Chapter Sixteen: Chunin Exams
It was midday in the anime and no one was around. We had arrived in an alley somewhere in the center of the city. Everything seemed peaceful and in its proper place.
"So what are we supposed to do?"
I asked, not really knowing much about the story I was in for once. I knew of the show but had never watched it, so I only knew what I was just told by the computer.
"The computer lady told us to enter the Chunin exam thing."
Midna said as we all looked around.
"Ya, I guess I better go do that now. I'll go find the leader of this place and ask him to let us in. Midna, you stay here and make sure Stuart doesn't make a scene and get us kicked out of the village."
Aaron said.
"What is that supposed to mean?"
I said to Midna who snickered.
"If anyone asks who you are, tell them you are ninjas from the village hidden in the storm. They won't know of it, so say you are foreigners from across the oceans and that should satisfy them. Just don't make a scene and we should be fine."
Aaron said before leaving Midna and I alone. We sat down and waited for him to return. After about ten minutes of waiting we heard some one demanding they put him down. We ran to see who it was and found a group of kids fighting.
There was seven of then all. I looked at all of them and checked them out to see what was going on. There were three little kids one of witch was being held by his scarf. The two older boys seemed to be fighting. The blond kid in the orange jump suit was obviously loosing to the kid with face paint. I watched as he reared back to punch the little kid.
I couldn't let a little kid be punched in the face so I stepped in by shooting a lightning bolt right in front of him. It startled him enough into dropping the kid. Everyone turned to look at me including the kid I just saved.
"Dude not cool, beating up on a little kid like that, you should be ashamed of your self. Then again if I wore clown makeup all day I would be a little pissed to."
I said to the face painted kid.
"That stuff is murder for your pores."
Midna said in a valley girl voice.
"But like I said… Get going or it's gonna hurt."
I said as my eyes flickered with electricity.
"I agree... get lost?"
Another kid said as he jumped out of a tree branch.
He had a kind of I'm so bad ass attitude that's seemed familiar… Except he seemed calm and collected instead of cocky and slightly spastic. I got ready for a fight as he took the mummy looking thing off his back.
"Kankuro, back off. You're an embarrassment to our village. Have you forgotten why we came all the way here?"
A very cold voice said from the same tree the last boy came from. He proceeded to chastise the kid he called Kankuro. Kankuro looked absolutely terrified.
"I'm sorry for any trouble he may have caused."
He said as he looked at each of us stopping to get a better look at me and the other boy who came from the tree.
"Let's go, we didn't come here to play games."
The boy with the gourd on his back said before turning to sand then back to normal again. He looked at me with cold eyes like those of a soldier.
"Whoa, something up with that kid."
I whispered to Midna who whispered back
"Ya, only the boys wore make up."
They began to leave when out of nowhere the pink-haired girl told them to show why foreign ninja were in their village. She was quickly shut up by the blonde with the over sized fan on her back. She told the three Leaf ninja about there own Chunin exams. I found out that the gourd kid was names Gaara and the other tree kid was Sasuke.
"I have no idea what's going on."
I told Midna who shrugged. The Sand ninjas left and it started to get a little uncomfortable so I spoke up.
"So there are other villages here to."
I said, making them look at me.
"Who are you two and where are you from? I've never even seen that symbol before."
The pink haired girl said as she looked at my belt buckle. She was getting a little annoying.
"I'm Stuart and this is Midna, we are from the village hidden in the storm. Who are you?"
I said, not sure what it meant.
"I'm Sasuke Uchiha and they are Sakura Haruno and Naruto Uzumaki. I've never heard of your village. Where is it exactly?"
Sasuke said coolly watching my every move,
"Well we aren't from around here. We probably aren't even on any maps around here because we live on a small island across the sea. We heard about this competition things from a traveling ninja from this village. He told us we should join in by sending our best warriors, A.K.A. us and our friend who's introducing himself to your leader to get permission."
