"Oh man, I've been waiting for this!" cried Ino, running forward a couple of steps and flinging Sakura's arm around so they were standing face-to face.

"You. YOU. YOU! Sakura Haruno, for some reason, I don't think your giant forehead is capable of understanding common sense, so you better listen up!" she began.

"First off, Sasuke. Really? Really? I couldn't give less of a rat's ass about him! He was a crush for us, okay? A pretty thing that caught our attention but that's it! He wasn't anyone's knight in shining armor! He was an anti-social little boy, he still is an anti-social boy and he's so unromantic! He's great for eye candy and girl-talk but when I finally get a guy, he better damn well respect me enough to answer me when I call his name and appreciate and love me. You can have him."

The genjutsu Sasuke disappeared.

Hinata giggled.

Kiba stared.

Kurenai smirked.

"Secondly, Competition. We never had one. I never looked at you as competition for anything. You were my best friend and I was happy to see you succeed and you should have been happy when I did too. That's the way it's supposed to work. You can't just take, take, take, all of my love and advice and turn it against me by being my rival, you - you – you parasite! If I didn't want you to do your best I would have just left you alone on the sidewalk that day we met or kept my damn ribbon."

The genjutsu Sakura de-aged until she was about seven years old – just a little thing with teary big green eyes and messy pink hair.

Ino crouched before her.

"Thirdly, history. You and I were friends for a long, long time and no matter what you do or say, you can't forget that. Meeting you has changed me forever and it's done the same to you. Even after that day at the park I can't bring myself to hate you and I don't think I ever could. You think you're a big strong cherry blossom ready to outshine me – and maybe one day you will be – but I saw all of your weakest moments and frailest thoughts and because of that I can't bring myself to hate that vulnerable Sakura."

The young pink haired girl smiled.

Kurenai sighed.

Hinata clapped.

Kiba hid his manly tears behind Akamaru.

Ino grinned and patted the child's shoulder.

"Also, you should know that if I wanted to, I could destroy you."

Everyone's expression froze.

Ino looked up into the sky and through her arms up, "I'm done!" she cried, not even bothering to see how genjutsu- Sakura disappeared in a whirlwind.

Kurenai obliged and soon Ino's body shook with the restoration of mind into body. The blonde knelt forward but immediately dropped back down. "Gosh, my head hurts worse than when my dad taught me the mind transfer jutsu," she mumbled. "I am so done..."

"Same," said Hinata, blinking rapidly to clear the fatigue from her eyes.

Kurenai stood up and stretched her limbs. "That took much more longer than I expected, kids... Well, atleast you'll be tough enough to handle any genin task thrown at you!" she said with a sheepish smile

Judging from the various expressions of exasperation and narrowed eyes, the jonin quickly gathered that her three genin were not impressed.

Kurenai sighed. Well, so much for a great first impression on her first genin team. " You should head on home now," she said, jumping a good dozen metres away from the annoyed pre-teens.

Obviously, she could beat them all if she wanted to but her chakra was pretty low from holding a genjutsu for as long as she did and her kids proved to have more resolve than she expected.

"I'll see you at ten am on training ground three for our first mission! Good night!"

The red-eyed woman was gone before the soft rustling sounds of footsteps on grass reached their ears.

Innwardly grumbling about 'crazy women,' and 'PMS,' Kiba waved to Ino and Hinata before taking off into the East-end of Konoha where his family resided. Ino and Hinata moved a little bit slower – not as used to physical strain as the energetic boy – towards the Northwest end.

"I'd invite you over for tea or something, but I'm so tired I don't think I'd be able to lift my arms high enough to raise the kettle. But we're still on for Saturday evening, right?" confirmed Ino as they approached her front door.

"Of-Of course!"

"Also, great work tonight! You were awesome!"

Hinata blushed and tilted her head downwards, attempting to hide her face in her jacket. "Thanks. I-I tried, I guess. But you were so good. I-I really enjoyed watching you. There's a lot more to you than what peop-people think."

Ino grinned. "Same goes for you. Good night."

Hinata walked the rest of the length to her home in content silence, allowing her thoughts to reflect upon the most eventful day of her short life.

The following day was a blurr of menial tasks and boredom induced exhaustion – for the teams of Kurenai, Asuma and Kakashi .

On the outskirts of the village, Kakashi read his book on by the riverbank while his team waded through the water looking for debris, well, the two rivals moved through the water and Shikamaru just kind of stood there looking pensive. Naruto teased Sasuke about the petroleum jelly he had to wear on his lips from the previous day's multiple fireballs - "Haha, you're wearing lipgloss!" – until the Uchiha hit him square in the back with his Phoenix Fire Jutsu. This, in turn, burned Sasuke's lips even more and made Naruto whine loudly about having to order a new custom-made orange jacket.

The group was quiet after that until Shikamaru suddenly declared that he needed as much fishnet and wire as possible. Sasuke recalled having some unused spools at his house and Naruto dashed of to Ichiraku's to borrow their net. Then, when they came back, Shikamaru instructed them to tie the fishnet to the kunai he had driven into the ground on either side of the riverbank and riverbed. The makeshift barrier collected much more than their quota of full garbage bags.

Asuma's team was sent to watch over a jonin's four-month old triplets and by the end of the day were covered in various foul smelling liquids like bodily excretions and orange baby formula that Choji declared, tasted like foot. Shino and Sakura decided they'd rather not find out how Choji knew what foot tasted like. The group hurried about trying to get the house in order while Asuma shouted pseudo-helpful things like – "Their father's an air jutsu user you know, I can't imagine what jutsu he'd use on you if he saw his house like this. Probably blow you right out of the village!" - until Shino brought up the point that he was there team leader.

Needless to say, the work got done a lot quicker with a jonin's help. And just minutes before the father walked in to the house, Sakura managed to put the children to sleep with a perfectly controlled flow of chakra.

Kurenai's team was hired to help tend to a field of crops whose owner was away in the Mist Country for some sort of agricultural trade. but the group was pretty content to simply tie a watering hose onto Akamaru's back and let him chase after a pretty butterfly that Hinata found the previous day in the Hyuuga gardens.