Romance of the Elemental Nations
The early morning air was pierced by the sounds of marching feet. Twenty four prospective ninja moved into formation upon the muster field. It was a square of dirt, packed hard by years of military drills, situated in front of the central building of the Academy. Waiting for them stood a chünin instructor dressed in the standard issue type C flak jacket. Once the students settled the instructor began roll, referring to the clipboard he held in his hands.
One of the students could barely hold still, his feet scratching at the grit beneath his feet as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
"Uzumaki, Naruto!"
As his name was called the student snapped to attention
"Present!"
His name was last on the list. Concluding the roll the instructor tucked the clip board under his arm and scanned the students before him. Then, he spoke.
"Welcome to the first day of the Genin exams. I would like to take this time to congratulate you all on making it this far. For those that successfully conclude these exams, I will be proud to welcome you into the ranks of Konoha's Special Forces. You will be held to a higher standard than the General Forces. You will be the elite. You will be expected to excel in the shinobi arts. You will be the tip of the spear, the face of the hammer, the dagger in the dark, and most importantly the apex of the shield on which our enemies will break like harmless water. Good luck to you all."
At the conclusion of the speech another Chünin arrived and directed the students to the rear of the training camp where the obstacle course was. The twenty four students broke into a double column with practiced ease and started moving at an easy cadence. During the march there Naruto stole furtive glances towards the girl in formation next to him. The sight of her pink hair flapping in the wind brought a smile to his face, one that he tried to hide. Unfortunately the girl noticed and gave him a swift kick in the back of the leg as they ran. With a grimace she turned back to face forward, only to break into a smile of her own as she spied a raven haired male leading the column.
Ignoring the pain Naruto turned his head to see recruits for the General Forces practicing taijutsu drills in the fields to his left. A platoon divided into five squads of eight dotted the grass surface, each member pairing off with another to perform a basic kunai disarm. Naruto had spent two years in training for the General Forces before the Hokage had provided him with a commission into the Special Forces Academy. As such he was among his age-mates despite having started his ninja training two years earlier than his cohort. It failed to be an advantage though as the majority of his class were children of shinobi clans who had begun training at a far earlier age.
With a steely glint to his eyes Naruto turned face forward. At the age of sixteen he was finally on the cusp of entering the ninja forces, not only as a Genin but as part of the elite who worked in independent four man cells. Not only was the pay better, but promotion came much faster (and attrition tended to be higher, perhaps related).
Finally reaching the obstacle course the group came to a halt.
"Welcome to the obstacle course."
A Chünin greeted them.
"Here we will be assessing your ability to navigate a variety of obstacles and terrain types. We expect speed, agility, stamina and technique. You each will be issued type A equipment. You are only allowed to use each item once. You will have a total of eight minutes maximum to complete the course. A total of twenty five simulated targets will be placed at strategic locations. You will be deducted five points for each target you fail to hit. All targets must be taken out with a ninja tool. You will also be deducted 5 points for every thirty seconds that elapse beyond three minutes. You will begin with one hundred points. A score of zero or a time exceeding eight minutes will immediately disqualify you from the Genin exam. Am I understood?"
A single unified yell came in response
"Hai!"
The examiner continued
"You will be given thirty seconds at the beginning of the course to examine and organise your equipment. Now, would Uchiha Sasuke report to the starting line."
The raven haired teen stepped up to the wooden posts that marked the start of the obstacle course and several pouches were placed in front of him. As a bell was struck by the Chünin Sasuke quickly examined the contents of the pouches before strapping the pouches onto various parts of his body. Another bell rung and he was off.
"Hey, hey Sakura," said Naruto "Any idea what's in those pouches?"
"Naruto….you idiot," the pink haired girl replied "the examiner told us it was type A equipment."
Naruto scrunched up his face and scratched the back of his head
"What's in type A equipment?"
Sakura gave him a withering look and smacked him upside the back of his head
"You should've read the requisition handbook then you idiot! I'm not telling you so stop talking to me."
With an indignant huff Sakura walked away from Naruto, leaving him to wonder what exactly a requisition handbook was and when they were issued.
Eventually it came to Naruto's turn. He stepped up to the line and again a series of pouches were laid in front of him. There were four in all. The bell rang and Naruto grabbed the pouches and looked inside them. The first held five shuriken, the second held a brace of eight kunai, the third contained three explosive tags, two flash bombs and a length of ninja wire. Naruto, however, had spent too long counting and noting the equipment in the first three pouches and the bell sounded again before he had a chance to even pick up the fourth pouch. Clearing it from his mind Naruto dashed towards the first obstacle. It was a moat with several wooden poles sticking out of the water. He decided to go for the quicker option, water walking. As soon as he placed his first foot onto the surface
Boom
An explosion of water blew him back onto the bank of the moat, soaking wet. He realised there were explosive tags anchored to the bottom of the moat which were set off by the chakra emitted from his feet. With a growl Naruto quickly got off his back, now covered in mud, and dived into the water and began to swim overarm to the other side. As he was pulling himself out of the moat on the other side a Chünin observer shook his head and made a note on his clipboard.
So far a minute and a half had elapsed for Naruto. The next obstacle turned out to be a wall made of wooden planks, painted to resemble the granite walls of a castle. Wasting no time Naruto fished out an explosive tag, wrapped it around a kunai, and let it fly towards the wall. The explosive shockwave reached Naruto just after the sound did, peppering him with splinters and chunks of wood that went ignored as he rushed through the smoke. He popped out the other side and was confronted by 5 dummies in a circular array. He flicked a shuriken at each of them, hitting all of them as he dashed past.
He was next confronted by a tall square tower that stood roughly fifteen meters in height. It was solid oak and had one tiny window per floor on the side opposite to Naruto's approach. The hot box, as it was known due to the extreme heat inside it during summer drills, was used to practice breach entries and room clearing. Naruto quickly ran up its side and reached the top. The opposite lip of the tower had a railing with small metal rings embedded at regular intervals. Ignoring them Naruto pulled out another exploding tag and slapped it onto the roof of the tower. Another explosion rocked the obstacle course and Naruto, who had escaped the explosion by hanging off the side of the tower, hoisted himself up and dropped down into a room filled with another five dummies sat around a table. Again quickly filling the dummies with a kunai each, Naruto exited out the window and ran down the wall until he reached the ground.
The final obstacle consisted of a patch of simulated forest over a long pit of sharpened stakes. Naruto quickly leapt up onto the first branch and spied a cluster of five dummies in the stakes below. He took them out with his last remaining explosive tag wrapped around the handle of one of his kunai.
As he burst out the other side of the simulated forest a groan escaped his lips as he spotted the remaining ten targets.
"Damn it, I completely forgot!"
Throwing his last two kunai Naruto netted two more targets before he continued to the finish line.
Naruto was met at the finish line by Iruka, his class instructor. As Naruto caught his breath, Iruka spoke with five other chünin who had arrived shortly after him. After conferring with them for a few minutes and making some notes on his clipboard, Iruka approached and began to speak.
"Well Naruto, you made excellent time even though your approach was…let's say unique. It took you five minutes and twelve seconds. Unfortunately you failed to plan ahead, "as usual" thought the chünin, failed to efficiently utilise your equipment, and even failed to remember the fourth pouch! and because of that you ended up missing the last eight targets...sigh... all up you scored forty for this section Naruto…"