We all know the Chunin exams are tough, so what chance do three young ninja fresh out of the academy stand against the toughest of opponents? From ice to rainbows and some jutsu a lot less prettier, every move counts. OC


A/N: For all who ask, these are the chunin exams mentioned by Shikamaru and Temari when Naruto arrives back in the hidden leaf village at the beginning of Naruto Shippuden; they said they were going to host the chunin exams together, much to their dismay, so I decided it would be a nice time to slot this in. So this is set at the beginning of Shippuden. I do not own Naruto or Naruto shippuden, though I do own these three young genin and an awful lot of creativity! If you have any criticism please present it in a constructive way, this is my first Naruto fic so please don't be too harsh and don't forget to sit back, relax, and enjoy the story.


"- so that's why I'm going to ace the chunin exams and sooo become a chunin!"

Mareo and Chiko stared at their third and final counterpart, Kaida, in disbelief and then slowly turned away from her self-obsessed smile back to whatever they were doing before, which basically was fiddling and anxiously wondering when she'd actually shut up.

Kaida, despite her looks, was what she'd call 'a fully fledged ninja'. In other words, she was vain, self obsessed and nothing like any of the other young genin in her team, let alone of her age. Yes, she certainly was one of a kind. There was no doubting that. From her bright purple hair styled in a rather messy bun which she claimed, to everyone's dismay, that she hadn't dyed and it had just changed colour miraculously over night ("isn't that sooo cute?"), to her angelic smile, you couldn't help but hate her and love her at the same time.

"What about you Chiko?" Kaida grinned, turning onto the quiet boy anxiously sitting next to her, fiddling with his thumbs, "why do you think you're going to become a chunin?"

The boy who looked up nervously was a pale and malnourished looking boy, thin and gangly with a timid expression on his narrow face. His fiery red hair couldn't have seemed more out of place, and the spikes which looked like they would have grown out instead flattened down so they flopped around his face and over his leaf ninja headband, the only one of the three genin that had fastened it to their forehead. Kaida had proudly displayed it around her waist, something which seemed more of a 'look how slim I am' feat than anything else, such as being a proud shinobi; Mareo's was nowhere to be seen, until you looked closer and saw it limply hanging around his wrist like a useless accessory, as if he didn't know quite where to fling it, or couldn't care less.

"I... err... well, to be perfectly honest I don't know if I have what it takes to become a chunin," mumbled Chiko, flickering his eyes downwards anxiously, "I mean, you're so good Kaida, and I'm, well..."

"Oh come on," giggled Kaida, her face flushing, "I'm not that amazing. Okay, well maybe I am. But that's sooo not the point. I'm sure with me on your team you'll both be just fine, well, until we break out of teams and go solo, anyway!"

"I'm sure," Mareo sighed, dripping with sarcasm, though Kaida didn't seem to notice and continued to blush as if what he said really was a compliment, not a dry imitation of one.

Mareo was someone you might call different in retrospect, though you actually wouldn't notice it at the time probably. He said the right things, chipped in when he needed too, but really everything he seemed to say was sarcastic in one way or the other, so sarcastic in fact, that no-one seemed to be able to tell the difference between his sarcasm and his real life comments, so people seemed to have merged both together as one in their minds. The one thing you'd notice about Mareo if you crossed him in the street though, wasn't the way his blue hair arched around his head to almost fall in a semi-circle, or even the way it seemed to flicker between dark and light blue, no, the actual reason you'd stop and stare at Mareo was because of the bandages wrapped around his face at a diagonal, masking half of it and only showing one deep blue eye, the rest of his face hidden. Despite Kaida's constant inquisitive pestering, the bandages never came off, and every time the subject would come up Mareo would suddenly become immensely touchy around the subject.

"I wish Kakashi sensei would hurry up," a girl with pink hair muttered ruthlessly from the other side of the street, leaning against a street lamp with an expression livid enough to boil ramen in.

"That reminds me – where is Oki sensei?" Kaida asked the other two, as if they would actually know anything about their sensei's strange habits.

Oki sensei was far from what you'd call predictable and also far from what you'd call sane. She had crazy tendencies of one day letting something slide with no bother or worry at all, just a mere shrug of her shoulders, and the next becoming absolutely livid and practically killing her students for doing exactly the same thing. If there was one thing to know about Oki sensei, it was you better learn from your mistakes the first time around otherwise you'd end up running laps well into the night.

"I think you mean where isn't your fabulous sensei," an all too familiar voice rang through the crisp morning air where the three young genin sat on a solitary brick wall which seemed to have no purpose at all, since it was positioned randomly in an empty space, except to just be there.

