I didn't like the last version (it's just like me to decide I want to delete it after posting it almost a year ago and writing thirteen chapters), so I'm re-doing it to make it less full of plot holes.
Disclaimer: None of Naruto or any characters thereof belong to me. Anyone who you don't recognize is probably mine, or whose rights were given to me by their creator after their story was deleted with no intention of re-posting.
Read and Review, please!
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Excitement
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"I'm so happy. I think I'll do a cartwheel."
"But you don't know how to do a cartwheel, Ryuchi."
"Exactly. That's how happy I am."
Holding the magical piece of paper stating that he and his teammates, Takemoto Jotaro and Nakayama Yoko, were recommended for the Chûnin Exam in his mouth, Okubo Ryuchi put his arms above his head, right foot in front of his left, and did a little jump forward as he'd seen Miho do a million times. His right hand touched the ground successfully, and the left one, and he was almost all the way around...
When he lost his balance and fell on his face.
Jotaro laughed from a meter away on the path. "Failure!" he called playfully.
Ryuchi raised a finger and pointed at the advancing figure as he raised his head, brushing the greasy strands of black hair away from his dark blue eyes at the same time. "You, shut up. You are a horrible human being."
Jotaro offered his hand. "But not as bad as Neji, right?"
"No," Ryuchi agreed. "No one's as bad as that bastard."
"Language!" their sensei, Masahiro yelled. "Some of us don't feel the need to swear about everything and don't appreciate when others do."
"You mean you don't, Sensei! You don't know what Yoko thinks about swearing! She's never spoken to you!"
"So I assume that she doesn't like it. Better safe than sorry. Now get over here, I need to talk to you about the Exam."
"What's there to talk about?" Ryuchi asked with a nonchalant shrug as he walked over anyway. "We go, we conquer, we become Chûnin. All there is to it."
"Or you die."
Ryuchi laughed. "Come on, Masahiro-sensei. Dying is for losers."
"No," he said, poking Ryuchi in the chest. "Dying is for people like you if you act arrogantly, as you are now. These exams are dangerous, and tons of Genin die taking them every year because they aren't ready, or, even if they are, they meet someone stronger than them and that person kills them. I lost a teammate in the forest of death my first time taking the Exams."
"Yes, yes, we know all about your tragic loss Masahiro-sensei..."
"Ryuchi cut it out! You really are going to die if you keep taking this lightly. I'd like to hear what Masahiro-sensei has to say about this whole thing, even if you don't."
Ryuchi spun to face him, blue eyes to hazel ones. "Look, you might think that you're all high and mighty because you're making sure that everyone knows you're taking this Exam seriously, but just because I like a good laugh doesn't mean I'm going to get myself killed. There's no way the rest of my life is going to go down the drain because of some stupid quiz."
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Ryuchi leaned against the wall of his house. "Why does it have to be a freaking written test first?"
"Hey, at least be glad that we got an advanced warning," Jotaro pointed out. "Technically, he's not supposed to do that, so we'll have to act surprised when they pull out the test sheets tomorrow, or we'll get busted and he'll get busted."
"We'd better go over to Yoko's for some acting lessons then." He looked like he was going to say something else, but stopped. "I'm no good at written stuff," he complained.
"Don't be ridiculous. At the academy you never scored lower than a 78 on a written test and got hundreds all the time."
"Yeah, but that was academy stuff. We weren't even Genin back then, and it was easy as long as you knew what everything was. There were questions about differentiating a kunai from a shuriken, for Kami's sake."
"Only in the first year," Jotaro argued. "Anyway, since it's for the Chûnin Exams, I'm sure there's some other point to it. I mean, they can't just want to test your intelligence, because there are probably some idiots who'll make it past the first stage, even if they won't become Chûnin in the end. There's got to be a catch."
Ryuchi shrugged. "Whatever. Catch or no catch, we'll make it. Now come on, now that we've "thought it over", as Sensei suggested," he made a "blech" noise and stuck his tongue out. "We can get Yoko from her house and get some last minute training in. We're leaving, Kimiko!" he yelled into the house.
"No you're not!" His sister emerged in the doorway, folding her arms. "You'll starve if you don't eat something, because I'm not giving you seconds at dinner if you don't eat now. You too, Jotaro."
Ryuchi rolled his eyes and blew a raspberry at his nephew holding his mother's dress. The toddler giggled. "Funny," he said.
