"Clash, clash, and clash again, until the very heavens quake. In time this shall pass, and memory of you and your enemy will be naught but dust slipping through the fingers of dead men."
- The True Way Chapter 2: On Struggle and Conflict
Chapter 2:
Graduation
Naruto's sun-dappled face was frowning. It was lunchtime on Friday of the final week of his last year in the Academy and he'd settled against the side of the school building to eat pre-prepared ramen from a thermos. On Monday, his class would take the preliminary graduation exams, on Tuesday the practical, and then, hopefully, they'd become genin. Sasuke was nearby, running laps up and down a tree, same as he'd been doing for the past few lunches. Naruto had tried the technique once, but still hadn't quite gotten the hang of it, which was irking him but not nearly as much as other things.
It was a beautiful spring day, just cloudy enough for comfort with a nice breeze, but despite the nice weather the last week's crash course on the larger points of village history had left Naruto in a generally bad mood. Some of it was interesting, but for the most part it was wars, genocides, wars involving genocides, and other depressing things, some hitting uncomfortably close to home. Stories about the Yondaime were nice and all, but he'd have preferred for them to one: come from the man himself, and two: not involve him massacring entire armies, no matter how justified the reason.
Naruto had been told over and over that the life of a ninja was not to be taken lightly, but the last week had tied that truth to a sledgehammer and proceeded to splatter his brains with it.
Countless people over the course of the village's history had died in horrible ways: explosions, drowning, poisons, bludgeoning, and good old fashioned sharp edges were just a few ways that they'd been slaughtered both on and off the battlefield. Half the wars those people had been fighting in had been for the sake of a land-grab or the possibility of a threat. As you might expect, the contemplation of those facts hadn't allowed Naruto much sleep.
With a loud slurp, Naruto finished his ramen and screwed the top of the thermos back on, sighing. He normally wasn't one to dwell on life's bad side. It was one of the reasons he was so hyperactive; down the road of unoccupied time laid thoughts that he really didn't want to deal with.
Sasuke stumbled slightly as he made the nearly ninety-degree adjustment from tree to ground, still at a run, and came to a stop in front of his friend, panting.
Naruto barked out a laugh.
"You should probably go change before lunch ends. I can smell you all the way over here."
Sasuke's satisfied smirk vanished and he lifted his arm. He grimaced and nodded.
"Right."
With a frown, he walked off, slinging on his backpack. Naruto quickly followed suit, putting his lunch back in his own bag and walking around the side of the building toward the main entrance.
With a few minutes left before lunch ended, some of the students had already made their way back to their classrooms. Naruto's instructor, who had earned herself the name "psycho librarian teacher," was sitting quietly behind her desk, reading a book and every now and then glancing up at the room. He was careful to avoid her wandering gaze.
Taking a seat in an empty row next to the leftmost wall, Naruto began drumming his fingers on the desk. He was impatient for this lesson to start, mostly so that it could be over already.
'She'll probably be talking about the attack.' Not a topic he was looking forward to, but he'd known what he was in for when he was put into the history group. Nothing for it now but to wait for the class to start.
IRI
"Alright kids, this is your last chance! Remember, anyone who manages to finish this exercise by the end of the day gets a free dinner at Yakiniku Q on Saturday!"
Sasuke had decided that his instructor reminded him of those idiot game-show hosts on the radio. His whole delivery was over the top and forced, as though he were constantly acting, regardless of the situation. He thought it made the man seem pretentious, but as Naruto had pointed out many a time, his hair looked like a duck, so who was he to criticize people's life choices?
The other students had been attempting to reach kunai stuck at the top of each trunk around the small clearing for several days now. Both as further incentive to master the exercise, and as a minimal safety precaution, the instructor (whose name Sasuke had made a point of not remembering) had used a suiton ninjutsu to turn the clearing into a muddy pit. Several girls and boys who had complained had then received taller trees.
Having gained a functional mastery of the exercise around the same time his classmates had started on it, Sasuke was allowed to train as he pleased. He was currently performing a basic Sharingan exercise: look off into the forest and see how many details you can notice and maintain in your mind at once.
Everything from the direction of the wind, to the angle of the tree limbs to the animals in the area down to the smallest insect was a potential target. His father had explained it in relation to the Hyuga. While their Byakugan gave them total awareness and they were then forced to refine their attention to detail, the Sharingan worked the other way around.
