Hello everyone its Neverswinter, I'm extremely sorry about the late update, but in currently studying for A – levels which was taking up a lot of my time, I hope you enjoy the next chapter of my story and for those who also like the 'Vizards Nobori', I will be started to write the new version of it soon, but one last thing for people who like my stories, I have a new story coming out soon, it is going to be an attempt to learn how to write longer chapters and stories, anyway I hope you enjoy the chapter
The Gates of Konoha, Three weeks later
An eerie supernatural fog covered the gates of the Village hidden in the leaves as three Death Knights walked down the road towards the guards on station there, all of them wearing the same type of gear, the normal Death Knight armour (think the starting amour from WoW but has plate legs instead of a robe) which shrouded their identities in shadow and mystery
Approaching the gates though the fog gave them all a darker presences about them, as they reached the gates the guards there were on full alert in case they where enemies of the village and worked for someone like Orochimaru, unfortunate for them they all served someone far greater in both power and evil, once they reached the two guards the tallest of the two was slowly reaching for his weapon
"State your intentions in Konoha, and if you have any documents hand them over to be checked" the Chunin said as Naruto reached into his pocket and pulled out a scroll and threw it at the guard that had just spoken allowing him to read what was on the paper before nodding and handing back to Naruto
"Okay everything seems to be in order, Welcome to Konoha and good luck in the exams" the Chunin said relaxing considerably and giving them a nervous grin, all Naruto did was give them a small nod as him and his team walked into Konoha casually looking forward to the task the Lich King had set ahead for them
Once into the city Naruto's teammates followed him in silence, as they turned into a darkened alley, he stopped before facing his teammates and removed his hood as did they
"Remember our job, we are to collect bodies for the Lich King if possible and we are to also scout out any possible recruits for the Cult of the Dammed or for possible Death Knights, Kagash, and Alessia; I want you both to refer to me as Nex during our stay in Konoha and keep your identities secret, now go out and start searching for possible members an inform me of any I shall be scanning out the village for possible threats, you have your orders now go" Naruto said darkly as they all put up there hoods again and left the alleyway to continue with their mission
With Hinata and her friends
Hinata was not having a good time since Naruto's death, she had been more alone than ever, her Sensei and teammates tried to cheer her up but so far weren't doing so well at it, although she did find a few friends that would always stay with her to make her feel better; Shikamaru and Haku both were always with her, if one wasn't the other was, together they had agreed to help Konohamaru and Hinata cope with the young blondes death, at the moment all four of them were together on their way to the ramen stand which Naruto love so much
As they approached Ayame spotted them approaching she started waving to them with a smile, already at the table was a hooded figure wearing black, it was noticeable to the four of them that Ayame seemed nervous around him, seeing Ayame's reaction he also turned to see who it was, much to their surprise the hooded figure's face was completely disguised by shadow, other than his eyes which were just visible as a cold blue, which sent shivers up their spines, after seeing them he just went back to eating his food as the group reached him
"Hello guys, how are you? I was just talking with the stranger here, he's here for the Chunin exams being held soon" Ayame said gesturing to the teen eating his Ramen quietly
Said stranger noticing that more people had arrived nodded towards them in greeting but kept himself quite while continuing to eat his Ramen, after that the group decided to sit down at the Ramen bar to get something to eat, Hinata didn't know why but decided to sit next to the mysterious Stanger who hadn't said a word since their arrival.
