Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto.

Author's notes: I wrote this for fun. If anyone is out of character, I apologize. Also, my story makes no sense chronologically, as characters who died trying to get Sasuke back appear here. Most characters are sixteen, which is probably some time before Sasuke actually returns to Konoha. Again, sorry.

Hell and High Water

"Oh man," Shikamaru moans, staring at the small lake on his family's property. "What a drag."

Next to him, Ino is dressed in a purple bikini that shows off every curve of her sixteen year old body. With her blue eyes and clear complexion, she is gorgeous. She would even be dateable, except-- Shikamaru thinks as she whacks him in the back of the head-- for her attitude. "Stop saying that Shikamaru! You're ruining all the fun!"

"Swimming isn't all that fun, Ino," Choji says around a mouthful of potato chips. He is wearing dark green swim trunks and a shirt that sports some sort of food stain.

"You're just saying that because it burns calories," Ino clarifies, adjusting her clingy top. "Swimming's good for you. It keeps you fit."

"And you're only excited because you'll get to see your precious Sasuke show some skin," Shikamaru mutters, seeing an orange blur that must be Naruto Uzumaki come running up the path. Sakura and Sasuke come trailing behind, clearly not in a hurry.

At the sight of them, Ino leaves off trying to strangle her morose teammate. "Hi, Sasuke!"

Choji and Shikamaru wince at her tone. Naruto, arriving first, cringes too.

The hyperactive ninja recovers quickly though. He is clad in a very orange swimsuit, is still wearing the necklace he got from Tsunade, and has neglected to leave his forehead protector at home. As he bounces up and down, the light reflects off of it into an irritated Shikamaru's dark eyes. "Hey, hey, Shikamaru! This is a nice pond! Does it have fish and stuff? Are we really gonna swim in it?"

"Shut up Naruto," his teammates, newly arrived, say in unison. Sakura's teal bikini is nearly as revealing as Ino's, and seeing the other girl eyeing Sasuke, she scoots closer to him.

"Look, all I know is what the Hokage told me. And that was, 'Get squads Seven, Eight, and Ten, plus Rock Lee's group and meet up at the lake on your property. Bring swimgear.'" Shikamaru pouts, crossing arms across his narrow chest.

"Nice impersonation, Nara," Sasuke comments drily. Shikamaru is about to tell the Uchiha that he can go back to Orochimaru and get--

"DYNAMIC ENTRY!" Lee comes sailing into their midst, but he is so busy staring at Sakura's cleavage that he misses his landing and falls flat on his behind.

Neji and Tenten appear just in time to see their teammate's awesome acrobatic performance.

Neji frowns, and half turns away. They have been here less than two seconds, and Lee has already managed to embarrass them. Great.

"Lee," Tenten huffs, tying off her last pigtail. "Give it a rest." She turns toward the rest of the group, ready to apologize for her friend, only to find Sakura and Ino gaping in horror at her bathing suit. Really, what was wrong with the olive green tankini/boy shorts combo complete with weapons holsters? Sure, it was a little old fashioned, but she had spent her allowance on shuriken.

"I am sorry, Tenten!" Lee stands up, brushes off his bright green spandex swimsuit. It looks a lot like the black outfit Sasuke used to wear. In his hurry to get here, he has left his leg weights on. "Everyone, I apologize for my actions. I shall do two hundred laps underwater. And if I can not accomplish that, I shall hold my breath for ten minutes. And if that fails--"

"Perhaps we should wait for the teachers." At the sound of Shino's raspy voice, everyone jumps, surprised and unnerved. No one saw him arrive. Konoha's bug user is wearing a black scuba suit with a thick towel thrown over his head. He also has a mask over his trademark sunglasses.

Hinata is with him, wearing a modest black one piece and a gauzy dark wrap around her hips. Her long hair has been tied back. She blushes as everyone turns to greet her and her team, but doesn't look away.

Behind them is Kiba, wearing red shorts with black paw prints on them. He is busily adjusting a doggie swim vest around Akamaru's waist. "I didn't think we'd be the last ones here."

"You always come in last Kiba, or did you forget?" Naruto, no longer the center of attention, has resorted to being a smartass. Blue eyes land on the Hyuga heiress, and he smiles brightly. "Oh, hey Hinata."

The girl tries stammering out a reply under Neji's watchful eyes, and everyone else begins to wonder if he has just now realized that something was going on between the two. It seems the Byakugan is not as all-seeing as the Hyuga prodigy claims.

