Chapter 4: The test

June 5th

Yuko had been staying the night at a hotel. She did find a house to buy when she found a realtor, after leaving the Hokage's office the day before, and to her luck it was her old childhood home, so she could not say no to buy the house, since it was filled with childhood memories. The realtor had told her that she would have the key ready for her when she would come and sign the papers the day after, which was now today.

Yuko put on the new ninja outfit she bought yesterday after looking for a house. Her new outfit consisted of a red top, a fishnet t-shirt, a black flat jacket, a pair of short black leggings and a skirt that was opened on both sides and connected by belts. She placed her weapon holster around her right thigh and looked at herself in the mirror that hung on the wall by the door. She smiled lightly, walked out of the hotel room and locked the door before leaving the hotel. She walked through the streets of Konoha as she headed for the third training ground, and looked around at the buildings and surroundings she passed on her way. It made her happy to see that the village had not changed much from when she lived there as a kid. There were more shops and buildings now compared to back then, but there were still the same amount of trees and bushes as there was when she was a little girl.

Yuko had reached the third training ground before she knew of it, and looked around to see if she could see Tsunade anywhere, but she could not spot her anywhere nearby and figured that she must have arrived early. She jumped up in a tree and sat down on a thick branch to wait for Tsunade and the other ninjas to arrive, but she did not get to sit in the tree for long before she heard Tsunade's voice from underneath her. "Where is she? I told her to be here by 10am, so she should be here by now!" The tone in Tsunade's voice sounded like she was annoyed.

Yuko looked down at Tsunade and the three ninjas she had brought with her. One of the three ninjas was a guy Yuko knew very well. He had the same black bowl cut hair, thick eyebrows and green jumpsuit as twenty years ago. It was Gai. She had no doubt that it was him. The other two ninjas were strangers to her. They were both females, but one of them seemed to be a teenager, whereas the other seemed to be older than Yuko. The teenager's eyes and hair was a dark brown color and she had her hair in Chinese-styled buns. The other female's eyes and hair was black and her hair reached her shoulders.

Yuko jumped down from the branch she was sitting on and landed in front of Tsunade and three ninjas. She waved lightly at them and smiled. "I'm right here, Tsunade-sama. I was sitting up in the tree and waiting for you." She said and rubbed the back of her head.

Tsunade looked at Yuko with a raised eyebrow and sighed. "Fine. Let's get to it. I'm going to put you through three different tests. I want to see your weapon skills, speed and how you combine your ninjutsu and taijutsu in battle. Your first test will be weapon skills and you are up against the village's best weapon user, Tenten. Both of you are going to hit five targets each. You have to hit them as precisely as possible and with as many weapon as possible. The targets are over there." Tsunade pointed towards the targets. There were five for Yuko and five for Tenten, so ten targets in total.

Yuko nodded understanding and looked at Tenten as she stepped forward. The two of them looked at each other for a brief moment before looking back at Tsunade as stepped back along with the two other ninjas. "Stand at least twenty meters from the targets and start when you are ready!"

Both Yuko and Tenten faced the targets and moved away until they were about twenty meters away from them. Yuko reached into her weapon holster for her kunais and began to throw them at the targets. When she had thrown the last kunai she reached for one of her scrolls, opened it and moved her palm along the back of it while channeling her chakra into the seals that was on the back of the scroll, making a lot of shurikens, kunais, sickles, daggers and katanas emerge from the scroll and hit the targets. When her scroll was emptied from all of its weapons, Yuko lowered her arms and looked at the targets, smiling satisfied as she saw all five targets were covered with her weapons. She looked over at Tenten's targets and her targets were covered in weapons as well. Tenten was good at handling her weapons and she had talent, Yuko could clearly see that. She figured that Tenten had been practicing her weapon skills for years and estimated her to be around 16 years old. She was impressed that Tenten showed such talent in her weapon skills at that age, since she was 19 before she mastered her weapon skills.

Tsunade stepped closer and looked at the targets from both Yuko and Tenten. "That's amazing. Well done. Your weapon skills appear to be at the same level as Tenten's. Gather your weapons and get ready for the next test." She said with a stern tone in her voice.

Yuko nodded lightly and walked over to the targets to gather her weapons. She placed her hand on a seal on the scroll and all of the weapons disappeared back inside the scroll, except the kunais and shurikens she had in her weapon holster. She pulled the kunais and shurikens out of the targets one by one and put them back her holster.

Tenten walked over to Yuko after she had gathered her own weapons, and looked at her with a cheery smile. "You were amazing. You must have trained hard to master your weapon skills." She said and put her scrolls away.

