Α
Hinata stared down at the completed test page, more than a little pleased with herself for her ability to finish it so quickly. She scanned each answer, checking them against some of the equally completed sheets around the room. Yes, she had copied it down perfectly, and rule of averages stated that most of the answers would be correct. The young Hyuuga was surprised by just how easy it had been; she hadn't realized how much better her control over her bloodline trait had been getting until she had activated the byakugan on instinct, not even having to rely on some sort of sign to mold the chakra to activate it.
Almost absently she noted that she felt very little about having essentially stolen the answers from other candidates. It seemed low, perhaps, but she had made up her mind to prove a point. If not to anyone else, than at least to herself, by pushing as far into the exams as she could, regardless of what it took to get there. The implications of that pledge also escaped her; they had made it easy to cheat, almost without a second thought really, but it would be a question of if they could stand up to something more substantial. Now, having finished with so much time to spare, she found her brain wandering to such topics, a sure sign that she had been spending far too much time around the ever brooding Sasuke.
She shifted her view without even 'looking' up from her page, letting them wander the assembly of shinobi. Thinking about such things would not do, not now at least. She chided her worrying nature, instead trying to find something that would absorb her attentions for now. The Hyuuga girl let them wander, soaking up the room in its fullness, picking out small things to keep her mind working. The first of these was her own pineapple-haired teammate, who apparently had been randomly selected to sit next to one of the other members of her old class. Kiba and his canine partner Akamaru were apparently scouting out answers, which surprised the girl; she hadn't realized how intelligent of an animal that Akamaru was, nor how far the extent of the Inuzuka's bond with their ninken went. She'd already seen the boy's pact mentality went; perhaps their bond was so strong because of just how much like dogs they were, or was it vice versa? She let that thought drift; it was more something for Shikamaru to ponder than someone like her.
Hinata's mind drifted back to earlier in the day when Team 7 had arrived at the building, ready and eager to begin the exam. What they'd encountered, however, was something very different, and something that showcased Kiba's aggressive and pack-driven nature quite clearly.
Β
Team 7 walked in the standard formation they could be so often found in, with Sasuke and Hinata walking at least somewhat shoulder to shoulder and the more relaxed Shikamaru trailing a few steps behind. On the surface, such a formation could be seen as a product of their respective personalities: Sasuke's driven personality made him suitable to lead from the front-right, while Hinata's growing confidence was seen in her taking a front left spot despite being the follower even at the front, and Shikamaru's lagging behind was simply his natural laziness at work. To the uninformed or those who were unlikely to give a genin team much thought, that was exactly what it was, but it was something more to those who could spot the signs of training.
Sasuke took the lead right because it was his strong side and he was, by far, the superior fighter of the ground. He was primarily a taijutsu fighter who mixed in ninjutsu to amplify it, mostly specializing in short-range techniques as a result. Thus, his place as the front lead was a tactical consideration as much as anything. Hinata, on the other hand, was a quickly growing taijutsu specialist who only recently began to dabble in ninjutsu. She was fast, but still a weaker fighter than Sasuke was, and thus her place on the weak-side, to support him in combat, was just as logically. Additionally, her place at the front let her scout with her Byakugan, and let the actual formation leader react accordingly. Finally, Shikamaru's place at the rear was due to his ranged skill; the shadows of his teammate's extended his ability and also allowed him greater time to formulate a plan. All of this was true.
Not that they had chosen it; really, they'd just walked that way out of habit. Drilled habit that they didn't even think about any more. It was as easy as breathing. To them, of course, they saw nothing special. Nothing special at all.
They moved towards the exam building at a relaxed pace; they knew they had some time before the exam was to start, and felt secure enough in their ability to climb a flight of stairs that they'd only allotted themselves an hour or two before it was set to begin.
Hinata found that the closer they moved to the building, the emptier the pit of her stomach felt. Her uncle's words had given her a fair bit to think about, but had did little assuage her other feelings. They had distracted her, perhaps, but it all came roaring back as they approached the building. But the threshold was crossed; there was no running because she found that she feared letting down her teammates as much as she feared the exam itself. There was irony in that, wasn't there?
