Keitaro panted hard on the ground in a puddle of his on sweat or was that blood? The girl in front of him smirked with the same smile and keen look as the female Anbu from the day before.

'Could they be related' he thought as he stood again his legs shaking as he forced them to work. He could distinctly hear the judges behind him as they hastily tallied down the score so far.

'This is defiantly not going the way I had expected' Keitaro thought as he began to resize his opponent 'and to think it started so easy.'

******

The Chunin at the head of the class had decided enough sweat had been lost, when he finally got to explaining exactly what the finals were to consist of.

"Okay runts this is how things go down" Kin started a gleam in his eye "Yesterday we asked you if you knew what it took to be a ninja, today your going to have to prove it" he finished as he lifted a role sheet.

'Ask us?' Keitaro thought remembering all the test they had taken yesterday 'three hours of that stuff seems more than just asking us our opinion.'

What proceed next wasn't much of a shocker to anyone since the jutsu the teacher was having them performed had been hammered in to them for the past three weeks, but there was however a slight twist. They had all been expecting that just to perform the Basic Clone technique was enough to past the test, and it was, but now evidently the Hokage had added in a bracket for extra points.

To pass one merely had to do a successful Basic clone, but to gain maximum credit one had to make two clones and than have each of them and yourself perform a separate henge jutsu. To top it off if you try to perform the triple in an attempt to land higher on the bracket and fail, even by an inch, you failed completely.

Obviously most were content with just the bare necessity, but as stated so many times before Keitaro wasn't most.

After all the training from both his clans this technique was relatively simple, and didn't even draw from the full reservoir of his ability.

Other than him four other boys attempted it with varying degrees of success. He wasn't to surprise when Sora and the kid from the Aburame took the challenge. Sora making it by just the skin of his teeth, but to ask him later and it would sound as if he had made ten clones and done it perfectly.

The other two boys Keitaro wasn't so familiar with. The first drew a total blank in Keitaro's mind, but after the display he put on Keitaro thought it better not to forget his face. Instead of two the stranger had made a total of four clones and perform the henge with almost no effort, but what struck in Keitaro's mind was the way the boy glared him down after the clones were dispersed.

There was no question on who his glare was intended for, as he turned and made his way back to his place.

"Very good Uryuu" Kin's voice broke Keitaro from his thoughts and returned him back to the present "nothing less is to be expected from one trained under me though I suppose…"

Keitaro ignored the rest of Kin's little tirade 'Uryuu?' Keitaro thought putting two and two together 'Uryuu Ishida?' he might not know the face, but he was more than familiar with the name. Uryuu Ishida was supposedly the last of his clan and was a refugee from the last war. No one was one hundred percent sure on his clan's history, but from what the Hokage allowed to leak out he was promising to become quit the ninja. 'But none of that explains the glare' Keitaro was pondering the oddity until his attention was brought back to the front of the class.

The last person to attempt the hardest level had failed on the henge when one of his clones had failed to change it's hair color even though it still took the right form.

"FAILED" the kid was hollowing "What the hell do you mean." The kids explosion did little to faze Kin. If anything the louder the kid yelled the wider his smirk became.

"What I did was still way better than these losers, how the hell can you fail me!?!?" The instructor allowed the tirade to continue a minute longer before he finally ended the shouting by holding up a hand. By now Keitaro doubted his smirk could get any bigger.

"I failed you because you failed the key reason behind why the bracket was even started" Kin stated as he again picked up the call sheet.

But the kid wasn't that easy to brush off "Failed the key reason? What Key reason? You didn't say anything about a key reason?" by now the boy was up in the Chunin's face, or at least trying to be since he was after all half the man's height. "So it was a little harder than I thought, so what let me just do it again and I'll pick the easier technique" The boy finished sounding a little desperate. No doubt he was very worried about failing this test and than having to tell his family.

As the boy finished all sign of the smirk had vanished from the older ninja's face, and a look of solemn, that Keitaro would of doubted the teacher posed, came over his face. His sudden gravity was enough to cause the boy to take a step back and gulp.

"Let you do it gain? And you will choose an easier level?" evidently the boy was desperate enough not to hear, or maybe he just ignored, the sudden tone in the Chunin's voice as the kid hastily nodded his head since no doubt his throat had dried out.

"And what happens when your older and you pick a mission that's just a little to hard? What happens when you have more than just a test on the line? Will you ask the enemy to let you retry and tell him you will choose an easier path?" Keitaro guessed the story was enough to drive home to the kid the point he had been missing as he stood there abashed, but that wasn't where Kin stopped "In life there is no second chances and there is no way of knowing just how hard something will be till you do it. Many times in the years to come you will be forced to rise and fight above your level, but the success of these situations is made even harder to achieve if you do not first know your own limitations. In the end knowing what you can and can't do and making allowances and preparation for these factors will save more than just your own life. It will save those that are most dear to you. And it is this principal that this new test is design to see if you posses."

