For illustrations of some of the original ninja members of this exam, see my Scraps section over at DeviantArt. Yay!

Mini Japanese Dictionary:

(O)Nee-sama the super-respectful form of address for "Older Sister" (in the case of "nee-san," that's just a respectful term for a close older female acquaintance, not always an actual sister)

Mushin a samurai concept meaning "mind-no mind". The idea is, by by-passing thought, the body can react much faster.

Zanshin a samurai concept with no real translation; basically, an intensified state of awareness due to absolute superiority over the enemy. It is the best/strongest possible state of mind for a warrior. In this story, both mushin and zanshin have been converted into ninjutsu ;

Kunoichi female ninja

"Shugohakke, rokujuu yonshu!" Guardian of Eight Divination Seals: Sixty-four strikes.

A personally made defensive move by Hinata, derived from Neji's famous Kaiten move which she could not master. Not in manga; seen in anime Ep. 151.

Naruto, (Hyuuga Neji, Hinata, Tenten, Kiba, Shikamaru, Kakashi, Ibiki) and all of the ninja concepts from it © Masashi Kishimoto

For other © info, please see my previous stories.

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Genin Years Three:

Leaves of Flame – The Chuunin Exam

Chapter 1 – A New Mission?

I was kneeling in the small snow-filled clearing, an open space big enough for three in the midst of the "forest" of Training Area Six inside the walls of the Hidden Village of Snow. I say "big enough for three" rather than "seven" because one of our number was Rai, whose hippo form had grown in the past year as he matured along with Nariko. She was standing beside me, looking downward at my cupped hands.

"Now remember, Hotaru: the moment you feel the warmth, force the flames away from both hands. Compress it between them. If you really focus on pushing it away from both of your palms at once…"

"…it shouldn't burn me. I know the theory by now, Nariko."

"Sorry. Just making sure."

I sighed. "I know, I'm sorry. I don't want any accidents like last month either."

Rai snorted. "It was my new dress that got burnt, I don't see why you should be complaining."

"Hotaru was in the hospital for three days! And you shouldn't have been wearing a dress to training either."

"You just don't appreciate my feminine side." Rai pouted, and was quiet.

I laughed inwardly, but frowned down at my hands. The right one was still wrapped fingers to elbow. Not from the recent accident, though; I'd kept it wrapped since the original injury, a year ago in the Waterfall forests. It served as a reminder of my pact – I'll train it. I'll use it. I'll never be a burden again.

Except this little "gift" of fire had caused more problems than it had remedied.

"Come on, Nari, I need you. I need to focus."

"Oh, right." She turned to me and summoned some water from the snow in the ground, manipulating it into a ball between her fingers, touching it only with her mind. This was Nari's Bloodline Limit, and it was her guess that my ability worked in a similar fashion.

I focused what chakra I could and forced it into my hands. After months of working on my own, I'd finally managed to call the flame at will. It was tied to emotion, for the most I could tell. At least, it required both desire and determination to call; like the first time, anger and frustration were the fuel. I pulled up the memory of that time, squinting in concentration until the familiar burning sensation coursed through my veins to my fingertips. The flame erupted half a second later. I struggled to force it into a compressed shape between my hands and – more importantly – away from my skin.

"Good! I think you're getting better," Nariko said. "Now, can you try to expand it? Move your hands away from each other slowly…" She demonstrated with her water.

When I tried, the flame burst to twice its size, then nearly extinguished itself, and then returned to the original size. I tried once more to force it to grow, but pulled my hands back instantly as the heat increased tenfold.

Unfortunately for me, I'd forgotten that the fire followed my hands.

Before it could do more than singe the ends of my hair, Nariko had dowsed the fire with her water. Thankfully, she had full control over the water, so I didn't even get wet.

I sat down in the snow, which had partially melted from the flame.

"I guess yours just doesn't work like mine." Nariko shrugged.

"Who knows? Ryuro hadn't a clue what I was talking about, when I told him. We don't even know that this is a Bloodline. Anyway, thanks."

"No problem…" She gave me one of her more worried glances. "Say, Hotaru, are you sure you should be doing this out here by yourself?"

"You're here."

"No, no. I mean, maybe you should tell Yukikage-sama. I bet if there was some secret Snow Village Bloodline, she'd know about it."

