Kitsune and Dragon
I don't own Naruto but Denko and Akane are mine.
Chapter 7: The Chuunin Exams Begin
During the few weeks to the upcoming chuunin exams, Konoha's business rose with tourists who came to watch and its shinobi were training hard, at least most of them anyway. Shikamaru spent most of his time playing shogi and even made some money off of it when some people gambled on whoever won. Hi best friend Chouji just sat nearby and watched as he ate. Their teammate Ino complained about how lazy they were but started to cheer up a lot when Shikamaru started winning the money.
Team Gai was saddened and slightly out of balance when Denko was pulled from the team but spent most of their time training to make up for their loss. Denko's team quickly became close, especially Denko and Akane, and the whole team found that if they combine fire, ice, and lightning attacks on a target the result was a powerful attack that would be difficult to block at best.
Team Kurenai trained nearly all the time at Naruto's insistence and even Shino said he wanted to train. Hinata didn't mind too much because it gave her a good reason to practice her medical jutsu and she could combine it easily with her Jyuuken/Kitsune style as Naruto found out when she used Chakra Enjitou to disable him until she combined her Chiyute no Jutsu with his already fast healing. A week before the chuunin exams were to start Naruto and Hinata each grew another tail so they spent a lot of their time getting used to the increase of power that the growth of a tail granted all kitsune.
Kakashi's team spent most of their time training as well. Sasuke had his own reasons and an ego to push him through the training, Kiba and Akamaru tried to teach Sasuke what teamwork meant as they trained, and Sakura….. did a little training and a lot of fanaticizing about being Sasuke's girlfriend, even if he spent most of his free time with Haku when she wasn't training.
Three days before the exams were to start Naruto and Hinata were taking a break from training and were walking through the village looking at any foreign shinobi they saw until Konohamaru, Udon, Moegi, and Hanabi ran up to them because they wanted to play tag. The second they agreed they kids yelled "You're it!" and ran down the street until they ran into someone dressed in black and a blond girl with four ponytails who picked the children off the ground by their collars or in Konohamaru's case, scarf.
"That hurt you know." The boy in black growls.
"It didn't hurt that much Kankuro, you sissy." The girl says as she drops the two little girls on their butts after successfully scaring them.
"You're from Sunagakure, right?" Hinata asks the pair.
"Oh you're observant." The girl says pointing to her hate ate.
"Shut up you two! I didn't even hurt you yet!" Kankuro yells at the boys that he's holding and smashes their heads together only to find that he was holding two logs instead.
"Kankuro, drop them." someone says. Obviously Kankuro recognized the voice and immediately dropped the boys who ran behind Naruto. They looked at the nearby tree and saw a boy with red hair, a gourd on his back, kanji for love on his forehead, and looked very deprived of sleep was standing on the underside of a branch.
"G-Gaara, c'mon we were just having a little fun." Kankuro says nervously.
"Shut up…or I'll kill you. Let's go." Gaara says as he walks past the Suna nin.
"Oi! Wait! Who are you?" Naruto asks.
"Sabaku no Gaara, who are you?"
"Uzumaki Naruto."
"Hyuuga Hinata."
"I hope to fight you later." Gaara says before walking away with his siblings.
"That guy is scary." Konohamaru says from behind Naruto followed by nods of agreement from the other three academy students.
'He's weird, he smells like tanuki.' Naruto thinks to Hinata.
'He looks like he hasn't slept for a long time as well.' Hinata thinks to Naruto.
'We'll just have to watch him during the chuunin exams, ne?'
'Hai.'
"Konnichi waaaaa." Konohamaru and Hanabi say trying to get the genin to pay attention to them.
"What do you want Konohamaru/Hanabi?" they say together.
"Push us on the swings! Push us on the swings! Push us on the swings!" the four children chant dancing around the kitsune hanyou.
"Alright you win." Hinata says and lets the kids lead them to the nearest park as she walked with Naruto.
