Hi! I forgot to put an author's note in the first chapter, so you get it now. First, I do not own or make any profit from this fan fiction. Second, I would like to ask if you all would prefer to have a lot of stuff posted all at once, or if you'd rather see spaced out updates. I do have about 30 pages of this story that are finished, and I could post most of it now. I know that I personally like having regular updates rather than sporadic ones. What do you all think? Also, what do you think of the length of the chapter? Thanks, DarthGumdrop.
Light was filtering in from the rising sun when the boy jerked awake. His damaged clock read six twenty. He sighed in relief. Plenty of time to shower and get everything in order. The water was cold, so his shower was brief. Naruto grabbed one of this non orange outfits to wear today. He only had three, and he wore them very rarely. Today he chose a muted blue tee shirt, a mesh long sleeve undershirt, brown pants and black sandals. He wore his grey weapons pouch and a sleeveless brown hoodie with a subtle orange and black spiral on the back. He took time to cook a few vegetables and some eggs from his meager supply and went on to carefully rebind the handles of his kunai and sharpen each one of his shuriken and senbon. He then moved on to his meditation. This the Hokage had suggested to him after last year's exam.
Naruto didn't meditate every day, as it was difficult for him to calm his mind and put himself at risk by being relaxed, but it did help him when he managed it. If he ever really needed to be calm, it was today. So the boy sat on his futon and closed his eyes. He sat cross legged with his hands on his knees. Breath in, and count, 1, 2, 3. Then exhale. Breath in… By the time his alarm went off at quarter to eight, Naruto was almost asleep. He stretched slowly and reluctantly headed out.
The morning was fairly quiet, even near the academy. He dropped down to the street behind a building adjacent to the Academy and slowly made his way to the entrance. He wasn't really noticed, as he walked in with a few of his classmates. He shuffled into the room and sat in the middle of the back row. The perfect place to observe others, while going unnoticed. He took a moment to look around and noticed a small table set up off the the side of Iruka's desk. It had three chairs, a pitcher of water and three glasses on it.
Before he could get too curious, Iruka walked in with three older men Naruto had never seen at the Academy before. They stood chatting quietly until all the Genin hopefuls were seated. Iruka turned and clapped twice to quiet the class.
"Alright, now, as I mentioned yesterday this year's exam will be a bit different from before." Naruto's gut wrenched at that. No! What if my plan won't function in this situation!? I planned it so well, but with an unknown thrown in-! Iruka kept talking and the blond forced himself to listen attentively. "These three shinobi will be observing all parts of the will be the ones to organize the teams after graduation. They will be analyzing your skills and weaknesses so you can be placed on a team that will function well. I'll introduce them now." All three were intimidating. The first was a tall man wearing a black trenchcoat and bandana. His face was scarred diagonally. "This is Ibiki Morino, he is a special Jonin." The second man was a tad bit shorter, with dark hair pulled back in a bushy ponytail, Jonin vest and tan hide vest over a mesh shirt. Iruka gestured to the man. "This is Shikaku Nara, the Jonin commander." The third man was by far the least scary, to Naruto anyway. He was blond, with light blue-green eyes and wore a red haori over the standard Jonin vest and a simple black outfit. "Inoichi Yamanaka is a member of the Intelligence division." Iruka smiled and bowed slightly to the three as the walked over the the table.
Naruto was nearly shaking by now. He had heard of Inoichi and Shikaku before. They were both parents of classmates. Ino was bright and confident in herself, and she looked remarkably like her father. Naruto had often heard her telling another girl called Sakura things about psychology and observation she learned from her dad. Shikamaru Nara was nearly a carbon copy of Shikaku, down to their facial expressions and mannerisms. Naruto knew that the Nara clan was hailed as a clan of geniuses, so that meant Shikaku was likely even smarter than Shika. God must hate me, for this to happen. How can I even hope to make it, with them watching me? The boy could feel his hands shaking at the thought of being scrutinized by any one of the powerful, intimidating jonin. Iruka cleared his throat over the few murmur that had broken out.
"A-hem, I will be handing out papers for the test, do not turn them over yet." There were a few seconds of quiet shuffling. Naruto stared at his desk, not wanting be forced to see the doom that had befallen him. He knew that this would one of the last chances he would have to graduate. Any longer and he might be dropped from the Academy. I have to! Somehow, I just have to make it work. Maybe I can just stick to the plan? They will probably be more concerned with the clan kids anyway. Hinata and Sasuke and Kiba especially. They might just overlook a nobody like me. Y-yeah, that might be right… A paper was slid across his desk. The blond glanced up to see Iruka smiling at him.