After a few minutes of the group happily talking among themselves Hinata decided to try and talk to the mysterious stranger sitting next to her
"Um… h-hello im Hinata h-hyuga what's y-your name?" she asked with her usual stutter, hearing her the stranger looked over to her, his face still covered by shadow, he then spoke with a voice which made Haku and Shikamaru tense up dramatically, the only reason Hinata and Konohamaru did tense up as they did was because there grief was clouding them minds
"Greetings lady Hyuga, I am Nex. I am here for the Chunin exams being held tomorrow, I expect your teachers have already informed you about this?" Nex said in his ice cold voice
"Y-yes Kurenai sensei, t-told us a-about the e-exams yesterday, she s-said they a-are dangerous b-but a g-good experience" Hinata said smiling a bit, she hoped the exams would take her mind of the young blondes demise
"Your teacher had much wisdom, even if you don't pass the examination but information collected from the experience will help you greatly, now tell me of your companions, are they also entering the exams" Nex asked turning his shadowed gaze over towards Shikamaru and Haku, both of them had slightly narrowed eyes at the stranger, they didn't know what but this guy just seemed to ... unnatural
"Yes, we are entering the exams. Well all of us apart from Konohamaru who is still in the academy" Haku answered not taking her eyes off of Nex's Ice blue ones
"Yea, it's rather troublesome to have to do these exams but Ino would kill me if I tried not to take part" Shikamaru sighed before looking at Konohamaru, all of them had the exam to occupy their minds whilst Konohamaru didn't have anything, but before he could speak Nex beat him to it
"What's wrong boy, you act like someone has died?" Nex said apparently not realising what he said was upsetting the two as the young boy turned to him looking both angry and depressed
"That's because the first person to ever accept me for who I am, not who I am related to died three months ago" he said glaring at the hood teen, as Nex gave a laugh which sounded as icy as his eyes
"There is fire within you boy, but why wallow in the pity of death. If you wallow in that pity then you will never become stronger, never mourn those who have died but take up their blades and honour and fight their honour as well as your own, that way even in death their spirit knows the thrill of battle and can rest easy knowing that they are defending you and you are defending them" Nex explained the young boy listening to him carefully, Haku and Shikamaru were also watching the two carefully to see how Konohamaru would react
"You know what you're right, I'm going to get stronger so that I can fight in the battles Naruto – nii never will be able to fight in" he said with a large grin "thank you Nex for opening my eye" before taking in a large breath and running off to find his friends and train
"Thank you for doing that, he's been depressed for weeks" Haku said smiling slightly at the hooded teen
Nex didn't reply as he heard a screeching voice coming from behind him as he turned around slowly to see a pink haired girl, who was most defiantly Sakura
"Haku you bitch were is Sasuke, I've been looking for him everywhere, and I can't find him" she screeched, spit flying everywhere as she looked angrily at the young brunette
"Probably hiding from you..." Haku said under her breath loud enough for Hinata and Shikamaru to heard making them both laugh, sadly Sakura also heard as she decided to let all hell fly loose
"What did you say you whore, why didn't you go and die with the idiot Naruto and leave Sasuke with a beautiful woman like me, after all you belong in the gutter with your legs open" she screeched, what she said had also greatly upset Haku, Shikamaru was about to yell back before he was beaten by an un-stuttering Hinata
"And why don't you go peddle yourself down the bottom end of Konoha's industrial estate and see if you can get in with Orochimaru because he is the only person who would possible love you, you self centred, spoiled little brat, you give woman a bad name just by the way you act, now fuck off" she screamed at Sakura with tears in her eyes, looking very red and even more upset than Haku was
"Why you little..." Sakura started bringing her fist back in order to punch Hinata in the nose but just before she threw her fist, she saw a flash of blue and black before her, in front of her was a hooded figure with icy blue eyes, his aura black as black as the night and as cold as a midwinter's eve, he was moderate in height and held himself as a true warrior would before he spoke with an even icier tone than the one he was using before
"You are irritating; begone from my presence before I feed you to Frostmourne you worm, you are the most pathetic person I have seen since my entry into this village, like Lady Hyuga said, get away from here. Now!" Nex said in front of her as she nodded and fled from the hooded boy "I apologise for my actions, but I must leave for now, I have to prepare for the exam tomorrow" he finished bowing before them, before he left he reached into his gear and pulled out a small leather bag and threw it at Ayame who was still standing there in shock at what had just happened, surprised she caught it and opened it to discover it was full with about 50 gold coins, shocked she looked to the stranger
"I like the food, here and I think it deserves more than a tiny shack" he explained before leaving towards his accommodation for the evening
The Chunin Exam day
Sasuke was feeling irritated, why you might ask is the so called genius feeling annoyed at this current moment, the explanation is simple; Sakura. At the moment instead of concentrating on the exams was currently annoying him to no end with constant asking for dates, he was slowing getting to the point where he was going to take out a Kunai and kill himself with it. He glanced over to Haku who was currently glaring daggers at the oblivious girl, now if looks could kills Sakura would currently be frozen in a block of ice which would never melt even if it was in the sun.
His mind was also occupied on some other things which had happened earlier in the week, first was saving Konohamaru from a strange sand Genin called Gaara who had promised to 'Feed him to mother' as enjoyable as that sounded he decided he would keep a very close eye on the Genin, next was about a mysterious Genin called Nex, who according to Haku was 'even icier than her ice'. And lastly there was Rock Lee a genin from team Gai who he ran into before the start of the exam, he challenged him to a fight which he lost to lee badly, but to him it showed him he still wasn't ready to fight Itachi and was another excuse to train stronger and pass these exams.