At the park Naruto and Hinata pushed the kids on the swings until they got bored with that and started playing tag with the other children in the park. The kitsune hanyou simply sat by the small overgrown area of the park when they caught the scent of something familiar, but couldn't quite place it.
"So that's what is." Naruto whispers after sniffing Hinata.
"What?"
"I think there's a kitsune or two here and it's not us." Naruto whispers.
"I smell them too." Hinata whispers after a few sniffs to confirm his words.
"Let's find them."
"What?" Hinata asks but by then he was already in the bushes sniffing them out so she sighs and follows him. After a few minutes of searching they found two kitsune with two tails each.
"Gina, what happened?" the amber furred kitsune says in kitsune; growls and yips, which the hanyou pair could understand because they are half kitsune.
"Of course I'm not Kohaku! I'm stuck hanging from a tree you baka!" the silver kitsune yips loudly to the one on the ground.
"Well sorry about caring. Ii just went to find some food for us and you get yourself caught in a trap." Kohaku says turning away with a huff.
"Aren't you gonna get me down?" Gina asks a little more calmly.
"You're too high up and if I use kitsune bi we'll be found."
"You're already found." Naruto says stepping out of the bushes and surprising the two kitsune.
"Don't worry we just want to help you." Hinata says as she follows Naruto.
"Here let me get you down from there." Naruto says as he walks slowly to the airborne kitsune.
"Stay away from her!" Kohaku growls, jumping between Naruto and Gina.
"Hey we just want to help ya. I'm Naruto and this is my girlfriend Hinata-chan. Hinata-chan?" Naruto says.
"I'm over here Naruto." Hinata calls as she stands on the bottom of the branch that the rope is attached to as she holds the kitsune with her dark furred tails and untying the rope.
"It's okay Kohaku, they just want to help." Gina says as Hinata finishes and drops to the ground. Gina's words calmed the other kitsune visibly seeing that there didn't seem to be any danger.
"So what are you two doing here?" Naruto asks as the kitsune licked each other's faces.
"You can understand us?" Kohaku asks.
"Well yea, we're not exactly human." Naruto says waving his tails behind him and twitching his ears a bit as a bird flew by. The kitsune looked at him carefully, then turned their gaze to Hinata as she slipped next to him.
"You're kitsune?" Gina asks.
"Hanyou." Naruto says quickly.
"So that's it. Don't people try to hurt you because you're a kitsune?" Gina asks.
"Not usually, enemy shinobi will hurt just about anybody and some people are just too stupid to see the truth sometimes." Hinata answers.
"So humans will attack you even though you're this village's shinobi?" Kohaku asks, obviously calmed down from earlier.
"Pretty much because they think I'm the Kyuubi and trying to infect the whole village because it was sealed inside my by the Yondaime Hokage when I was born." Naruto explains.
"So that's what happened to Kyuubi. He disappeared twelve years ago." Gina says.
"Poor Kyuubi-bunta." Kohaku says lowering his head in respect.
"So what about you two? You must be pretty young if you're only two-tails'." Naruto says.
"Young? We're older than you!" Kohaku laughs.
"Oh yea, how old?" Naruto asks.
"We're fifteen." Gina says.
"Gina." Kohaku whines.
"So are you two siblings or something?" Hinata asks.
"Our parents are good friends and so are we." Gina says.
"Oh, sorry. You just looked like you were pretty close." Hinata says.
"Oi Hinata-chan" Naruto says before his stomach growled loudly shortly followed by Hinata's. "Let's go home and get something to eat."
"That would be good. Gina-chan, Kohaku-chan would you like to come with us?" Hinata asks the kitsune.
"Hai!" they chorus as they follow the hanyou pair out into the park and from there into the streets to the Hyuuga mansion.
"You two are Hyuuga's?" Gina asks from Hinata's shoulders as they pass through the gates.
"I am, not Naruto."
"That's right, I'm Uzumaki Naruto."
"Uzumaki? That name sounds familiar but I don't know why." Kohaku says from his perch on Naruto's shoulders.
"Ano… the Yondaime was my dad." Naruto mutters.
"Maybe Denko's otousan, Ryuu no Denko?"