Her thoughts were jarred, however, when they reached the apex of the stairs, they found a large group of other, apparently, genin. In front of them were two older genin, apparently blocking the way into the exam room for one reason or another. She frowned at the antics; this was hardly becoming, nor the way comrades should be treating each other. Hinata watched as a boy clad in green spandex threw himself forward and was rebuffed by the chuunin. He flew back, being caught by a girl with twin buns in her head and, of all people, Neji-niisan. Hinata hadn't seen her cousin for quite some time, given both of them were now registered shinobi of the leaf.
"We're just doing you a favor; if you can't get past us, there is no way you'll make it through the exams. Might as well cut your losses now," one of the genin said, a man with a strange band across his nose.
"We've already done it before, so we know you're not going to make it," his partner said, a boy with long bangs covering half his face, "Trust us, try again next year."
"Screw you, bastard! No one gets in the way of my pack while I'm around!" shouted a younger boy; Kiba Inuzuka, Hinata realized quickly. The boy launched himself at the other genin, attacking more as if he had claws than a punch. The genin reacted strangely quickly, lashing out in a retaliatory blow. Neither managed to find their target. It took a moment for Hinata's mind to catch up; one moment the strikes were nearing each other, the next the spandex-wearing boy was holding each of the attack in his hand, stern look on his face.
"There goes keeping a low profile," the girl with two buns said, apparently directed to Neji. Hinata was surprised; the boy had gone from being whipped to this? She scolded herself; shinobi were supposed to be masters of deception. That explained the genjutsu as well. That little revelation had been fairly obvious. Even without their eyes, the perceptive nature of the Hyuuga, which she was despite her own problems she still was, was hard to fool, particularly with a simple technique as this one and also given an area she was as familiar with as this. She had spent quite a few years in the academy, after all.
"Might as well just drop the act," Shikamaru said lazily, sighing as he did, "It's just too troublesome to watch, don't you agree, Sasuke?"
"Hn," Sasuke grunted, "A genjutsu like that is just insulting."
The two 'genin' looked at each other with surprised looks. The rest of the crowd seemed mostly surprised, except for the select few. Neji seemed unimpressed, though both the green-clad boy and the
"Heh, guess the jig is up. Wondered how long it would take someone to notice," the bandaged genin said, suddenly being engulfed in a cloud of smoke that revealed him and his partner not to be genin at all, but rather apparently some chuunin in odd uniforms, and the label on the room to be just a numeral or so off; they hadn't left the second floor yet. Team 7 slipped away from the resulting commotion, heading for the actual third floor this time; apparently, in some ways the exam had already begun.
Γ
Her reminiscing was jarred as she watched one of the older Leaf genin get called out by a proctor and thrown out, followed by his two understandably angry teammates. She watched them make their way out with a grumble and a shout, but the trio were quickly put into their place by one of the gray-uniformed proctors. As she watched them go, Hinata couldn't help but wonder about this test; why was it that they were given so much leeway to cheat. She had done it, of course, and she would allow no shame or second thoughts about it (at least not now; she had enough on her mind as it was), but then again, she was certain others had cheated and gotten away with it. She had, after all, spent more than a bit of time observing people from angles that the proctors could only hope of.
Hinata had to admit, some of the methods were quite ingenious. As she watched yet another student began transferring ill-gotten answers onto his sheet, Hinata had the most profound of thoughts: they wanted them to cheat. All of it began to make sense; the impossibly difficult questions that she wondered if anyone had the skill to knowledge; even Naruto-sensei, she had to admit, would have difficulty with such things. What was more, they were more or less useless for a real ninja anyway. Sure, you could be smart, but what was the point if you could never really apply that in a practical way?
Information gathering, however, was a very practical skill; it was a basic on that all ninja should cultivate, and thus the fact that the chuunin exam was based around not only deducing the true point of the test (or being simply sneaky enough to cheat anyway, which was another trait well cultivate in ninja), and then covertly gathering the required information. Hinata was quite proud of herself; she was sounding like Shikamaru now as she figured this out. She kept her beaming inside, however; it would do not good to draw any attention to her if she could help it.