Just as he was about to shout at Sakura to shut up he noticed that Kakashi Sensei was in front of them by the door reading his little orange book, he alerted the other two to Kakashi presence as they walked over to him
"Ah, I see your all here, that's good. If one of you decided not to turn up the others would not have been able to participate in the exams" he stated much to the shock of the three
"But if you knew that why did you give us the choice to enter the exams or not?" Sakura said knowing that she was heavily debating whether or not to come to the exams
"Because it means you yourself chose to come to the exams and were not pressured into coming to the exams by your team-mates" Kakashi said eye smiling "anyway good luck in the exams, and hopefully you will all become Chunin" he finished watching them go through the doors to the exam
Once they entered they truly knew what they were up against, everyone in the exams was staring at them in silence, as if trying to eye them up and intimidate them, Haku felt some cold sweat fall down the back of her neck seeing all of these people watching her, she felt a bit intimidated, well until she heard the scream of "SASUKE!". She turned around to see Ino jumping at Sasuke and attaching herself to him
"Get off him Ino pig!" Sakura shouted, in response Ino only stuck out her tongue at Sakura, they were about to start fighting until they heard another familiar voice
"So I see you guys have also been dragged into this exam, how troublesome" Shikamaru sighed as Choji chuckled at his friend with a mouth full of chips, as the rest of the rookies appeared
"So Sasuke do you think you're going to pass this exam, I've been training really hard with Kurenai sensei getting ready for the exams" Kiba said with an arrogant grin of his face, next to him was Hinata who looked nervous about Kiba's proclamation, Sasuke was about to answer when they heard a voice from behind them
"I'd quieten down if I were you" a young boy with glasses said coming up behind them
"Yeah and why should I do..." Kiba began but was interrupted by the door being smashed open with three figures walking inside, the first was a large boy his face was covered by a hood, and he was wearing black armour with a giant western broadsword on his back he seemed to of been the one who opened the door. Next was a fairly short girl, she had blonde hair from what people could tell as some of it was coming out of her hood which was as with the other covering her face, on her back was a staff of some kind, her gear was also different from the other two, it seemed lighter and more robe like than plate-mail.
But the one in the centre was most intimidating of all, he was shorter than the other two but seemed to make it up with his presence, he was dressed allot like the first boy, but his sword was that of a bastard sword hanging at his waist, most of it though was covered up with is cloak but the hilt was particularly creepy with a dragons skull on the end, other than that no-one could tell anything about him. As soon as Haku and Shikamaru saw him they knew exactly who he was; Nex, Sakura on the other hand was as pale as a sheet and was trembling, this boy creped her out to no end, Hinata on the other hand smiled and gave a small wave to the mysterious boy, who turned to her and nodded before going further into the room and taking a seat.
"Who the hell are those guys" Kiba exclaimed eyeing them up as potential opponents, the rest of the Genin in the room were staring at them. But to the three strangers they sat there in absolute silence watching the crowd in front of them.
"All I know they follow the short one in the middle, I believe his name was Nex" said the boy with the glasses, before remembering he hadn't introduced himself
"Ah, where are my manors, my name is Kabuto Yakushi" he said giving a small smile
"So Kabuto is this your first time in the exams?" Shikamaru asked eyeing up the Genin
"No this is my seventh, the exam is held every six months and this is my seventh attempt at it" he stated shocking the group "although from theses' failures it has allowed me to collect a lot of useful information about people participating in the exams" he then said taking out a pack of cards from his pocket and presenting them to the group.