"Ryuu no Denko! Now I remember him coming to our realm to talk to Kyuubi about the Yondaime Hokage. They were all best friends until some guy who annoys Manda a lot summoned Kyuubi and tried to control him. Kyuubi just went crazy instead of being under control of that teme." Kohaku explains.
"We should tell father and the Sandaime about that because they were friends with Ryuu no Denko and the Yondaime." Hinata says.
"Hai and they never knew why Kyuubi attacked either." Naruto says.
"What was that about telling us something about Kyuubi?" Hiashi asks from the dining room where Sarutobi, Hiashi, Hizashi, Neji, Denko, and Hanabi were about to eat lunch.
"Konnichi wa otousan. Let us wash up before we join you for lunch." Hinata says.
"Don't keep us waiting too long musume." Hiashi says.
"Hai otousan." Hinata says before she and Naruto dash off to their room with the kitsune.
A few minutes later four slightly damp kitsune sat at the low table with the others and the servants brought in the food.
"So what was it that you needed to tell us?" Sarutobi asks as they ate.
"Ano, Hinata-chan and I found Gina-chan here caught in a trap while we were in the park with Hanabi and her friends and Kohaku couldn't reach her." Kohaku huffed at that while he ate some meat from a dish with Gina. "So we helped her down and started talking with them and-"
"You talked to them Hizashi asks and Naruto and Hinata just wag their tails and twitch their ears in response. "Oh, yea. Gomen nasai."
"After we started talking and introduced ourselves we invited them over for lunch and Kohaku remembered the Ryuu no Denko being friends with Kyuubi and the Yondaime and he mentioned that there was a snake named Manda complaining about some guy that kept bothering him a lot and it was that guy who summoned Kyuubi and tried to control him with some kind of jutsu. The jutsu didn't work and just sent Kyuubi on a rampage where he eventually attacked Konoha and got sealed in me." Naruto explains.
"I see, now everything makes sense. I've met Kyuubi before and he was usually as nice as he was powerful. The man that tried to control him must have been Orochimaru, one of my own students and one of the Sannin. Whenever he summoned Manda the snake always had some kind of problem with him. I had Enma have a meeting with the boss summons and all that snake did was complain about that man and how twisted he is." Sarutobi says.
"It does make sense but why are they here anyway? Don't they usually need to be summoned?" Hiashi asks.
"The new kitsune boss sent them here to gain some experience and try to find some answers for Orochimaru's actions against the kitsune clan. The Ryu clan also wanted answers to how and why Ryu no Denko died." Hinata translates Gina's yips for those who didn't speak kitsune.
"Are they capable of returning to their realm to bring the new kitsune-bunta here so we can explain what we know?" Sarutobi asks and the kitsune nod. "Good. Do you think he could come here with Enma outside of town when I summon him?"
"They will go check for you Hokage-sama." Hinata translates since Naruto had his mouth full before the kitsune poof back to their realm.
"Hokage-sama, if the kitsune-bunta agrees do you think it might be best if Naruto and I go since Kyuubi was sealed in him and I'm the son of Ryuu no Denko?"
"If he is willing to meet with me it's possible but the chuunin exams star tomorrow and I think that all of you should rest for today and check that you are prepared for tomorrow. But if they would wish to speak with you I will send a message."
"Arigato Hokage-sama."
"Thank you for your hospitality Hyuuga-domo, we have covered more than I have expected today and will possibly be covering more later. Send a messenger to me when Kohaku and Gina return. Now I must get back to the office before the paperwork grows too much."
"Arigato Hokage-sama." Hiashi and Hizashi say together.
After lunch Naruto and Hinata decided to show Gina and Kohaku around the village and ran into Anko, Akane, and Haku while they were going to shop for clothes and they grabbed Hinata to shop with them with Gina following. Naruto and Kohaku entered the shop a few minutes later and found Denko sitting in one of the chairs that are by the fitting rooms.
"Denko nii-san, what are you doing here?" Naruto asks with Kohaku at his feet.