By the end of the first part of the finals more than two hours had past and maybe around forty percent of the student's had failed. Enough to put the smirk back on Kin's face.

"Okay runts for those of you who made it this far get ready, because after lunch we take off the kiddy gloves"

******

"Man Sora" Ginma was saying in between mouthfuls of soup, pork, and noodles "to think you were almost in the same shoes as that last *choke*" the other half of the sentiments lost as he had to force a particularly large peace of meat down his throat.

"Sheesh" Sora replied as he tried to lounge in the seat and failed, but refused to give up as he was trying to flirt with the girls from the table next to the three, earning little more than amused chuckles "you underestimate me to much, I could of did that in my sleep."

"What? Really?" Genma's face seem to beam as he took his friends brag as fact.

"Of course, for a ninja descended from every last Kage this was child's play. Hell I was thinking about doing enough clones to make a henge of everyone in the village" Keitaro could tell with the way Genma's eyes grew he was buying every word.

"Nah what was surprising was the fact that somebody was willing to try and stand up our own boy wonder" this last comment was directed at Keitaro.

"Huh? What are you talking about?" Keitaro asked as he washed down his finished lunched with a hot cup of minted tea.

"Come on, that Ishita or whatever his name was, was totally trying to show you up back there. You need to put him in his place. Maybe a little tag bomb while he's on the toilet." Sora laughed at his on joke as he was miming what he interrupted as someone sitting on the toilet when a small bomb suddenly goes off.

"Eh. If he has a problem with me let him deal with it" Keitaro's comment was lost on the two, as both were wrapped up in there rendering of an even more and more comical display of what Ishida's response would be to an exploding toilet.

So Keitaro settled with shooting a glance at the boy himself. He was seated on the far side of the lunch room and seemed more occupied with the book he was reading than the people around him. A fact that Keitaro for one doubted.

******

Once lunch was done all the students who had made it this far were being lead to the school's training field, and it didn't take two looks for any of them to figure out what was next.

The main portion of the field had been cleared and leveled of the obstacle course that had been there the day before. Around the edges a fence had been raised so as to give the sense of an arena, and on the far side there was what appeared to be a stand for judges filled with five of the academy's teachers.

In the middle of the field stood three ninjas, two Jonin and a Chunin. The two Jonin Keitaro figured were there to act as referees, and of course the Chunin between them sporting the massive grin was Kin.

"I'm sure you runts have already realize that this year we are having a special type of final exams. Just like with the bracket this competition was a last minute decision by our own Lady Tsunade. A decision that will draw out every last scrap of skill you runts posses."

Going by the look in the Chunin's eyes Keitaro was beginning to wonder if this proctor didn't have some type of nervous twitch that forced him to do what he did or if he was just insane.

Regardless of the reason the Chunin continued his speech "This is unfortunately not a death match, but instead you and your randomly selected opponent will be battling for points. For each successful strike, tactic, and jutsu you land you will have points added. The amount of points will be decided by the moves efficiency, devastation, and the level it shows you posses."

Kin gave a second for his words to sink in before he continued. "After the match you will be graded on the total number of awarded points and wither or not you actually won the fight. I am however sad to admit that you do not necessarily have to win to pass this final test." The ease with which that final statement caused was almost palpable.

No one here had made it this far without sparring at least a hundred times in the past, but never had they had this much on the line. No, these upcoming fights were going to be different, very different. These were the first fights they would ever have to fight as true ninjas. That had been what Kin had given a second to sink in.

"Now than" Kin shouted the excitement clear in his voice as he punched his fist into his hand cracking his knuckles "lets get this party started."

"Whew that was harder than I expected" haha

First of all I apologize for the lack of combat in this chapter I know I said there was some coming, but if I threw in the fights here this chapter would of been way, way to long for my liking. The plus note is that gives me even more room in the next chapter for an even greater amount of action. So to make it up to you I'll try to have the next chapter out before this week is over.

Now secondly I'm sure most of you'll notice our little guest star Uryuu Ishida. Let me just say two things...

A.} This is not a crossover style fanfic so don't be expecting to much more from Bleach than what comes with Ishida himself.

B.} I had already had his character developed when I was trying to come up with a name and realize I had (in essence) made a carbon copy of Ishida. And come on coming up with names is hard enough already and I will have to come up with hundreds more before this story is fully done so if you have to much grief with me taking the easy road... grab the lemon make lemon aid and drink it DRINK THE LEMON AID!!!

And of course as always read, review, and most importantly Enjoy.