'Any awakened Uchiha can see every facet of one object, but a master of our clan's doujutsu can understand every aspect of an entire battlefield in a single glance. Precise focus is infinitely easier than paying general attention.'
Sasuke had used the exercise to great effect when acquiring his second tomoe, albeit with shuriken in the mix, but so far all effort toward the third had been fruitless. In all likelihood, it would take a truly challenging situation to achieve the final level.
With a frown, Sasuke broke off his gazing and turned to watch the other kids. They were mostly civilians, but there was a girl from the Hagoromo clan as well. Most were making slow and steady progress, with the forerunners nearing their targets. Several would probably be getting that dinner.
He shook his head and ran down his tree, specifically chosen a safe distance away from the mud-pit. He took a seat at the base of the trunk and leaned up against it, hoping to get a nap in after the hard training he'd done at lunch.
Unfortunately for him, the sound of footsteps broke him out of his barely-begun rest. The man stood above him in all his opposite-colored glory, a frown set into his face.
"Don't think you can get away with not doing anything, Uchiha. If this is already easy for you, it shouldn't take you too long to figure out how to walk on the mud without sinking."
Sasuke's mouth opened in preparation for a retort, but instead he elected to shut it and just do as he was told. He was going to need another shower by the end of this.
IRI
"One of the latest important events in this village's history is the Kyubi attack of 12 years ago. Can anyone tell me the context of the event?"
A civilian boy with glasses and an unruly mop of brown hair raised his hand.
"The Third Shinobi World War had only ended three years previously and the Yondaime had been Hokage for two."
The instructor smiled and nodded.
"Yes, Ichiro, it's good to know you've been paying attention."
Naruto's expression, which had been distracted for the last few hours, suddenly went cold. In the back of his mind, he felt the usual strangeness of Kurama stirring, paying attention instead of sleeping like he usually did.
"And… Ah, Uzumaki-san, on what day of the year did the attack occur?"
Naruto's eyes widened and he had to take a second to become marginally calm before he answered.
"The ah… the tenth of October."
His back went rigid as he made eye contact with the woman; she was fixed on him, though her expression was as calm as ever. Without even really meaning to, he kept on talking.
"It was out of nowhere, which makes you wonder if he was really in control of-"
A kunai impacted with the desk next to Naruto's head and he jerked bodily to the side. Her impassive gaze had turned into a glare.
"I asked for a date, Uzumaki, not apologist conjecture."
Naruto gulped and slowly returned to his normal sitting position. He could hear Kurama growling and some mutters from the other students. He sat back up and did his best to slow his heartbeat, calm his breathing. He had to control himself.
The woman turned back around and continued the lesson; occasionally sending looks Naruto's way, but never again calling on him. It was strange how close he'd come to panicking. He'd known this would probably happen before the week was over. Still, being confronted with the reality of his roommate's past was always a nasty experience for the both of them. No matter how nice he was now, Kurama had been a force of mass destruction multiple times before, and nobody was going to let either of them forget it.
IRI
Sunday was a dreary, cloudy day, marked by intermittent showers and markedly less bustle than was average for a large city like Konoha. Saturday on the other hand, had been sunny and busy. Naruto and Sasuke had spent it training by the lake near the old Uchiha District in preparation for the graduation exam. Naruto was creeping closer to mastering the tree-climbing exercise, with a lot of help from both of his roommates of course. Sasuke had spent the whole time in the shallows of the lake, working on what was apparently the next level of the technique. It was slow going. Eventually they'd decided to head home, play a few rounds of cards, and collapse.
Sunday had been spent studying for the written exam. Naruto had put his week of classes to good use, giving Sasuke basic rundowns of some of the more obscure events and even correcting some aspects of the outdated textbook they'd bought at the beginning of the year. Sasuke would have paid for a better one, but he wasn't allowed access to his clan's fortune, at least until he made chunin or came of age. Upside: he had less than four years to wait at the most. Downside: he might have to wait a whole four years and they were dependent on their stipends for just about everything.
