Chapter VIII: Home Again
A/N: I do not own Naruto. I have never owned Naruto. Undoubtedly, I never will own Naruto.
It had taken a week for Team 7 to recover after the battle at the bridge of the Land of Waves. After some debate, it was decided unanimously that the bridge would be named the Great Shikamaru Bridge. Tsunami had presented the motion, and almost everyone had accepted it readily. Shikamaru, in fact, was the only person that spoke against it, saying something about how it was troublesome because now people would expect more from him.
When they were on the road, Kakashi finally asked, "Deimo... where did you learn the One Thousand Birds Technique?"
"I've been working on it since I heard rumors that you'd be my Master about about a month ago, a couple weeks before we were officially declared to be Team 7. I knew that it was your signature technique, and I knew I had a lightning affinity, so I figured that I'd work to master it. I tried and tried but it just didn't work no matter how I went about it. In fact, the first time I've been able to do it was right then, during that fight. I knew I'd be able to, because I had foreseen it, and right before I used it, it just... clicked."
"What do you mean by saying that you've "foreseen" things? I've heard you say it a couple times," interrupted Bri, too curious to wait to ask until when the two were done talking.
"It's part of the Eyes of Fate. Every once in a while, usually while we're sleeping, members of the Sunadokei Clan see something that they'll see in the future. Usually, it provides insight into how we win a particularly difficult battle or get through a challenging situation," responded Deimo, "We try to keep it a secret from our enemies, unless we intend on killing them, so don't tell anyone, please? It'd just make our lives harder."
"Alright," Bri said, silently contemplating what this might mean.
"So you can use the One Thousand Birds Technique now?" Asked Kakashi, bringing them back to the topic at hand.
"Yeah, but I doubt I'd be able to stay conscious for long afterwards. It uses up a lot of chakra. I can't think of it as anything but a last resort, and even then I'm not sure I should use it in most cases. I have a whole new respect for you, Master."
"I see."
When they got back to the village, which they did, eventually, they went directly to the Lord Fire before splitting up, agreeing to start practicing again the next day, and then taking more missions afterwards.
It had been a couple weeks since then. They had down exclusively C-ranked missions, but after the excitement of the A-rank mission, they felt rather monotonous. Sure, they got to fight bandits, but bandits weren't A-class missing ninja.
The Apprentices had worked on improving their repertoire. This meant that they learned new techniques, and - in Deimo's case - new seals. Kakashi was so proud of their progress that he said he had a surprise for them...
The Apprentices showed up at 8:30 AM, an hour and a half after the appointed time of 7. Kakashi showed up some time around 9 AM. He greeted them with an obligatory excuse, "Hello, everyone. I got lost in the path known as life today, so..."
"Don't worry, Master, we've only been here for a half hour or so."
"... I see..."
"You said that there was a surprise, Master?"
"Yes, I do. I signed you three up for the Adept Exams."
"The Adept Exams, Master?"
"You know, the test you take to become Adepts."
"Troublesome. Being an Adept means more responsibility... I won't take it."
"Before you decide that, I want to inform you that if you take it, you sign up as a team, meaning that if one of you doesn't show up, then none of you would be allowed to."
Bri and Deimo looked towards Shikamaru menacingly.
"Troublesome. I'll take the test."
"Good."
Kakashi then told them all the whens and wheres that were important before continuing on with training. There would be no more missions before the test for Team 7, nothing but a week of training.
They all showed up to the exam room. There had been a camouflage technique on the floor below that made it look like the right room, but Team 7 had seen through it with minimal observation.
The room they were standing in now had a lot of Apprentices in it. Most of them were at least a year older than Team 7, but they weren't fazed. They walked over to converse with the others from their year.
None of them looked much different than they did back in the Academy, last time they saw them. Everyone had changed, though, and Hinata and Naruto seemed to change the most, Hinata becoming more confident and Naruto becoming more mellow. It wasn't a huge difference, but it was certainly noticeable.
Deimo smiled when he saw them. He was glad that Hinata was opening up. She was a great person, she deserved to have more self-confidence. He was also selfishly glad that Naruto was quieter. He supposed that's what would happen when he spent so much time around a soft-spoken teammate.
Chouji seemed to be doing well, too. He seemed to be a little less self-conscious and self-depreciative. He still was constantly snacking, as he was wont to do in the past.
Shino looked and acted exactly the same. It'd be silly to expect anything else from him.
Kiba was still a wild dog of a kid, but he seemed to be a little more collaborative than before, there was more give and take in his conversations, rather than them all being just about him.
Ino was still an annoying blonde girl who cared more about her appearance than her skillset, but she was slowly shifting that outlook. She was growing as a ninja. Deimo wasn't sure that she was worthy of participating in the exam, though.