"I've asked her. She says Snow isn't old enough yet for any of the clans to have developed unique Bloodline abilities."

"But you've told her about this fire thing, right?"

"Well…"

We were interrupted just then as a fourteen-year-old boy wearing a green hoodie, trailed by a small cloud of camouflaged butterflies carrying tiny kunai, launched over a fallen log and into the clearing. "Hey, Hotaru-san!" He came to a screeching halt in front of me, Nariko, and Rai. He waved cheerfully at the other two before continuing. "Sutiibu-sensei says if we hurry, he'll treat us to sukiyaki! Says he's got something to tell us."

I rubbed at my left palm, a little scorched from the flame, and grinned. "No way. He hasn't treated us to dinner in a really long time. It must be important."

"Katana-nee-san thinks it's an A ranked mission or something. Anyway, hurry up!" He attached chakra lines to his butterflies and allowed them to carry him up through the trees in the direction of town. "Bet I can beat you there!"

Nariko smiled. "He's gotten talented, hasn't he?"

"Yep. Well, sounds like I'd better be going…don't say anything, okay? I don't want other people to know, not even Yukikage-sama. Not when the ability's just getting in the way."

An eyebrow rose, but she nodded. "Of course, Hotaru-san. Have a good dinner. Rai and I are practicing with Shiro so we'll be back late."

I nodded, and raced off at top speed.

The egg dripped from the meat lodged between my chopsticks as I eyed sensei suspiciously. Halfway through dinner – which he was inhaling joyfully – he hadn't said a word as to why he'd brought us there. Garuki, Katana and I ate in silence, hoping he'd notice and say something. It was Katana who lost her patience first.

"Okay, I give in. Why are we here?" she asked.

Sutiibu smiled placidly. "Why, to eat dinner, of course."

Katana merely stared.

"Ah, that's right, I almost forgot. We have a mission, and it starts tomorrow." Garuki and I leaned forward in our chairs. "It'll be a long mission. So bring plenty of supplies. And don't worry about high-altitude gear; it'll be plenty warm where we're going."

"Sensei?" Garuki waited, and when there was no immediate response, continued, "Where might that be?"

"Hmm?" Sutiibu asked through a mouthful of soba noodles. "Oh, we're going south. And," he went on, noticing that I was about to ask the next obvious question, "when I say a long mission, I mean about a month."

"Is it A-ranked?" Katana couldn't help asking.

"What? Of course not. But it should keep you plenty busy. As for the rest, you'll have to see."

"Is that all?" I asked. "That's interesting and all, but it's not exactly a reason to celebrate."

Sutiibu slurped up another soba noodle and watched me with a raised eyebrow. "You tell me."

So it's a game, I thought. He expects me to know. The only thing I can think of is my birthday, but that was nearly two weeks ago…I drew in my breath, catching the attention of both of my teammates. Sutiibu merely continued to watch me with an amused grin.

"I know."

"Well for heaven's sake tell us already," Katana said.

I smiled at her. "I'd have expected you to know already. It's the beginning of summer. Our anniversary; two years as a team."

Garuki grinned, probably thinking back to our first mission, the test Sutiibu-sensei had set up for us. But it was Katana who caught on the quickest.

"Two years! But that means that we're…"

"Eligible for the Chuunin Exam," finished Sutiibu. "Well, of course. Where else did you think we'd be going for an entire month?" All three of us listened hungrily as he explained, "I recommended Team Nine without reservation yesterday when Yukikage-sama informed us of the exam date; we leave tomorrow morning."

"So are there any other Snow teams coming to the exam?" Garuki asked. We were tearing across the empty plains of Fire Country, still a good five days from Konoha Village even at top speed. Katana, Garuki and I were running while we conversed.

"Of course. You didn't think it would only be you guys, did you?" Sutiibu laughed. Unlike us, he was riding in a fancy purple convertible, with which we were supposed to keep up. The car was automatic, driven by chakra and intelligent enough to know the right direction to go. I'd only seen his summon once before, so when he called the car I was pretty shocked. Still, I'd expected he'd let us all join him. Turns out, we got to run. "Part of your training," he'd explained.

Sheesh.

Garuki shrugged as he ran. "I don't know. All I know about Chuunin exams I learned from Shiro's team, and they were told to keep their mouths shut by the examiners."