"Akane-chan saw me through the window and dragged me in here. Wanna give me some company?"
"Sure, Hinata-chan was dragged in here with the rest of your team so I gotta wait for her anyway."
"So Denko-kun, what do you think?" Akane asks as she steps out of one of the changing rooms. She's wearing a tight black shirt with short sleeves that have flame designs at the bottom of the shirt and sleeves, matching black pants with flames at the bottoms with a red belt, black fingerless gloves with metal with the kanji for fire engraved in them, black sandals, and a kodachi with a red leather wrapped hilt.
"Black and red, matches your hair." Denko smirks.
"Arigato, I thought the flames would match me pretty good as well." Akane smirks as she runs a hand through her shoulder length, red streaked black hair. "If you're waiting for Hinata-chan to get something you might as well get something yourself. I'm sure you can afford it."
"Sure why not." Naruto says shrugging his shoulders as he goes to find something new.
"What about you Denko-kun? Aren't you gonna get anything?" Akane asks.
"Wasn't planning on it." Denko says.
"Come on Denko-kun." Akane whines.
"Maybe." Denko answers and slouches further in his seat.
"Denko-kun, if you don't at least try to find something we'll make you pay for everything." Akane threatens and it worked, three seconds later and Denko was with his brother searching through the numerous selections of male shinobi wear, not because he was cheap but because he was saving for a few custom weapons that he asked for from Tenten's father since he's a master weapon maker. He got a discount for getting his equipment there because he was on the same team as his daughter and sometimes helped out and built up some savings that he could only use there.
Naruto eventually found what he wanted to try and changed and emerged at the same time as Hinata did. She's wearing a tight black shirt with short sleeves bearing the Hyuuga crest on the shoulders and blue flames at the edges with mesh on the inside, a dark blue vest with pockets for kunai and shuriken, dark blue pants that weren't tight but hugged her skin, blue sandals, and a violet sash around her waist. She also had fingerless black gloves with a steel plate.
Naruto is wearing a black, short sleeve shirt with the Uzumaki crest on the shoulders and blue flames at the edges and mesh on the inside, a vest like Hinata's except it's a dark orange, black pants with blue flames at the bottoms, blue sandals, and a blue flame patterned sash around his waist. He wore steel arm guards that have retractable blades on the side away from his body.
"Wow, you look good." They say together as they continue to stare at each other.
"You're right you two do look good. You should buy that." Anko says coming out of her changing room after not finding what she wanted.
"Do you think Sasuke-kun would like this?" Haku asks stepping out of her room. She's wearing an ocean blue shirt with long sleeves, a blue vest filled with narrow pockets just for holding senbon, matching pants, arm guards that can shoot senbon from it, and blue sandals.
"I think he'll love it. He may be moody a lot but with you around he's really lightened up." Anko says giving Haku a wink. Meanwhile Denko was surprised to find something that he liked and changed.
"So what do you think about this Akane-chan?" Denko asks. He's wearing a loose green short sleeve shirt, green shorts with a few large pockets that could hold some weapons, black sandals, a green belt, his kodachi, and arm guards like Naruto's but each have a blade as long as his forearm that can flip out of the arm guard sheath and lock extended from his wrist.
"Green?" Akane asks.
"I happen to like green, and don't say that it's from being with Gai-sensei, I've worn green since the academy. I wouldn't even think about wearing that spandex that he and Lee wear." Denko says and shivers at the mere thought of it with everyone else.
"With the way Gai-san is built he can get away with wearing that but it's from the neck up that worries me." Anko says more to herself than anyone but they heard anyway.
"And the worst part is that he's passing it on to Lee. His skills are great but he really needs to see a shrink or something." Denko says recalling his own experiences of the man who tried to get him to wear 'The Spandex of Hell' and shout about 'The Power of Youth'.
"Actually he did go to a shrink about that. I know because I was scheduled right after him and I actually made the doc sane again." Anko says. "Lets get this stuff paid for and get out of here, Iruka-kun is taking me out tonight for dinner. Oh yea, make sure you're at the academy room 301 tomorrow by four."