She let her eyes wander again, settling on yet another of the Konoha genin who were taking the exam for the first time, though the heiress was unaware of that fact; the twin bun-haired girl had taken to covertly using a small shined piece of metal to flash information to her teammate, the green spandex-clad boy, Rock Lee he'd called himself, who had apparently been somewhat unsuccessful in remaining covert about his own abilities. More so in particular with Hinata and the rest of her team than the rest, of course. He had challenged Sasuke after all, which had caused the Uchiha to do something Hinata had never seen him do before.
Δ
"Fight me." the boy said, hand extended in what Hinata recognized as the beginning of a taijutsu stance. The boy was likely slightly older than the genin of Team 7, and she recognized him as the boy who'd caught Kiba's attack earlier; he was Neji-niisan's teammate, which likely made him a year or so older. She wondered how anyone could wear an outfit like he was; hardly a fashion diva, it still struck her as being particularly poor in style. She was hardly a mean person, but it simply was... annoying to look at. She felt a bit bad for thinking that way.
Sasuke seemed less reserved about his contempt; he stared at the boy with obvious annoyance. But at the same time, he was obviously intrigued; the boy had shown remarkable ability in how fast he'd moved, even if his demeanor was hardly palatable to the young Uchiha.
"Interesting way to introduce yourself," Shikamaru said simply. The boy looked at him and frowned.
"I am sorry. I suppose that was a bit forward of me. My name is Rock Lee, and I am here to challenge you, Sasuke Uchiha," he said, pointing to the object of his challenge, "to a fight!"
"Why?" the raven-hair boy asked simply, attempting to keep his interest from being too obvious as he did.
"You are very much like my teammate, considered a natural genius. I, however, was born without the ability to mold chakra; I am incapable of performing either ninjutsu or genjutsu, But I have spent countless hours in training to prove I can not only be a ninja with just taijutsu, but that I can be a truly splendid one at that; I am not the natural genius, but am instead proving that one can be a genius of hard work. If I can beat you, then that will be proof my efforts are not in vain."
Sasuke stared at him with a nondescript expression, followed by a feral grin.
"Sounds good to me," he said. However, he was struck with a sudden feeling of vertigo. He realized a split second later that he was airborne, and also that he had a large pulse of pain radiating out from his side. This was followed soon after by him impacting the ground, causing yet more pain as he slide across the academy foyer's floor. What the hell was that?
He picked himself up eyes darting left and right, but he could not see Lee. Stealth? Was this flamboyant boy a hiding foe? It seemed possible for a split second, that the boy might have been luring Sasuke into a false sense of security or casting some sort of genius deception to catch him off guard. Yes, that seemed very likely indeed. Or it did, until the boy appeared in front of him for just the briefest of moments and once again Sasuke found himself airborne. His eyes shifted red on instinct, that single tomoe spinning up just in time. He had been wrong; Lee was not using stealth at all, or maybe it was a sort of stealth after all. The boy wasn't hiding, he was simply moving too fast for Sasuke to see naturally.
Sasuke threw his hands up to block the incoming strike, only to find his brain frazzled when he once again impacted the ground, mind registering that he'd been struck downward before the impact. A single thought managed to break its way through the haze of shock and pain: what the hell was going on?
"Its over," Shikamaru said, watching the fight, if it could be called as such. Hinata said nothing, but brought a hand up to her mouth as she watched Sasuke struggle up again. He was going to be hurt too bad if this continued. Should she try to stop this? How could she? But he was hurting, she had to do something! Lee appeared in behind Sasuke a brief instant later.
"Your friend and comrade is correct, Sasuke-san. You are outmatched by my efforts! You cannot catch me, even if you can see me. This fight is over," Lee said, clearly revving up for strike; he did not expect the Uchiha to agree. Sasuke didn't even look back, simply sighing. And then he said something that caught everyone off guard.
"You're right," Sasuke said simply. Hinata gasped; had he really said that? Even Shikamaru seemed oddly reserved, maybe his own way of showing his surprise. But it was Rock Lee who was caught most off guard. His penchant for dramatic flared up as he stepped back with one foot, leaning heavy on one leg as he exaggerated his expression.