Kiba, angry at the insult and upset over Naruto's attention to Hinata, growls something about the blonde ninja's only real technique being the passing of gas. Naruto hears and the two rush at each other with an intent to kill. Ino begins calling out odds and taking bets. At the last possible moment, Lee leaps in and stops the two, arms outstretched and holding them back. "We are here for training. Unauthorized combat is not prohibited."

"But, Bushy-Brow, he--"

"That's enough!" Everyone turns to see Lady Tsunade appear in a puff of smoke. The male students are mildly disappointed to see that she is not wearing a bathing suit. The females are simply relieved; How, after all, would they have competed with that? Behind her, their teachers appear one by one: Gai, Asuma, Kurenai, and finally Kakashi, last as always and reading his favorite adult book.

Now all the students are disappointed. Except for Lee, who lights up at the sight of his sensei.

"Yo, Grandma!" Naruto waves to the old lady, his fight with Kiba forgotten. Lee releases him.

"Kakashi-sensei, you're late," Sakura whines.

Kakashi doesn't pause in his reading. "Hmm? Oh, you all seem to have gotten along just fine without us. Isn't that right, Gai?"

Maito Gai cannot answer as he is overcome with emotion at the sight of his youthful students (or mostly Lee) playing nicely with the other kids. "Lee!" Big salty tears roll down his craggy face.

"Gai!" Lee reciprocates. It is a touching sight to behold.

"Is it your teacher's time of the month?" Ino asks Tenten. "He sure is emotional."

The older girl flames red. Great, first Lee's entry, then she is caught wearing the most old fashioned, embarrassing bathing suit ever, and now this. She is about to reply when Lee, having overheard, cries out. "Do not insult Gai-sensei!"

It is at this point that one Neji Hyuga steps quietly away from his teammates. Maybe he can just go on back to the Hyuga compound and no one will ever notice his absence. He certainly doesn't want to be here while his team is the laughingstock of the village.

A cough sounds behind him and he turns to see all three siblings from the Land of Sand standing there. Kankuro throws him a little salute, and he nods back politely, and then quietly steps back next to Tenten. No reason to leave his back unguarded with a weirdo like Gaara around. Especially a half-naked, obviously-on-edge Gaara.

Lee is still rattling off Gai's virtues. He is only about halfway done.

Naruto, once again finding himself not the center of attention, stabs a finger skyward and declares to anyone who might be listening, "I'll bet I can swim farther than all of you put together."

Sasuke smirks. "Not without your floaties you won't."

"Argh! Shut up, Sasuke!"

"Make me, Loser."

"All of you, stop right now!" Tsunade slams a fist into the ground and a giant crater opens up.

Shikamaru, awoken from his brief nap, sits up and yawns. The sound is loud in the sudden, shocked silence.

"That's better." Tsunade smiles, then takes a deep breath. "We're here today because you all will be undertaking a peacekeeping mission with our allies from the Land of Sand. Soon, you will be deployed to the Land of Waves, and I need to know that you can swim."

Collective groans.

The teachers smile. (Except for maybe Kakashi. It's too hard to tell.) Nothing like a test.

"So, any volunteers?" Tsunade looks them over.

Out of the fifteen young people standing before her, only two are gung-ho enough. Naruto Uzumaki and Rock Lee both raise their hands. They turn and look each other up and down, sizing up the competition. At a wordless signal, both boys are off racing for the water and the chance to be first.

"Idiot." Sakura grabs Naruto by the trailing ties of his headband before he gets too far. "This'll rust," she hisses as he struggles. "And that," she points to his necklace, "is valuable. Take it off!"

"Aww geeze, Sakura." Naruto shrugs, then does as he's told.

Lee is almost to the water when Tenten's voice rings out. "Wait Lee! Your leg--" Too late. With a tremendous splash, he disappears. "Weights," Tenten finishes weakly.

Everyone stares for a long moment. Lee doesn't come up, and the surface returns to its previous calm, mirror-like state. All eyes turn to Neji, as if being leader of their squad means he should jump in and rescue his teammate. He would rather not, thanks.

Tsunade turns to Shikamaru, eyebrow cocked in askance. "How deep is that pond?"

The genius shrugs. "Don't know. I've never touched bottom. I started to measure it once, but it got boring, so I quit."

"I remember that," Choji says, spitting out a watermelon seed. "We went and had ice cream instead."

"Umm…" Hinata points to the still flat surface of the water. It's been two minutes now.

"Is anyone going to save Bushy-Brow?" Now that Naruto knows it is the pond without a bottom, the pool of neverending depth, he's in no hurry to jump in. What if you just sink forever?