On top of the historical side of things, there was a fair amount of chakra theory, mathematics and general field-knowledge that they were supposed to have memorized. The dining room table had been covered in scrolls and textbooks. Sasuke didn't think he'd ever seen Naruto study so hard in his whole school career, which was honestly unsettling. He'd seemed preoccupied the whole weekend, which wasn't nearly as unusual as everyone else might have thought, but still weird.
With an aggravated sigh, Sasuke turned over in his bed, trying to empty his mind. His train of thought had been following the same few tracks the whole damn day. 'Are we prepared enough? What's on Naruto's mind? What if we end up on different teams and something happens to him?'
It was another hour before he managed to fall asleep and even then, it was far from restful. The nightmare this time was of nightmarish eyes; green like jade, narrowed, bruised, and bloodshot. They were unsettlingly familiar. When his alarm finally went off, he was all too eager to greet it.
IRI
Naruto's face was, for once, buried in a book. He'd taken every moment leading up to this test to study and train, and the small time he had before it finally started was no exception. He'd spent an especially long time on chakra theory; it had never been his strong suit. Neither was math. Or code breaking. Or geography. 'Well, none of the academic stuff is my strong suit, but…' The door creaked open. 'Ah crap, here we go.'
Umino Iruka's smiling countenance greeted the class, a small clipboard under his arm. Their assistant instructor Mizuki followed behind, markedly more subdued.
"Good morning, class! I hope you're ready!"
There was an pitchy groan of assent from the students. A few among the group smiled to themselves or frowned. Naruto and Sasuke fell into the second and final camps respectively, not because of different mindsets, but simply because they expressed determination differently. Mizuki walked forward with a pile of papers as he explained the test.
"As you've been told, this test consists of four portions. One is mathematics and code breaking. Two is chakra theory. Three is history and geography. Four is practical application. The last section is worth as much as the first three combined, so if you fail that, you fail the whole test."
There were a few complaints voiced, but they quickly died down. Shinobi had to be able to adapt to new problems, follow orders, and complaining helped none of that. That had been drilled into them more times than they could count.
"Please put away all study materials now. You can leave with them once you've finished."
The students put away their books and scrolls, and Mizuki began passing out tests with Iruka not far behind, carrying pencils. They hadn't bothered taking attendance.
Naruto's expression scrunched as he thought hard on what he'd just heard. 'I guess that's kind of a test in the first place. Follow orders to the letter or fail, right?'
The first few questions were easy, but basic algebra soon gave way to trigonometry and the like. Naruto had hated studying for this portion, but apparently it had paid off; he'd only gotten stuck three times by the time he got through the math and started on decoding. He breezed through those three questions mostly because two of them were utterly incomprehensible to him. He wiped his sweaty palms on his pants and pushed on, leaving mostly nonsense in his wake.
The rest of the written test was infinitely easier for him; chakra theory was interesting, if confusing, and he'd spent an entire week being drilled on history, making the third section the easiest by far. The fourth was a short series of questions, each using at least two of the previous three sections. One in particular had to do with booby-trapping a major bridge without causing it extensive damage. 'Honestly, when the hell would we need to know that?'
Sasuke managed to finish about ten minutes before Naruto, but the dark-haired boy waited around anyway. It wasn't as though they had anything especially pressing on the itinerary.
When Naruto finally made the last flourishing mark on his page, it was with a tentatively proud grin on his face. His hand shot into the air and Iruka came up to him, smiling as he picked up the paper and pencil. A sly wink passed from him to his favorite student before he turned and marched back down the steps to the teachers' desk, a slight upward curve still present on his lips.
IRI
"Attention!" Mizuki stood in the middle of the mid-sized gymnasium in back of the academy. His fingers were pressed to his throat and his voice carried over the ten rows of filled stands. Silence fell upon the assembled students and prospective jounin-sensei like an anticipatory blanket.
'Must be some sort of amplifying jutsu. Could be useful.' Sasuke activated his Sharingan and quickly memorized the chakra flow of the jutsu. It was fairly basic, easy to reproduce with maybe a few hours' practice later on.
"For the practical portion of the exam, those who have passed the written portion and the latest ninjutsu test will be called down to the gym floor to participate in two-on-two team spars. Fights will continue until both members of a team have conceded, taken five direct hits to the torso and/or head, or are knocked out. Chakra use is allowed, but ninjutsu and genjutsu are not." There were excited murmurs and a few groans from the prospective genin, but the assembled chunin and jounin remained silent. The Sandaime sat above them all on a raised chair in the top row, eyes scanning his possible future subordinates.