I nodded. "We know there's a written test, and something with a forest, and a tournament. That's it."

"Ah," said Sutiibu, leaned back in the driver's seat with his arms behind his head. "Well in that case, you ought to ask your teammate. Or had you forgotten she's been in a Chuunin exam before?"

Garuki and I blinked and looked at Katana. Of course we knew she'd been to one; her teammates passed and she failed, and that's how she ended up with us. But it was as if that had been from a different life. We'd never known the Katana who took that exam. I'd forgotten entirely.

Katana glanced at Sutiibu. "What about the gag order?"

He winked. "That could hardly apply to one's own teammates, I think."

"Okay. First off, any team whose Jounin sensei recommends them can compete. Sometimes all of the ninja pass, other times only one or two. My year, it was six, I think. In a smaller village like Snow, more ninja normally pass; until our upper ranks grow large enough, of course."

"What are the exams like?"

"Well, it tends to vary a bit each time, but the first exam for us was a written exam. Only there was a trick to it."

"What do you mean?" Garuki asked.

"They weren't testing our knowledge. They were testing our spying abilities. They gave us impossible questions, and hid two Chuunin in the room who knew the answers. So we were supposed to find them, get their answers, and copy them without getting caught. My team passed that. Many teams don't."

"The numbers usually drop by half," Sutiibu put in.

"On top of that, this is a team-based exam nearly all the way through. So if one teammate was caught, all failed."

Garuki frowned. "Yikes."

Sutiibu nodded. "But you kids won't have any problems with that, will you? Your teamwork is top notch." I felt a little ill then, but Sutiibu caught my eye and smiled, easing my nerves.

If sensei thinks I can do it, I need to have faith. Easier said than done.

Katana continued. "The second exam was a five-day survival expedition with a twist."

I nodded; I knew a little about that one. We had been the guards for that during Nariko's first exam, when my fire ability first showed.

"Each team is given one of two scrolls. The object was to get one of each scroll, and all your teammates, to the central tower by the end of the exam."

"That sounds pretty straight forward," I commented. "Steal a scroll from another team and survive a few days in a forest. But why specify 'all your teammates?'"

Katana's face darkened. "It's obvious, isn't it? Another team-based exam. So if one of your members dies, you fail, no matter if you arrive with both scrolls."

"Dies?" Garuki's face turned white. "The Jounin wouldn't actually let that happen, would they?"

Sutiibu smiled from his purple car. "Of course they would. How else to truly test your abilities?"

I thought he was joking until I glanced back to Katana.

"That's right," she said, looking at me. "He's telling the truth. During my first exam, one of the Snow teams was disqualified when a boy on their team was killed in the forest exam. A rookie."

"No wonder you don't let us test right away," Garuki directed at Sutiibu, but

Sutiibu wasn't paying attention. His car slowed dramatically and he sat up straight in the seat; we slowed to keep pace.

"Garuki. Send a butterfly scout ahead, would you? That rock outcropping just ahead was supposed to be our camp for tonight, but it looks like someone's beat us there."

I looked around at the darkening red sky. Sundown had snuck up on me.

Garuki bit his thumb and made the summon while still running alongside the car. A camo butterfly with a small radio popped out of thin air, then sped faster than light ahead of us. A chakra line attached to Garuki let him see as the butterfly saw. He hopped in Sutiibu's car and closed his eyes to concentrate.

A few seconds later, he said, "They're Snow ninja! I don't recognize any of them, though." When he described them, Sutiibu smiled. We continued at top speed to the camping spot.

We arrived minutes later to the strange granite outcropping in the middle of the prairie, hardly large enough to be considered a cliff, but big enough to provide shelter if it rained. A forest could finally be seen in the far distance to the south. Under the shelter of the rock was a small fire, tended by four ninjas, one older than the rest.

"Must be another Chuunin exam team," I whispered to Garuki as we drew near them.

"Dai-san!" Sutiibu greeted the Jounin woman warmly. She had short, sort of spiky brown hair and looked as if she belonged in a work-out video, but she seemed nice enough. She and Sutiibu greeted each other with formal bows, but the twinkle in Sutiibu's crystal blue eyes said the two of them probably went way back. She wore a simple black and white outfit with the standard issue silver flak-jacket.