"Oh what a surprise, I never saw that coming," sighed Mareo, unimpressed as Kaida and Chiko twisted around in awe to become face-to-face with their sensei who seemed to have been behind them all of the time.

"Oki Hashimoto the rainbow goddess at your service, my young students," beamed a tall, thin and surprisingly young looking woman. She looked about her mid twenties and had a pearly white grin fixed on her surprisingly beautiful face, not that she didn't ever mention that... just about all day, every day. Her blonde hair swung down in ringlets past her shoulders and about halfway down her back, the smile never seeming to disappear from her mouth.

"Rainbow goddess?" Mareo repeated with a sigh, still not bothering to turn around.

"Yes, in case you hadn't noticed I make rainbows!" she beamed again, as if it was the most marvellous, important and life saving skill that had ever crossed her mind.

"Be nice to Oki Sensei Mareo," snapped Kaida viciously "she's the most wonderful sensei ever, and sooo cool, what with her amazing rainbow making skills which could knock any johnin, no, ninja out cold!" The enthusiasm she had expressed in the little speech of hers was more than slightly fishy, causing Oki to narrow her eyes as is studying her for the first time.

"What do you want?" Oki asked slyly, "I see through your cunning rouse."

"Rouse?" Kaida asked innocently, a bit too innocently maybe.

"Yes, rouse. You want something; why else would you be so nice to me all of a sudden?"

"Well now you mention it..."

"Spit it out," growled Oki, her mood changing once again.

"We heard there was a chunin exam coming up and we wanted you to put down our names for it," gabbled Kaida hurriedly, creating a fractured pause as Oki slowly studied Kaida up and down yet again.

"Oh did we?" Oki smiled slightly menacingly as her voiced strained on the 'we', examining Chiko's shaky nod and Mareo's vacant expression, knowing full well what the 'we' was restricted to, or rather, whom.

"Err... yes," Chiko agreed under the angry glare of Kaida's, which seemed to say 'you better agree or you'll die', only in a less polite way. If that even was possible.

"Of course, oh goody I'm sooo looking forward to this," Mareo growled, mimicking Kaida's girly and flirtatious words.

"That doesn't seem like you, you're the one I had being the least pinned down to be pleased when I told you," Oki frowned in confusion, only causing Mareo to roll his eyes in disbelief, though since his back was turned to them the whole time the sneer on his face was hidden from them all.

"Tell us- tell us what Oki sensei?" stuttered Chiko quietly, only to cause a huge grin to spread across Oki's face.

"To tell you that... I've already signed you three up for the Chunin exams, if you want to of course. You may only enter as a three man team though, I warn you, so if one of you doesn't want to go for it then all of you can't go," Oki said and the looks of the three genin were phenomenal. Or rather, the look on Kaida's face was phenomenal while the other two either smiled slightly, as in Chiko's case, or vacantly stared into the distance with a slight grimace as Mareo did.

"Oh thank you so much sensei! You are sooo the best!" Kaida screamed, causing faces from the street across to swivel around to see the energetic purple haired girl leaping up and down energetically, swiping the white streak in her hair that usually covered up the right side of her face out of her eyes as she leapt towards her sensei urgently, a grin spread across her face.

"Ow!" Kaida screeched as she retracted her hand urgently from the air fizzing around Oki, bringing it back as red and swollen, "What? You burnt it? How can a lame rainbow ninja do that?"

"Oh so now I'm a 'lame rainbow ninja' am I?" teased Oki, a smile spreading across her face at Kaida's gaping expression as she held up Kaida's hand for inspection, "it's not that bad, stop whining. Or don't you want to become a chunin?"

"I do, I do, I do!" explained Kaida energetically, then she swivelled towards Chiko, "you want to be one too, don't you Chiko?"

"O-okay," Chiko murmured; his face paling as he looked down at his hands, fiddling with them again.

"What about you Mareo?" Kaida and Oka asked at the same time, Oka sounding a lot more gentle than Kaida's angry glares.

"Man..." muttered Mareo under his breath, then eventually turned over to see Kaida's expectant pressurising look. "Fine, fine. It's just what I always wanted."

The squeal that erupted from Kaida's throat sounded like a cross of a pig just having realised it had been eating bacon and an excited child when they found out that a new hokage had been announced. In short, it was the most ecstatic squeal Kaida has made ever since she found out she had made it to be a genin, short lived when she found out who was on her team.

"Okay my little rookies, are you sure you're up to it?" Oki asked, a rather evil smile spreading across her face.

"Yes!"

"I-I suppose so Oki sensei..."

"Couldn't be more ready."