Kimiko ignored him and said, "Now come in, I'm not bringing it out here."
"Of course not," Ryuchi muttered so only Jotaro could hear him. "Kami forbid she ever let us eat on the run. Civilians don't understand."
Two sets of wrapped rice balls were already on the table. Ryuchi tore his open and shoved half of his first one in his mouth. As soon as Jotaro had picked up one of his, Ryuchi, mouth still full, reached over and grabbed one of them. "Steals," he said, voice muffled by rice.
Jotaro didn't protest, but reached over quietly and took the ones Ryuchi left unguarded. "Steals back," he said.
"Cheater," he mumbled. He gave the stolen item back to Jotaro and held up his palm expectantly. "Now give, before I call in Kimiko to go all "moody pregnant lady" on you."
Jotaro looked at the plates for a moment before sliding the one that had been his over to Ryuchi. He examined the food that was previously Jotaro's to see if there was anything wrong with it. Finding nothing, he shrugged and picked up a second one and took a bite before beginning to alternate between the two in his hands.
"You are so immature," Jotaro said.
"You know it."
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Ryuchi bounced impatiently on the balls of his feet as he waited for his teammates. He cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, "You are so slow!"
"And you are so loud!" Jotaro yelled back. "Calm down. It's not like there's that much we can do this late anyway."
He folded his arms and begrudgingly agreed. "Stupid Masahiro-sensei and his procrastination… But hey, it's not like we really need training. We're already awesome enough to fight everyone who'll be there and win. Unless Neji gets his whole team against us at the same time; that might be slightly problematic. Damn Hyuuga bastard."
"Yeah, well, get over it. We probably will have to fight them, since we have to enter the exam as teams."
"Oh well. We're stronger." He grinned. "And cooler than them too."
"By whose standards?"
"Mine."
"And what's your basis, oh idiotic one?" Jotaro asked, a hand on each of his swords, a katana and a wakizashi.
"We're each about 50, give or take. TenTen's a 50, because I like her, and even though Neji's a bastard, I have to admit he's about a 55. But Lee is a 10, and that's being really generous. He completely kills them."
Yoko let a giggle slip from behind her hands before she caught herself and stifled it. That made Ryuchi laugh too.
"Come on, Yoko, it's okay to acknowledge that Lee is the dorkiest person besides their sensei to ever walk the earth." She shook her head in embarrassment. "Don't kid yourself, Yoko. Ever since he graduated by some miracle and became a student of "the green beast of Konoha"", he said with air quotes, "He's never been the same. The "no contractions" rule in the academy was bad enough, but Maito Gai just pushed him over the cliff of insanity."
She giggled again and didn't stop it from becoming a laughing fit this time, if only a short one. Ryuchi put his hands on her shoulders once she was finished and started into her light grey eyes and said, "I'm glad you find me amusing, but maybe you should pay more attention to Jotaro's lame attempts at humor. He'd like that," he hinted with a subtle head twitch to their teammate, who had long ago stopped listening and started practicing his swing on an unfortunate tree.
That comment had, as Ryuchi's younger siblings would say, "turned her smile upside down". He tried to cover for himself. "Look, I know he's not your best friend, but he wants to get to know you, even if you don't like talking to anyone unless you're writing it down. We've been teammates for over a year, and even though sensei wants everyone to be best friends, you hardly pay attention to him." She shook her head to deny the charges but still came off looking guilty.
"He's kind of weird the way he goes about it, but he really wants to be as close to you as I am." Ryuchi desperately wanted to say that Jotaro had been crushing on her since they were ten, but that was strictly forbidden unless Jotaro had already taken her somewhere to confess his love and gotten her to do the same. In order to lead up to that allegedly "inevitable" moment, Ryuchi had been instructed to try to get through to her in order for her to accept such a thing. This was the fourth time in two weeks Ryuchi had dropped a hint.
Yoko just stared at the ground. Then she slipped under his hands and walked away. Ryuchi wanted to smack himself upside the head for actually listening to Jotaro. Most of that boy's plans went well, except when they had to do with Yoko and getting a date with her.
He looked around. He'd officially been deserted. Yoko was playing in a patch of flowers, and Jotaro was still trying to chop down a tree with his wakizashi. Ryuchi sighed and stuck his finger in his mouth and chewed on it. "I want to blow something up…" he muttered. "Really badly…"