Sutiibu turned to us and grinned, motioning to the woman. "Kids, this is Dai-sensei. She was one of my first students, back when I taught at the Academy. Dai-san, these are my kids. Of course, you must recognize Katana-san."

Dai-sensei nodded, and began a conversation with our instructor which was apparently none of our business. Katana eyed the three younger ninjas sharply, narrowed her eyes, and sat on a rock ledge out of their earshot, then set about cleaning her large arsenal of kunai.

Garuki looked at me to see if I could interpret her behavior; when I couldn't, he only shrugged and climbed to the top of the outcropping, laying down facing the sky. I moved and sat beside Katana.

"You know them, don't you, nee-san?"

She nodded almost imperceptibly. "Remember when I said, during my first exam, a Snow team lost a member in the Forest of Death?" She motioned in the direction of the fire. "That's them. Snow's Genin Team Two."

I looked at them more closely. At the fire sat two boys. One was visibly older, though not as old as nee-san, as far I as could tell; he wore all white and silver, even a white forehead protector, with earflaps to protect from the cold. His hair grew out over the edge of the forehead protector, a pale blonde. His eyes were blue as ice, and his glance equally cold when he caught me looking.

"One of them must be new, then," I reasoned.

"Yeah." She looked up, then back to her kunai. "The dark-haired one. I don't know him."

'The dark-haired one' was the younger of the two boys. I didn't recognize him, so I assumed he was from the year below Garuki and I in Academy. While the other two team members talked, he was silent and stared into the distance. Attached to his forehead protector was a beaded eagle feather, and he wore a tan leather vest.

The last one, a girl, was turned away from me and difficult to see in the dimming light. But when she followed the elder boy's gaze and turned to see me, I gasped. Shoulder-length straight silver hair and bright violet eyes.

"You recognize the young one?" Katana asked, sounding bored. "You should. She's the youngest Ginkaze sibling. Kimi."

Another of Yukiko's siblings! No wonder she looks familiar. "She's like, nine!" I protested, but Katana cut me off.

"Twelve, actually. She graduated at nine. But come on, what else do you expect, coming from that family?"

The girl, Kimi, observed me momentarily before smiling and turning back to the fire. It occurred to me that this girl likely would have become a Chuunin as a ten-year-old rookie, if their teammate hadn't died. I wasn't sure if I should be jealous, awe-struck, or disbelieving.

"Were they any good? Before their teammate died, I mean?"

Katana sniffed. "All right, I suppose, for rookies. I hear Kimi was at the top of her class, but I'm not sure I believe it. Anyway, we only ran across them once, and my team already had both scrolls by then. We just let them be."

I was wondering if maybe she wasn't telling me everything when Sutiibu exited his conversation with Dai-san rather suddenly and called out, "Hey kids, come on over here. I, er, sort of forgot to introduce you all." His familiar sheepish grin beckoned us over. Garuki leaped off the high rock and walked over with me. Katana remained where she sat, sharpening steel.

"Dai-san, these are my students: Yoruhana Hotaru, Mikata Garuki, and," he gestured at Katana, "you know Takeyoshi Katana."

"You must all be quite talented, to land in this sensei's capable care," Dai responded. "And these are the genin in my charge." Gesturing at the blonde boy in white and the girl respectively, "Fuyuno Koori and Ginkaze Kimi, of course. And this one," pointing at the dark-haired boy, "is Cheveyo Nodin, although Kimi-chan calls him by his nickname, Kwahu. Cheveyo-kun joined us about six months ago and has been a welcome addition."

I did the math in my head. That means Koori-san and Kimi-san were a two-man team for an entire year. This would be an interesting group to watch, I thought.

"Good. Well, now that all the introductions have been made, go ahead and relax. But sleep well, we leave at dawn." He settled on a small rock at the bottom of the ledge and returned to conversation with his old pupil turned fellow Jounin. I made up my mind to introduce myself personally to the kids of Team 2, but as I walked toward them, a kunai thudded dangerously into the ground by my foot from behind. I turned to see Katana shaking her head at me.

Retrieving the kunai, I handed it to Katana and sat beside her once more. "What was that for?"

"You shouldn't get too close to them. They may be from our village, but at the Chuunin exam, they're enemies. It's kill or be killed there, literally; it won't do well to make friends."