"Excuse me. Kankuro, why don't you just use Crow to drag the bottom and pull up Lee's body?" Sakura is taking the death of her would-be suitor remarkably well.

Maito Gai is not. He's begun sobbing again.

"It'd take too long." Kankuro dismisses the idea. Plus, he'd have to dry the thing off afterwards.

This is getting ridiculous, Tenten thinks. She starts toward the water.

With a whine, Akamaru rushes past her and leaps in. He swims right out of his life vest, showing what an excellent job Kiba did of cinching it on, and dives. After a long time the ninja mutt surfaces with the back of Lee's suit clamped squarely in his jaws. He dog paddles to shore and spits Lee out upon the sandy bank.

With a wail, Gai throws himself at his student. Lee coughs a bit, but is fine otherwise. Everyone breathes a sigh of relief. No one wanted to be the person to do mouth to mouth resuscitation.

Something has been bothering Neji, some small detail that no one else has noticed. He isn't a Jonin now for nothing. "Lee, why didn't you just take the weights off when you touched bottom?" Besides the fact that you're an idiot, he mentally adds.

Lee looks a little sheepish. "I couldn't get them off," he protests.

"Oh." Gai stops bawling momentarily. "I forgot to tell you; they're not preshrunk."

Everyone stares at the skinny little legwarmers now holding the weights firmly in place.

"Good grief," Kurenai mutters.

Tenten cuts the sodden warmers off of her friend with a kunai pulled from her top. Lucky she came prepared. Lee grins as circulation is restored to his limbs.

Everyone else shuffles nervously, wondering whose turn it is next.

Tsunade pinches the bridge of her nose. She's getting a headache. Is eleven o'clock too early to start drinking? "Lee fails. I can't send anyone who is going to get overexcited and drown themselves."

Lee jots this down in his favorite, rather soggy notebook. Do not drown self.

"Better not send Shikamaru. He'd get bored and quit swimming," Ino mutters.

Tsunade nods, recognizing wisdom, even in sarcastic form. "Done."

Temari eyes Ino's obviously on-show breasts. She's not impressed, and makes no attempt to hide it. "Well, those won't keep you afloat, or attract a rescue. Maybe you should also stay behind."

"What'd you say?" Catfight ensues.

Now that boobs have been brought up, Naruto cracks a perverted joke. Kakashi laughs behind his novel, but few others seem amused. Sakura punts her friend across the pond.

Now that, Kiba finds hilarious. He gives a happy bark of laughter and turns to his female squad mate. "Finally something Naruto's good for, right Hinata?"

The beautiful Hyuga does not know what to say. She secretly cannot stand to see Naruto so abused. "I, umm…"

Shino turns to leave. "Where are you going?" Kankuro calls, rudely.

"I forfeit. My beetles don't like water."

"Whatever. You're scared." Ever since the Chunin exams the two have been on less than friendly terms.

Shino turns slowly around. With the scuba mask, he looks quite frightening. "Would you repeat yourself?"

"I said, 'You're scared.'"

Sasuke, the only witness to their last fight, backs away slowly. Now Asuma's the one taking bets. Kurenai slaps him on the shoulder. "Stop that."

Tsunade taps Shikamaru. Using his Shadow Possession Jutsu, he quickly freezes everyone in place. The Hokage takes advantage of this, and hurriedly passes judgement. "This is absurd. I'd be crazy to send any of you on a peacekeeping mission. You all fail."

"WHAT?!"

"You heard me." Tsunade crosses her arms over her well endowed chest and squeezes her eyes shut in irritation. There is a vein throbbing at her temple, and she cannot really believe it has come to this. Are these kids actually the best and brightest her village has to offer? If so, Konoha is in trouble, for it is painfully obvious that age is not maturing them.

"Lee's out for drowning. Shikamaru's simply too lazy. Ino, Naruto, Kiba, you fight too much. Sasuke isn't allowed to leave the village anyway. Neji and Tenten, you were in no hurry to help your teammate. You too, Sakura and Choji; you didn't doanything. The same goes for Hinata. Shino, I didn't consider your um, handicap. Akamaru, you smell like wet dog."

The canine whimpers while the others stand in forcefully frozen disbelief. Mouths hang open, gaping. A few try to protest.

Tsunade waves them into silence, reiterating her previous point. "You all fail."

"Told you they'd blow it," Kakashi mutters, flipping a page in his book. The other Sensei's just nod.

Tsunade smiles, having come up with the perfect solution. "I'll send your teachers instead."

Revenge is sweet.