"It's just a deck of cards" Kiba deadpanned looking at the older boy
"Ah yes but if you add chakra to them, then they reveal the information you require" Kabuto explained to the rookies "anyone want to know anything about anyone?" he asked intrigued if anyone wanted to know anything
The rookies were silent among themselves until Sasuke decided to speak looking a Kabuto calmly
"What information do you have on Gaara of the Sand, Rock Lee and Nex?" he asked determined to win in this exam
"Ahh man you know their names no fun, but okay here they are" he said pulling out three cards and showing them the first with a picture of Gaara on the front "Gaara of the sand, his teammates are Temari and Kankuro, he has completed a few D and C ranks and…. Ohhh…. And even a few B rank missions, the scariest thing about this is though he has returned from each of these missions without even a scratch, his abilities have something to do with sand but other than that it seems to be unknown" he said surprise evident on his face, Sasuke looked over to Gaara with narrowed eyes wondering how it was possible that he could do his missions without a single scratch
"Next up is Rock Lee; his teammates are Neji Hyuuga and Tenten Tenshi, he has completed a lot of D and C rank missions, his skills are puzzling, he seems to have no skill in Ninjutsu and Genjutsu, but is a taijutsu specialist like the rest of his team, Ohhh… and it appears he was also the dead last of the year previous" shock quite evident in his voice, this made Sasuke eyes widen like plates, it also widen the eyes of Haku and Sakura who though Lee was a gifted genius like Sasuke, it was a real shocker to them that he was in the same position as Naruto
"W-what, he was dead last like Naruto was…." Sasuke stated slowly still shocked at what he had learned only moments ago, Kabuto kept quiet for a few moments watching the young Uchiha closely before continuing with the last card
"And lastly Nex…." Kabuto started, this was not only on Sasuke mind but everyone who was in earshot of Kabuto was carefully listening to the information on the dark mysterious Genin, when he showed them the card they were all surprised as it was completely blank "I have absolutely no information about him, he is a complete mystery as far as I can tell, but the one thing I can tell you is armour like that doesn't come from anywhere in the elemental nations" he stated looking at next himself only for him to shiver slightly at the piercing blue eyes which seemed to stare into his soul
The other Genin looked over to Nex and his team, each with different thoughts about who they were, none of them even close to the truth
"So Kabuto which of the other villages are participating in the exams this year?" Sakura asked curious as the only other foreign Nin happened to be a half crazy Jonin and his bitch of a sidekick, which at the thought of decided to give Haku a cold glare to which the brown haired girl simply returned
"Ah, there are many different villages participating this year, of course the Konoha is taking part, there are a few Shinobi from other places like Suna, Ame, Kusa and Taki, there is also a group from a new village called Otogakure, but I wouldn't pay much attention to them they are problem being sent so the village will gain some new stature among the other nations" Kabuto explained before a three flashes of colour appeared in front of the Genin along with a fist aimed at Kabuto's face before it stopped revealing the three sound Genin, Kabuto was about to smile before his glasses broke and he fell to the floor spilling his stomach contains
"Listen here, the Shinobi from Oto will all pass this exam and make it to Chunin, remember that next time you try to run your mouth" stated the wrapped up Genin who looked a lot like a mummy.
Just before Kiba could do anything there were three large explosions of smoke to reveal a group of Jonin and Chunin, the one in the center commanded nearly as such of a presence of fear as Nex did, he had two scars on his face and looked like he could read your thoughts by just looking into your eyes, the one in the center looked over to the almost fighting Genin and spoke
"No fighting unless I permit it or you will fail the exam right now, I am Ibiki Morino and I will be your proctor for the first exam, welcome to hell kiddies" he said giving a sadistic grin "now everyone take your Seats and I will begin the exam"
As everyone took their seats Hinata noticed she was seated next to the mysterious Genin she met yesterday; Nex, she didn't know why but instead of feeling intimidated by him, he felt curiously familiar to her, but she could just not place her finger on it, Nex though didn't really seem to have noticed her but looked forward his cold blue eyes still the only thing visible from the shadow of his hood, it was like they seemed to have an unnatural glow to them.
With Nex though he was split upon two emotions, calm and panic, as crazy as it sounds was true, he was calm because he knew he could pass the part of the exam easily with his teammates as the runes on their weapons could allow Frostmourne to communicate telepathically with them, and he collect the answers from Alessia; a mage trained at Dalaran before joining the cult of the dammed, the test would be easy. The problem though was the fact someone next he knew was sitting very close to him and might accidently give away his identity to Konoha
"Calm yourself child, be glad you can still feel emotions, as it is my Infinite magical supply that Frostmourne is feeding upon, good thing it replenishes itself quicker than it devours it. As long as you keep calm and level headed you won't be discovered, try to reveal as little of my powers as possible, that will prevent them detecting you from my magical energy, use the powers the Lich King has taught you, I believe they will be very useful in helping you avoid detection for now" the fox stated, its council ringing in Naruto's mind, Naruto gave a mental nod looking up a Ibiki trying to ignore the girl who was staring at him puzzled
"okay the rules are simple for this test, you will have one hour to complete all ten questions, the tenth question will be given fifth teen minutes towards the end, every question you get right counts as one points and every question you get wrong takes one points away, if you are caught cheating two points will be taken away and if you are caught five times you fail the exam" Ibiki stated, some people looking relived others looking slightly nervous "Oh and did I forget to mention that if one member of a team fails then the entire team fails with them" he then stated grinning
Every team instantly paled knowing that they each had a short straw in their team which could mean that they would possible fail. However none were more nervous than team 7 who was silently curing the gods for this situation
"Let the first exam Begin" Ibiki announced. Not knowing what sequence of events had just started once he finished those words.
Authors note
Now then again im sorry for not updating for a while, as I've stated earlier I've been extremely busy and education takes priority over fiction sadly, but I hope to keep writing this story as people seem to enjoy it, and remember to be on the lookout for my new story which will be published soon after this chapter hopefully.