Midna said with a cute smile.
"Whatever, long as you don't do anything inappropriate in my village you'll be fine with me. Don't let me catch you doing anything you aren't supposed to."
Sasuke said before leaving.
"So you two are ninja. Don't you think you look a little funny wearing those clothes?"
Naruto said as he looked at us.
"Look who's talking. What kind of ninja wears a bright orange jumpsuit?"
I replied, curious as to how he snuck around. He just looked down, diddling his fingers while everyone laughed. We began to talk with each other and I found out lots about the story that might be helpful.
"Here you are. I told you to stay and what do you do? You leave."
It was Aaron who had come back with more official ID's for Midna and I. We had been given a hotel room and we went there to discuss are plan.
"Ok, here's what's gonna happen from what I know. There are three main parts to this exam, and we have to get through it all until we find and destroy the leader masquerading as a character. Our most likely target is this Orochimaru character, because he is the main villain. There's only like a three percent chance it will be anyone else. Other than that, all we have to do is keep the story going and live."
Aaron said as he looked from Midna to me.
"Ok, seems easy enough."
I said, wondering how Tyler was doing with his test.
"What are the three parts of the exam?"
Midna asked, being the one who always thinks ahead.
"I'm not sure because no one really will tell me, but I know it ends in a tournament."
Aaron said with a shrug.
"I bet they're all like super-hard ninja training things!"
I said wondering myself what they were. It was late, so we went to sleep. I awoke the next day with a knock on the door.
"Hey you guys, wake up. We're going to go register for the exams, wanna come with?"
It was Naruto. His house was apparently five doors down, so he stopped by. Midna and Aaron had already gotten up and answered the door.
"Sure why not? Eee hee."
Midna said with a friendly smile. I got up without breakfast, but luckily we stopped off at a Ramen bar for a quick bite to eat. I was learning more and more about the story just by watching the characters and listen to stories they were telling. Naruto and Sasuke were completely different, but they seemed almost like brothers to me. We arrived at a building and walked to a room that was being blocked off by two people. I watched as a kid that looked a lot like Bruce Lee imitator as they were kicked to the ground.
"Wow, if we have to fight people like this we're not gonna have any fun."
Midna whispered to me, but according to Sasuke and Sakura the two had put something called a genjutsu on it, which I guessed was like an illusion to make us go to the wrong door. They then tried to attack Sasuke, but I rushed in to help him by stopping them both from fighting. I did this mainly to show off my speed because I wanted some attention myself. People looked astonished as expected.
"(Snicker) Lets go, no need to fight these losers."
I said to the others.
"Stop showing off Stuart."
Aaron said as weird kid stood up. I was then introduced to the Bruce Lee kid and his group. He told me he wanted to fight me, but I wouldn't do that to him after he just got his ass kicked by those two losers. It wouldn't be fair to him, so he left to go fight with Sasuke. Naruto and Sakura followed him, but we continued on to the next floor and met a man with white hair.
"So you three are the mystery ninja, eh?"
The man said with his one eye looking at us. He was tall and thin with bleached white hair. He wore a mask and had his headband covering one of his eyes.
"Let me introduce myself. I'm Kakashi Hatake, Leader of Group Seven. Naruto has told me a lot about you."
He seemed to be a normal guy, considering the whole random introduction thing.
"I was watching you over there and was impressed with your skills. I'm curious as to what else you can do with that lightning of yours. I was wondering if I could interest you to a friendly sparing match?"
This Kakashi said to me as we walked up to him. I thought it over and decided that it would be a good idea to not let the village have any reason not to trust us plus I could learn more about the story. I didn't want to just blindly go into a tournament not knowing what to expect.
"Spar...? Sure, I don't see why not. But first we need to sign up."
I said as we walked in the room to sign up for the Exam.
"Stuart, what do you think your doing?"
Aaron asked me as I followed Kakashi.
"I'm getting kinda bored of waiting and wanna see how strong these ninja are."