"Good luck." He whispered. Naruto forced a grin back. Once all the test's had been passed out, Iruka called start. Naruto quickly studied the fifteen question test. He could have easily answered all of them, but for his plan to work, he had to have a fairly consistent lower level. Taking a closer look, he saw a mixture of five different types of questions, in sets of easy, moderate and difficult. He chose two difficult ones to answer, and the rest of the difficulty he would be wrong. Then he answered four of the moderate ones correctly, failing the last one. He answered all the easy ones. That should give me a score of about sixty or seventy. Not awful, but far from good. He sat back satisfied, glancing up to see how much time he'd spent. He winced, Only ten minutes! He leaned back over his paper and pretended to be working still. I can't be too fast, that would give it away. He rolled his shoulders and tried to ignore the feeling of eyes on him for the remaining twenty minutes. Inoichi and Shikaku met with Ibiki the night before the Academy graduation test to go over their plans. The three jonin were all rather pleased that the Hokage was allowing more detail and thought to go into Genin team placement this year. The older two had a vested interest as their heirs were taking the test. Ibiki was to be the impartial one to balance the others.
"So, what do you think we should look for?" The Yamanaka inquired. Shikaku slowly sipped his tea before answering.
"I would expect to see the clan children being capable in their various family skills, but the civilians might be more imbalanced skillwise. What I would be looking for would be complementary strengths and weaknesses. But primarily, personality matches." The blonde man nodded slowly. He knew much of the success of his old Genin team had been the close bonds the three of them shared. Ino-Shika-Cho was famous to this day for it's impeccable teamwork. Ibiki spoke up next.
"We should assess their personal weaknesses and strengths as well as their interaction with the rest of the class." They sat together for another half hour to work out who was looking for what before going their separate ways.
They met again the next morning and walked to the Academy together. They started their observation as soon as the walked in the door. Shikamaru and Choji were sitting close together by a window, Ino and a pink haired girl were on either side of the dark haired Uchiha boy. Kiba Inuzuka sat in the center of the room with a few civilian children. The shy Hyuuga heiress was near Kiba, but not a part of the group. Shino Aburame was in the back row, rather distinctly alone. The only other occupant of the back row was a blond boy dressed in brown.
Inoichi began tagging the more vocal students, Ino, Sakura, Kiba and Shikamaru were probably the most vocal. Sasuke and Shino were nearly silent, but likely highly capable. Choji and Hinata were good natured and kind, but unpopular. The civilians were mostly fairly moderate, they were in a situation and part of the world that they were not raised to deal with, and would struggle with parts of the Ninja world. The blond boy in the back though, he caught the Yamanaka's attention. His posture and clothing suggested that he was more comfortable than civilians with shinobi culture, but the tense way he held his body, and his position away from the others didn't fit. He glanced at Ibiki to see him scanning the group of pre-teens. Shikaku nudged him and shot a glance at the blond. Iruka introduced them and they took their places at the table. Inoichi leaned over to his old friend.
"You noticed the blond kid? What do you think." Ibiki chimed in from his other side to answer Inoichi.
"He and the Hyuuga girl stuck out to me, along with the Aburame boy." Shikaku frowned a bit.
"The blond, is he Naruto Uzumaki? He should be in this class I think. Not what I expected from the boy. Around town he is loud and makes trouble." Ibiki watched the children flip their papers and scramble to write. The three he noted were watched especially closely. The Hyuuga girl flushed and clumsily fussed with her pencil at first but then quickly focused on the work, only pausing between questions slightly. The Aburame boy had no emotion as he worked through it, not even pausing. The blond- Uzumaki he reminded himself was very…. Interesting. The boy scanned the page, then looked at it again more closely. The interrogator noted the observant looks his two companions gave the boy. He bit at his lip and closed his eyes, nervous habit, thinking? And the he quickly started to answer the questions in the oddest way. He appeared to skip the top bit if the paper in favor of a spot almost halfway down, only to skip to the bottom and then back to the top.
He did this with a look if concern and frustration on his face. The entire paper was completed this way, and in a very short amount of time. Shikamaru was the only other child who was finished. Ibiki watched a flash of shock and sudden fear cross the boys face and he ducked down to move his pencil over the completed paper. The Jonin could tell he wasn't exerting enough pressure on the pencil to mark the paper. Interesting, I'll want to see how good his grade is… He went back to watching the rest of the class, lot of fools, and made more discoveries. The pink haired civilian thought she was smart and very capable, but obviously lacked the backbone that a ninja would require. Sasuke Uchiha was much the same in a way. The dark eyed boy was arrogant and relied in his family name and the Massacre for much of his position. The Inuzuka brat was wild and unruly, but he also focused wholly on the given task, a good skill once cultivated a bit. Ino Yamanaka watched him as much as he watched her. The brave little blond would turn her head to see their table in the corner of her eye while doing her test. She is confident, but also seems aware of herself and her abilities. He wondered what his fellow observers would say in the few minutes they had between parts if the exam.