Shikamaru had taken to wrapping up his right arm since the... incident that happened a while ago. When people asked, he said that it just was, and the story was too troublesome to tell everyone who asked him about his arm.
Deimo had started tying his hair back in a 7-component braid. Not for style reasons, he had just been curious if he could before, and he had figured out how to make it work. From then, it became a bragging right, and then a habit. His hair was a little longer, and he had a faint scar from a scratch on the left side of his face from the same incident that caused Shikamaru to start wrapping his arm. He didn't answer any questions about it. He had a katana strapped to his back now. He did answer questions about that.
Bri had not changed much on the outside, but everyone had noticed that she was even more powerful than last time they had seen her. This was saying something, because she was top rookie in their year.
Coincidentally, almost everyone was sure that Shikamaru, the dead last of their year, had gotten much stronger than he should have been considering his placement.
"Hey, you guys, you should quiet down a little," the nine-part assemblage of rookies turned to see a grey-haired Leaf ninja walking towards them, "You're the nine rookies that just graduated from the Academy, correct? You're all fooling around with those cute faces... This isn't a field trip, you know."
"Who are you to tell us that?" demanded Ino haughtily.
"I am Yakushi Kabuto," Tesponded Kabuto, before continuing, "Look around you."
The rookies did, to see everyone glaring at them, "The ones behind you are from the Hidden Rain. They have a short temper. Everyone's tense because it's right before the exam. I warned you so that you won't get picked on. I guess it can't be helped though, since you're rookies and don't know anything, yet. It makes me remember the old me."
"Kabuto, was it?"
"Yeah?"
"Is this your second time, then?"
"No, seventh."
Everyone turned to him with wide eyes, "This exam takes place twice every year, and it's my fourth year."
"That means you know a lot about this exam, then, right?"
"Yeah."
"So you must be an expert, then, Kabuto."
"But he hasn't passed it," reminded Shikamaru lightly.
"Yeah, that's true," chuckled Kabuto.
"Is the Adept Exam really that difficult? This is even more troublesome than I thought..."
"Maybe I should share some of my information with you, then. We are from the same village, after all," he pulled out a deck of blank cards.
He showed them one card and channeled his chakra into it so that it displayed the numbers of participants, stratified by village, then continued, "I have cards for people, too, if you have anyone you want to hear about?"
"Yes, can you please show me Gaara? Oh, and Rock Lee?" asked Naruto politely.
Kabuto pulled out the cards for the people, then said, "Let's stary with Lee. He's one year older than you. He's completed 20 D-rank and 11 C-rank missions. His squad leader is Maito Gai. He has exceptional martial arts skills, but everything else is terrible. His teammates are named Tenten, and Hyuuga Neji."
"Next is Gaara of the Desert. There isn't a lot of information here, let's see... unknown D-rank, 8 C-rank, and 1 B-rank mission completed. Oh, and there's a note, apparently, he completed all the missions without a single scratch."
"An Apprentice completing a B-rank without getting hurt? Wow."
"It's surprising, yes, but not overly so. The villages send their top Apprentices here. It's not only Lee and Gaara, but everyone here who's an impressive ninja."
"I suppose that's true."
"Oh, just because I'm curious, what does my card say?"
"Let's see..."
Kabuto revealed the card, "Sunadokei Deimo... Leaf Apprentice, graduated this year, 2 D-ranks, 5 C-ranks, and an A-rank mission completed. High skills all around. Your Master is Kakashi, and your teammates are Bri and Shikamaru. There's a note here that doesn't make sense, though, I'm glad you brought it up..."
"It says you know the One Thousand Birds Technique.
"Wow. Where did you even learn that? I've only used it once."
"You do?! But you're only an Apprentice, and a rookie, at that!"
"Yeah, it doesn't make much sense to me, either. If it makes everyone else look better, though, I'd be lucky if I could use it twice in as many days without going into a short-term coma."
"I see..."
It was then that the Sound ninja decided to intervene and stop the spread of information...
Kabuto dodged the blow, but his glasses still cracked.
"Feel free to stop now. You insulted our village. We don't like that."
"I see, so that's the kind of attack that was," Kabuto said, and stood for a second impassively, before falling to the ground and throwing up. Everyone looked curiously, trying to figure out what was up with the Sound ninja's attack.
"I thought you'd be better, you're a veteran of six exams, aren't you?"
"That's enough!" called a proctor, and everyone turned around to see a large, intimidating man in a trench coat with a bandanna forehead protector glaring at the display of aggression, "Your test will start in five minutes. Please enter the testing room. If you are not inside in five minutes, you fail the test. If you prevent others from entering the room, you fail the test."
Shikamaru sighed, "So troublesome..."