I said calmly.
"Whatever, I'll be waiting at the hotel. Don't wake me when you get back."
Aaron said as he left.
"You coming, Midna?"
I asked as she watched Aaron leave.
"Why not? I was going to go look around this place, but I guess I could do it afterwards. Don't want you getting too lonely."
It was nice outside. There was a light wind and it was sunny. Kakashi had taken us to the middle of a forest before turning to talk to us.
"Will both you be fighting?"
"You want to join?"
I asked Midna who didn't really seem to care either way.
"No thanks, I'm good. I'll let you have your fun Stuart."
Midna said to a surprised Kakashi and myself.
"Well you lightning ninja are very bold, aren't you? Ok, seeing as it's a one on one fight lets keep it simple. It will be a no holds barred match, which ends soon as one of us gives up or can't fight. Midna was it? Since you aren't fighting could you be our proctor?"
Kakashi said as he stood there smiling through his mask.
"Sure. why not?"
She said as she hopped down from a tree she was resting in.
"What ver. I'll do my best to not hurt you too bad."
I said cockily.
"That's too bad… Because if you do that, there's no way you can win."
He said calmly. There was no doubt that he knew what he was doing,
"Come at me when you're ready to begin."
He said as I took off Alastor and the twins, not wanting to use any lethal force. Only to pick them back up seeing him take out a knife. I was surprised to find that he could nearly match my speed. I punched and kicked but since I had no really practice in hand to hand combat, I was countered every time.
"This is going to be a lot more interesting than I expected."
I said as I landed one of my kicks sending him flying.
"You really shouldn't let your guard down like that."
I heard from below me as the Kakashi I had just kicked pooffed into a log.
"What the hell?"
I said, jumping just in time to getaway from Kakashi, who burst out of the ground. He threw knives at me that I barely dogged. Dozens more throwing stars came at me from behind. I shot them all down before letting loose with some lightning. With a few quick hand gestures he yelled,
"Sharingan!"
He pulled up his headband to reveal a blood red eye.
"What's this? What type of jutsu are you using?"
He said before getting blasted.
"How did you do that log thing?"
I asked as Kakashi log poofed once again.
"You can't be serious?"
Kakashi said before realizing that I was.
"It's a simple replacement jutsu; surely you know what that is?"
He asked as we both stopped fighting.
"Oh, do you mean that chakra stuff?"
I said as I remembered something Naruto had told me.
"Are you telling me you have no idea how to do a simple substitution jutsu?"
Kakashi asked.
"Nope, I got no idea what that is at all."
I said to a very confused yet intrigued Kakashi
"The lightning ninja don't use chakra. We don't need to because we are born with the powers."
This seemed to intrigue Kakashi even more.
"Hmmm, I see."
It was weird to have gone from fighting to talking about are powers. We continued to fight as we discussed are abilities. Kakashi was giving me a good work out and I was learning valuable information. He explained more in-depth about Chakra and its uses. I also explained about my powers. To be quite honest I had become quite use to being questioned about them by now and had no problems simplifying it.
It was a good thing I had fought Kakashi because of all the stuff I learned. To my dismay, the fight didn't last much longer. It eventually ended with him getting tired and giving up. Apparently, Chakra was like any other magic and had a limit to how much it could be used.
I went back and reported to Aaron of what I learned, but I found him sleeping and didn't want to wake him. It was getting late, so we went to bed. The next day came fast. We walked into the crowded room to find Naruto and his team mates. It seemed as though we were in a giant class room full of stressed out teens.
"Hey look, its high school!"
Aaron said as we walked in. Everyone, and I mean everyone, turned to look at us.
"Hey Aaron, it looks like we're the popular kids at school... For once."
I said seeing this. You could hear muttering about the mystery ninja and about the nine rookies. Naruto started to yell at the entire class room.
"MY name is Naruto Uzumaki, and I'm gonna beat every one of ya. Believe it!"