The next day Naruto and Hinata met with Shino at the Hyuuga gates dressed in their new clothes and left for Ichiraku Ramen where they met the Ino, Shika, Chou team who had also decided to get something to eat before the exams started. Denko, Akane, and Haku joined them a few minutes later with Neji, Tenten, and Lee a minute behind them. Ichiraku was happy that his best customers had all come at the same time so he knew that money wasn't going to be a problem anytime soon, especially with people coming from other countries slowly coming. Sasuke, Sakura, Kiba, and Akamaru joined as the group was leaving. Sasuke and Haku decided to use the walk to the academy as a chance to spend as much time as they could with each other before they would be considered enemies, all the while avoiding Sakura and Ino who were trying to get in Haku's place.
At the academy they found a crowd around a door under a sign that said the room was 301 but they knew it was just a genjutsu. The two guards at the door were preventing the crowd from entering the door and telling them that they weren't ready to become chuunin.
"Out of my way, I'm trying to get to room 301." Sasuke says as he pushes his way through the crowd of genin to continue down the hall to the stairs. At least until one of the guards jumped in front and threw a kick which Sasuke retaliated with one of his own only to find that both of their kicks stopped by a boy wearing green spandex and had thick eyebrows who had their ankles held by one hand. Sasuke and the guard were pissed because the boy didn't seem to even try to catch their kicks.
"You may want to save the fighting for later." Lee says as he releases the legs that he was holding. "Uchiha Sasuke, I wish to test myself against the power of the Sharingan. That should prove to be a great battle if the rumors about you are true."
"Like you could beat me." Sasuke scoffs.
"Lets go Lee, you're the one who said we shouldn't show our strength." Tenten says as she drags him away by his ear causing the rest of the genin and the two guards to sweat drop.
"We should get to the testing room as well." Shino says and walks off followed by the kitsune hanyou and the rest of the group they came with.
In front of the testing room door they found their sensei waiting for them to wish them good luck. After that they entered the room and found it full of shinobi from various countries, all genin hoping to become chuunin. The teams from Amegakure looked like they had a stick shoved up their asses and it broke off and wanted to take their anger out on the rest of the world.
"I wouldn't stare at that team unless you have a death wish, the Rain village isn't known for having the best tempers." Says a boy with glasses, white hair with some in a ponytail, and much older than them. As if reading their minds he introduced himself as Yakushi Kabuto and he has information on just about every shinobi here.
"Tell me about Sabaku no Gaara." Naruto says.
"Alright, Sabaku no Gaara, not much known about him, 21 C rank missions and one A rank mission, and he's never even got a scratch on any mission yet."
"Show me Rock Lee." Sasuke says.
"He's from Konohagakure, no ninjutsu or genjutsu at all but his taijutsu is off the charts. He graduated dead last from the academy the year before you did, 38 D rank missions, seven C rank, and one B rank. His teammates are Hyuuga Neji, Tenten, and Uzumaki Denko who was recently placed on another team. Pretty good for the dead last of his class."
"What about other teams? Know anything about them?" Sasuke asks.
"Most of the teams come from well established villages but the team from Otogakure is a mystery, they're new and this is the first team sent to the chuunin exams." Kabuto says. Obviously the Oto team didn't like what he said and rushed over to silence him. The one that had his head wrapped in bandages exposing only his left eye, ran up and tried to uppercut Kabuto with his right fist but the older boy stepped back and easily dodged the attack. However his glasses broke and he dropped to his knees and lost his lunch.
"Don't underestimate us. We will beat you all." The Oto nin says before a large poof of smoke at the front of the room caught everyone's attention.
"There will be no fighting unless an examiner says so! If anyone tries it again you will be thrown out of this exam! I am Morino Ibiki, your examiner for the first part of these chuunin exams. Everyone hand in your forms and sit in your assigned seats." Ibiki yells to the genin. Naruto and Hinata were lucky to sit next to each other, as was Haku and Sasuke, and Denko and Akane, and Neji and Tenten. "There are ten questions on this exam but the tenth question will be given with ten minutes left. This is a point elimination test, if you are caught cheating you lose two points, if you are caught five times you and your team fail and must leave immediately. Hajime!"