Yuko looked at Tenten nodded lightly at her statement. "Thank you, and yes I have. My sensei trained me hard every day until I could call myself a weapon expert and specialist. I would sometimes train with my teammates and some of my friends to try out some of the new weapons I had been taught to use." She said with a smile and walked over to Tsunade along with Tenten. "What is my next test Tsunade-sama?" She asked and looked at her, but glanced at the female ninja with the black hair as she ran to the other end of the third training ground.

Tsunade looked at Yuko and folded her arms over her chest. "Your next test will be speed. You are going to race against our fastest ninja, Gai. You are going to run from that spot." She said and pointed at a red flag. "And then run to the other end of the third training ground to the other red flag. There's about 1.000 meters to the red flag and my assistant, Shizune, will be there to keep track of your time." She explained and looked at Gai and Yuko.

Yuko nodded understanding and looked at Gai. This was indeed going to be interesting. The last time she saw Gai, his ninja skills were as bad as hers, but he could not use ninjutsu, and now he seemed to be the fastest ninja in Konoha. He had been training a lot and improved his skills, Yuko was sure of that. She walked to the starting point with Gai and smiled as she walked. "Hi Gai. How have you been?" She asked, hoping that he could recognize her.

Gai blinked and looked at Yuko with a slightly raised eyebrow as he moved closer to her while walking, to get a better look at her face, which made her sweat drop, because it annoyed her just as much when Kotetsu did it the day before. "Hmm. Do I, Mighty Gai, know you?" He asked while rubbing his chin as he thought about the woman in front of him could be. She seemed familiar to him, but he could not recognize her the slightest.

Yuko giggled lightly at his words and shrugged. "Maybe you do, maybe you don't." She said and smiled. He sure had not changed a bit, he was still the same and that made her happy to see. Although, she felt a little disappointed that he could not recognize her, since they used to hang out a lot when she lived in the village and they were close friends, but it was still fun to see that he appeared to be thinking hard of where he had seen her before.

Tsunade looked at Yuko and Gai as they had reached the starting point and cleared her throat to get their attention. She motioned for the two of them to take their positions to get ready. Once they were ready she began to count down. "3... 2... 1... Run!" She shouted and folded her arms over her chest.

Gai immediately sprinted off towards the flag at the other end of the third training ground, leaving a trail of dust behind him, which made Yuko blink to prevent getting the dust in her eyes. She was indeed surprised by his high speed, but she had no time to be impressed and ran off to try and catch up to him. She could see Gai ahead of her and sped up to try and at least get up next to him. She realized that she could not outrun him at this point, but hoped that she could at least get up next to him and finish at the same time. The moment Gai could see Yuko catching up to him, he sped up as well and got even further ahead of her. He had to give it his all, even though it was just a test. It would not be a challenge for the new female ninja if he let her catch up to him that easy.

Yuko kept the same speed, since she could not run any faster than she already was, and she had no chance to catch up to Gai at this point. He was simply way too fast for her. Once she reached the red flag the Hokage's assistant, Shizune, who was there to take their time, stopped the stopwatch and looked at the time. "One minute and ten seconds."

Yuko nodded lightly and felt satisfied with her result of the speed test. Her speed was about average and she knew her speed limit, so she was very satisfied. She looked at Gai while panting lightly and smiled. "You're faster than I thought you were. How did you become so fast?" She asked and headed back to Tsunade along with Gai and Shizune.

Gai chuckled lightly and gave Yuko a thumbs up while giving her a flashy smile. "I gained my speed through a lot of training and being youthful! If you train more you will maybe be just as fast as me one day."

Yuko nodded lightly and sweat dropped a bit from Gai's silliness. He had definitely not changed a bit and that made Yuko happy to see her old friend being the same silly person he was as back then. "Thank you for the advice." She smiled lightly at him.

Tsunade looked at three of them as they got back and immediately looked at her Shizune. "What are their times?" She asked and folded her arms over her chest.

Shizune looked at her papers where she had written down the times. "Gai's time is forty-seven seconds and the new ninja's time is one minute and ten seconds." She said and looked at Tsunade, who just nodded lightly while looking at Yuko. "Not bad. That's a good time. Let's move on to the last test, which is to test your ninjutsu and taijutsu skills. Your opponent is going to be-…" She was cut off when a relatively tall male shinobi with silver spiky hair appeared. "I'll be her opponent." He had a deep voice, which had a slightly bored undertone.