 

Winter nodded her head in agreement, "He hit the nail right on the head. I like him." 

The Hokage and Kakashi sweatdropped at her statement while Tazuna spared her a glance. "And you," He points at the idiotic blonde, "The little one with the stupid look on his face, do you really expect me to believe you're a ninja?"

 The blonde burst out laughing, "Hahaha, who's the little one with the stupid look on his-" He trails off as he sees his two teammates are taller than him. "I'll demolish you!" He suddenly launches Tazuna but stops when he sees Winter in front of him, one katana held out at his throat, the other resting carelessly in her right hand.

 He blinks and then looks back to where she was, the others on his team seem surprised by her speed and Kakashi tilts his head assessing the Genin in front of him.

 I barely saw her move, but that is to be expected of the famous Black Lightning's student. His visible eye narrows ever so slightly as he continues to analyze the newest member of his team.

"I really don't like you blond, so don't give me more reasons to attack you." Winter growled lowly, "Our mission is to protect Master Tazuna to his home, not attack him. I suggest you get this straight in your head or go back to the Academy to relearn this lesson as you are obviously too thick headed to understand this fact."

Naruto openly stared at her, his mouth gaping wide open. She slowly put the katanas back in their sheaths keeping her icy turquoise stare trained on him. "I'm going to go pack, I will see you all at the front gates in 10 minutes." And with that left the same way she came, jumping out the window and running on the rooftops.

"Well, better go pack, you guys." Kakashi suddenly said cheerfully and he disappeared into a poof of smoke. Naruto left first, followed by Sakura, and then Sasuke. As Sasuke walked into his apartment he could only think about how fast that girl had been. Now she would be a real challenge, unlike the two losers on this team. 

Yes, if he could defeat her then he would be one step closer to defeating him... Itachi.

***

When Team 7 arrives at the front gates they are surprised to see Winter standing there in different clothing than before. She was wearing a red cloak and she had a black backpack slung over one shoulder, her swords nowhere to be seen along with her jacket missing. She also had tight black pants in place of her shorts and her hair glinted in the sunlight. 

Kakashi squinted in the direction of her ponytail. Did she have metal spikes in her hair? 

Tazuna stood off to her left with a new bottle of sake in his hands.

"Winter, going out again?" Winter turned to see Izumo and Kotetsu standing guard at the gates.

"Yeah, the old man stuck me on a hopeless team." She answered jerking her thumb back at the people behind her, skillfully ignoring the indigent 'Hey!' coming from the blond. She took off her backpack and undid a sealing scroll before sealing it inside, then tucking the scroll one of the zippered pockets inside of her cloak. 

"Yeah, well don't be too hard on them, they aren't exactly R-." He suddenly cut off his sentence and rubbed the back of his neck not missing the flash of sorrow that appeared in Winter's eyes feeling guilty. "Be careful," Kotetsu said trying to dispel the awkward silence feeling the curious gazes of Team Seven and Tazuna.

 "I'll try." She whispered before clearing her throat and turning around, "What are you idiots looking at?" She snapped.

Kakashi coughed into his fist, "Nothing, let's go." 

"YESSSSS! ALRIGHT LET'S GO!" Naruto suddenly blurted out at full volume getting ready to run ahead.

 "Naruto why are you so excited?" Sakura asked curiously. 

"It's my first time out of the village, I'm a traveler now!" He shouted excitedly complete with a fist bump. 

"Hmm, loser," Sasuke said. 

"Couldn't agree more," Winter muttered from behind him. 

"Am I really going to be safe with him here?" Tazuna asked Kakashi. 

The masked ninja turned and said brightly, "Don't worry I'm a Jonin." 

"Hm, and I guess that blacked haired girl looks dangerous enough," Tazuna said thoughtfully, and Kakashi couldn't help but agree.

Sighing Winter linked her hands behind her neck, knowing very well that her katanas were within reach but well hidden underneath her cloak. Something wasn't right with this mission and it never hurt anyone to come over prepared. Soon they developed a sort of formation, with Naruto in the front, Sakura close behind him and Sasuke a few feet behind her. Tazuna and Kakashi walked side by side and Winter were behind them, lazily scanning the surrounding forest. Tuning out Sakura, who started to ask Kakashi some questions, Winter frowned slightly before going back to her usual stoic expression. Someone was watching them.

Closing her eyes she gently spread out a small amount of chakra and soon found the source of her unease, the puddle resting on the side of the road up ahead. She slowly inched her hands downwards and glanced at the puddle then at Kakashi really quick. He noticed her look and nodded so slightly that if you weren't paying attention you wouldn't see it.

As they passed the puddle, it suddenly shook and out came two rouge nin. Wrapping their chains around a 'startled' Kakashi they ripped him in two, or so they thought. "One down..." The ninja on the right started, "Four to go." The ninja on the left said. 

All of a sudden there was a blur of silver and then the nin on the left was pushed backward, with one of his chains being cut off. Winter appeared in front of him and started fighting one on one with him, ignoring the others.

By the time Kakashi caught the other one in a headlock, they found Winter behind the rogue nin she fought with, one katana against the back of his neck, the other on the front of his neck. "I really hate rogue ninja. So give me one good reason why I shouldn't slit your throat right here and now." She hissed at him, and in her eyes, you could see pure undiluted anger, but Sasuke noticed the tiny hint of pain in there, the kind of pain of that came from losing someone that was dear to you.

"Winter, stand down," Kakashi stated firmly. "We will interrogate them, not kill them." Within seconds the ninja she held captive was pushed in front of Kakashi and he tied him up next to his brother. 

"Tch, whatever." And with that Winter began to slowly walk ahead. 

Those were probably Chunin level ninja, but low Chunin level. Next time it won't be Chunin, it will be a Jounin like Kakashi. And if it is a rogue ninja it could very well be him. Her grip grew tighter on her katanas, her thumbs tracing over the engravings. 

If it is him, then I will have to use that. 

A merciless smirk grew on her face. She never thought that she would get a chance to find him, to use...

Taiteki.

I am in love with Naruto right now and I got this really good idea so I started writing, and now I have decided to publish it! Hope you guys like it!

If you liked it please consider leaving a vote and a comment :)