The genin turn their tests over and find that they couldn't possibly get the correct answer without help except for a few select geniuses in the room that included Shikamaru and Sakura. Soon most of the genin figured that the point of the test was to cheat, Gaara used his Daisan no Hade, Kiba had Akamaru on his head looking at other tests from his elevated perch, Shino used his bugs, Kohaku and Gina popped out of Naruto and Hinata's tails and ran around the room under a kitsune gensou, looked at tests, and ran back to tell what they had found. Neji used his Byakugan while Tenten used mirrors attached to chakra strings positioned so that Denko and Lee could copy Neji's test while Akane copied off of Denko's. Haku did the same with her ice mirrors and allowed Sasuke to copy off of her.
During the fifty minutes that the genin were taking the exam many teams were eliminated. With ten minutes left Ibiki gave the remaining genin a choice between quitting and being able to take the chuunin exam at another time or taking the tenth question and if they get it wrong they stay genin forever. Many of the genin and their teams left leaving only twenty seven teams remaining including the Suna team, team Gai, the rookie nine, Denko's team, and a few other teams.
"Nobody else going to leave? Then…congratulations, you passed the first exam." Ibiki smiles.
"What about the tenth question?" one of the genin asks.
"That was the tenth question, to see if you were willing to chance the unknown as all shinobi must be willing to do to complete their mission successfully. In the world of shinobi one must be willing to make sacrifices for their village, even their life if it is necessary. That was the purpose of this test. The other purpose of the test was to see how well you could gather information. Information is what keeps you and your villages alive. There are two chuunin planted with you to provide answers." Ibiki explains, even taking off his hate ate that he used to cover his heavily scarred head to emphasize his point as the chuunin raise their hands to show who they were. As soon as he put it back on and finished his speech an object smashed through the window, two kunai held up a large colorful banner from the ceiling and a woman with purple hair tied up in a spiky ponytail, tan trench coat, fishnet shirt, orange skirt, and black sandals stood in front.
"Alright I'm Mitarashi Anko, your examiner for the second part of these chuunin exams!" Anko yells proudly to the surprised genin who stared at her because of her entrance except for Denko, Akane, and Haku who were trying to make themselves as small as possible out of embarrassment. "Kuso Ibiki, could you leave any more brats?"
"There is a lot of talent this year." Ibiki growls as he pushes aside the banner.
"I know but eighty one?" Anko asks.
"I bet you're happy your team is among them." Ibiki says.
"Yes I am." She whispers before turning her attention to the genin and noticed her team slowly coming back into view. "Okay you gaki follow me to where you'll take the next part of the exam, The Forest of Death." Anko says with a smile as she leaves the room with the crowd of genin in tow.
To be continued…
AN: Next chapter is the Forest of Death. Incase some of you haven't figured it out yet, Haku is a girl in this story so don't complain 'cause this is my story. So far some of the pairings are obvious and others are yet to come. Please review!
Fallenfox: Here's update update ya asked for.
Dragon Man 180: Thanks for the idea for the third part of the exam. I'm gonna put that in for sure! If ya got any other great ideas I'd like to hear them!
T.O.B.: Yea this is a story where Sasuke and Haku get together, Dragon Man 180 has a story like that as well. I like that story and I watch for updates on that story. Ya can find it in my favorite story list.
Yumi Kitsuna Kazeyokai: Yea I know in the series that Haku is a boy but like I said earlier, this is my story, my world. Haku is a girl and it's stayin' that way.
Cyber-Porygon: Thanks for the complement, and yes… YOSH! THIS STORY EXPLODES WITH THE POWER OF YOUTH!
Arigato to everyone who has reviewed! I'm hoping for thirty with this chapter as well as a small hope for having Kitsune and Dragon being on a C2. Anyway… please review!
Ja ne!
Lightning Bob