Everyone turned there attention to him instead.
'Believe it… What the fuck, is that his catch phrase?'
I thought to myself as I looked at the people standing around Naruto's team. They all seemed to know each other. The three of us didn't want to draw any more attention to us so we stood back. I looked around the room looking for Gaara and soon found him. I was still wondering about the kid and what was up with him.
I looked at him and for some reason I began to feel pity. I don't know why but it almost felt like her was crying out for help. It must have been the look in his eyes that made me feel it. They reminded me of my own eyes when I was younger… Before I met Tyler. Thinking about it was bringing back bad memories so I stopped looking at him and focused on the mission.
"So what do you think the first part of the exam is?"
I asked Midna.
"I don't know, but it looks like we are about to find out."
She said as she pointed to a man with an extremely scarred face, who began to yell.
"All right you baby faced degenerates, pipe down and listen up! It's time to begin. I'm Ibiki Morino, your first proctor. And from this moment, your first enemy!"
He told us to draw lots and that gave us our seats. I had no idea where Aaron or Midna where sitting but that didn't matter. I was getting a little excited to find out what the first part would be.
'Maybe it will be a test to see how many bells we can take off a dummy in the dark with out making a noise, or maybe it will be a reflex test were we have to dodge a bunch of weapons…'
I thought to myself.
"Now that everyone is in their seat we can begin. The first part of the Chunin Exams will be… A written test."
My jaw dropped. A freakin test. I could hear Tyler laughter in my head and what he would say if he could see me now.
'Haha! Sucks for you.'
'Shit, I guess I will have to wait for a cool test.'
I though to myself as the director told us the rules and how there would be one question that would be given verbally at the end. I was fine I though because I was pretty smart, so I stayed calm. That was until I got the test. I had no idea what it said because it was all in Japanese.
'FUCK ME!'
I though as I panicked when I realized who I was sitting next to. It was Naruto and that meant I had to just copy what he did, since he was the main character, he would have to pass the test. The test started and I had my suit keep a look on Naruto's paper, I didn't want to get caught cheating. I couldn't since he just sat there looking extremely nervous.
I suddenly realized what must have happen. I must have taken the person he cheats off spot or something. Now the only way to even possibly pass the test would to hope to god that Midna and Aaron could do the test with good enough grades and that I could at least get the verbal question right. I knew Midna would definitely be able to pass it, because she would just randomly know things that you wouldn't expect any one to, and Japanese was one of them. And Aaron was smart enough to figure out a way to cheat. He always did at school, even though he didn't need to with how smart he was.
It had only been an hour, but I was getting stressed that I would make us fail the mission. It was like torture. Finally the time came for the final question. Even though it came with its own rules about not being able to retake the exams ever if you got it wrong that didn't change the fact that I would have to stay for it. It's not like I would need to retake the quiz ever again. I looked at Naruto's test with my suit and saw that it was blank just like mine. I saw him begin to raise his hand to be called out and when he did everything stopped for about a minute.
Even the proctors who had been calling out numbers left and right stopped. I felt awkward so I didn't move either. It seemed like forever before Naruto finally lost it shouted that he would never give up. It was pretty corny, but he seemed like he was confident and made every one else feel confident as well. Finally after a few more minutes Ibiki start again.
"Well then, I admire your determination if nothing else. For those of you remaining there's only one thing left to do. And that's for me to tell you … That you have all passed your first exam…"
"Hold on, what just happened what do you mean we passed? Where's the tenth question?"
Sakura asked before I could even process what he just said.
'? Que?'
I thought to myself and didn't bother wondering why I was thinking in Spanish. I was so relieved to hear that all you had to do to pass the test was stay for the final question and that the other questions were just there to test the ninja's information gathering skills. I was just letting myself calm down when a women burst through the window and started to yell.
"Heads up boys and girls this is no time to be celebrating. I'll be your next proctor Anko Mitarashi. You ready? Let's go, follow me!"