"Team One will be Haruno Sakura and Akimichi Chouji. Team Two will be Uzumaki Naruto and Sasaki Ichiro." Naruto quickly took off down the steps to the gym floor, a grin on his face. His partner, a relatively average-built glasses-wearing civilian in shorts and a rumpled long-sleeved shirt walked more cautiously, as did Chouji, who looked extremely nervous, but determined nonetheless. Sakura's pace was fast, but controlled. Her face was impassive and her hands were clenched into fists. Each of them took positions a few feet to either side of the mid-line. Naruto, Sakura, and Ichiro had taken the standard academy ready position, but Chouji was in a wide, low-set stance that Sasuke hadn't seen before.
'Must be a clan style. I guess his parents gave him the okay to use it in public.' There was a moment of tense silence then Mizuki brought his hand down.
"Go!"
Sakura made an immediate beeline for Ichiro, unleashing a flurry of blows that quickly put him on the defensive. Her technique was neat and efficient as always, if a bit stiff, and from the way her opponent kept being pushed back her small frame belied her actual strength.
Chouji and Naruto meanwhile, were circling each other warily. They'd fought before during spars and both knew that they were up against a challenging opponent. After a few more moments, it was Naruto who initiated the fight.
His opening attack was a running punch at Chouji's face. The boy blocked it neatly, deflecting the attack to the side and attempting to end the match quickly with a blow to the head. Naruto jumped back with remarkable speed and aimed a kick at his opponent's legs, hoping to unbalance him. The larger boy neatly sidestepped the blow and intercepted the next: a chakra-reinforced punch that steamrolled squarely into the middle of his x-block. Before he even had time to recover, Naruto's knee had collided with his stomach. He stumbled back and Naruto shot into him, knocking the young clan heir to the ground and pulling back his fist for another blow. He was still grinning. "Concede."
Chouji seemed undecided, and Naruto's fist tensed in preparation for a quick decent, but before he could act Sakura came out of nowhere. Her foot collided squarely with Naruto's side and he fell sideways, clutching at the point of impact. He managed to scramble to his feet, but the pink-haired kunoichi was already on him. Chouji had recovered his breath and his footing, but had apparently elected to step back and let the two faster fighters duke it out for the moment.
For once, Naruto was on the defensive, blocking and ducking around blow after blow. Finally, he saw an opening; she'd overextended in an attempt to break his guard. Shunting the force of her punch to his side, he stepped to her right and slammed his fist squarely into her ribs. She grunted in pain and stumbled away from him.
This time, Naruto saw the blow coming before it hit. The heel of Chouji's open palm collided with his head just in time for his eyes to widen, and he was sent flying. The boy had put all of his considerable weight behind the blow. It was a small miracle that Naruto was simply left reeling and not knocked out cold.
He crawled back to his feet, eyes narrowed. His grin had vanished and he'd once again adopted the academy guard stance. He beckoned his opponents, expression grim. "Come on. Let's do this."
As before Sakura rushed him first, fists and feet colliding with his already shaken guard. But even so, his stamina was significantly better than hers. He could afford to go all out for hours, she was already breathing hard.
Once again, Chouji came in to deliver a powerful finishing blow, but Naruto had confronted the problem before and this time he knew how to avoid it. Despite his strength, Chouji was slow compared to many in the class. As his blow was sidestepped he was left off balance and Naruto landed four quick blows to his torso, doubling him over and knocking him out of the match. Now it was just him and Sakura, who had moved away and was in the same stance Naruto had adopted just a few short moments previously.
Naruto didn't waste time. Thanks to his parentage and the fox sealed in him, he was still fighting at full strength, but he had the beginnings of a headache and it was getting harder to control his breathing. He rushed Sakura, attempting to simply bulldoze her guard. But instead of taking the hit or trying to avoid it, she caught his forearm and allowed his own momentum to carry his body into her fist.
It was a beautiful movement, perfectly timed, fluid and fast. He never even saw it coming. In the space of a moment, his breath was gone and he was on the ground, weighed down by a pink-haired girl whose eyes held the manic glint of victory. A shrill whistle rang out and Sakura climbed off of Naruto, walking off to the medic stand and cradling the developing bruise on her side as several jounin started taking notes and flipping through files. He was still grinning as he walked back into the stands; hand over his stomach to hide a slight golden glow.
IRI
For the most part, Sasuke wasn't very surprised by the fights that followed. Kiba trounced two big civilian boys almost without any help from his likewise originating teammate. Hinata fought a slightly more interesting battle with the Aburame heir and a girl named Kumiko who managed to get in several hits on the Hyuga girl before going down. Ino of course proved that she was worthy of being rookie of the year. Other than Sakura, it was mostly a strong showing for the clan students with the civies as glorified punching bags.
When Sasuke's name was called, it was a blessing. He had been getting bored. His walk to the stage was calm and collected. Shikamaru walked down in a similar fashion, though his expression was more bored than confident. Their partners seemed apprehensive. Clearly they remembered what had happened to their fellows. Sasuke noticed offhandedly that they were both wearing red t-shirts.
Shikamaru stood without a particular stance, stretching his neck and muttering something uncomplimentary about the whole exercise under his breath. Sasuke adopted a standard academy stance; Boujuken would be wasted without the Sharingan.
Once again, Mizuki brought his hand down and Sasuke rushed Shikamaru, before switching direction on a dime and heading for the Nara heir's teammate. The boy's guard was solid, but Sasuke was quick and agile. He slid seamlessly into a sweeping kick that almost took out the boy's legs and succeeded in severely unbalancing him. The young Uchiha turned his rising into an uppercut that was barely blocked and still put his opponent on his back.
All the same, the boy had gone through the Academy; he managed to turn his impact with the gym floor into a rolling recovery and was on his feet before Sasuke could continue his assault. His dark green eyes glared at the last Uchiha through brown bangs and he made a probing kick at Sasuke's knee.
Sasuke managed to avoid it by stepping back and retaliated with a jab at his opponent's face, which was deflected to the side and returned with a heavier blow. Sasuke sidestepped the attack and landed another heavy punch to the boy's guard, which moved just fast enough to protect his stomach. A knee followed up the punch and the boy was forced backward again, clutching the point of impact and barely avoiding a flurry of punches and kicks from Sasuke.
When he thought about it later, Sasuke would admit with some chagrin that it was his own fault. Getting tired of attacking an opponent just fast enough to deflect and dodge his blows, he shot out a particularly vicious straight kick and ended up overextending as the boy dodged. He managed to block the retaliatory blow, but it was stronger than he'd expected. His own arms bulldozed into his face, and took him off of his feet. It was only thanks to the miracle of chakra reinforcement that he recovered quickly enough to deflect the follow-up and move inside his opponent's guard. Sasuke landed four quick hits to his torso and one prospective genin was out of the match.
Immediately switching focus, he saw that Shikamaru was managing to dance around his opponent's blows with relative ease, which was quickly sending said thirteen-year-old into something of a rage. As Sasuke prepared to intervene on his teammate's behalf, the boy was forced to stop for air, which seemingly had been exactly what the Nara boy was waiting for. Two sharp punches to the head and gut later, the boy was down and a sharp kick to the top of his head knocked him out. It was a surprisingly quick movement for someone who always seemed to be doing nothing.
But even as Sasuke rushed in to capitalize on his distraction, Shikamaru's hand rose above his head and Mizuki made eye contact.
"Would you like to concede?"
Shikamaru frowned, and for a second he seemed to be weighing his options. Finally, he nodded, not even bothering to say the words. Sasuke stopped short, slightly annoyed. 'Well… That was anticlimactic.'
AN: Well, here we are at the end of another chapter, with a slightly shorter waiting period this time. YAY! Anyway, I took the liberty of switching up the academy graduation exam, mostly to make it seem in some way comprehensive. I know that it's never stated in canon they didn't take any other tests, but I thought it would be worth it to actually show that they did. Also, Naruto passed in this version; there will be no Mizuki revelation, mostly because Naruto already knows about Kurama and is both intelligent and socially adjusted enough to smell that particular rat. Trying it would seem forced.
On another note, here are the translations for some Japanese that people might not know from canon.
Boujuken: As far as I can tell, this is the Japanese translation of Intercepting Fist, an Uchiha taijutsu style designed to utilize the Sharingan to its fullest.