"Y-you acknowledge your defeat, then?" he asked, not believing his ears. Sasuke looked back over his shoulders, locking eyes with the boy and sighed. It was over.
"No," he said simply, red eyes flashing as a grin spread. Lee attempt to launch himself forward, but found his body unresponsive. "Its over, but its over for you!"
Sasuke dropped and did a low spinning kick, sweeping the green-clad boy from his feet. He continue to twist, slamming a palm down and twisting upward instead, executing a perfect acrobatic transition into a one-handed handstand before he brought his leg back downward in a dropping axe kick to Lee's chest. The boy gasped as the wind was driven from his lungs. Sasuke did a backwards handspring, landing roughly but intact as he did, breathing heavy as he let just how much the short engagement had taken from him out at last. Shikamaru couldn't stop grinning.
"Called it," he said, and then began to continue along the path to the testing room. Sasuke continued to catch his breath, staring at Lee with an odd mixture of expressions that Hinata could not explain. She glanced over at Lee, who was struggling to his feet, and felt oddly bad for the boy. He had tried so hard, and had almost had Sasuke. But he'd made the mistake of looking into Sasuke's eyes. A simple genjutsu had foiled the boy; Sasuke had little talent for the art, but his attempts to beat his brother and excel had meant he'd studied more than just taijutsu and ninjutsu, and all students had at least a basic grasp on the art of illusions. Sasuke's sharingan only amplified that, even if it had only lasted for a few seconds. But in battle, that was all one often needed.
"Lets go," Sasuke said, catching Hinata off guard. He turned on his heel and took off after Shikamaru, attempting to suppress the satisfied grin on his face. Hinata took one final glance at Lee.
"I think you are a splendid ninja," she said simply, and then took off after her teammates, leaving Lee to simply stare at their retreating forms with a sad heart, regardless of her words.
Ε
Hinata watched Sasuke for a moment. He was sitting as confident as she was; far as she could tell, he'd used his sharingan to mimic the movements of the other students, comparing answers to determine which was the most common one among them, and therefor the right answer. And, from what she could see, he had it right. She watched him for a few moments more; he seemed no worse for the wear, despite the beating he'd taken earlier, though she knew quite well that he was not the kind to let on that he was hurting, or show weakness at all, if possible. His pride was an envy of hers. She was learning from him, though, and Shikamaru too, at least a little bit, she hoped.
Her eyes shifted off her satisfied teammate and to one of the students near him, recognizing the older boy as the one who'd stepped in to help them earlier. He was nice, in his own way, even if something about him seemed sort of off. The bespectacled boy was named Kabuto, if she remembered correctly, and he apparently had been here quite a few times before; she had two dueling thoughts on that, both of which she tried to suppress. On one hand, it made her feel a bit proud of herself, given she had at least enough self-esteem to say she was better than this boy than, but on the other hand she also felt that if this boy had been here so many times, perhaps she'd end up like him.
She quashed both thoughts; one seemed a bit mean, and the other was just defeatist. Hinata would stomach neither right now. She drifted her view to another row, frown growing on her face as she recognized the empty circle emblem of that strange new village, a girl with long black bangs and her hitae-ite pulled over her right eye. The girl was staring at Kabuto's back, and then slowly made a move to fix her hair. If it hadn't been for her byakugan, Hinata likely would never have noticed that she pushed her hitae-ite up from here eye, revealed a blood-red orb. The Hyuuga girl stifled a gasp, and she realized it must be some sort of foreign doujutsu. Whatever it was, she was using it to cheat from Kabuto, and Hinata felt a bit of annoyance growing as she realized the foreigners were picking on the boy yet again.
Ζ
Shikamaru, amusingly, was the first to enter the room, hands still dug deep in his pockets all the while. Sasuke followed close on his heels, already having apparently recovered from his little spar... if only outwardly. He put on a good show, his usual air of self-assured yet amusingly reserved pride; yes, he was awesome, he knew it, what of it? It was just what he did! Or so he'd have you believe. In reality, he was torn up quite more than he'd been in a long, long time. To him, it was one thing to be bested by someone in great excess of him, as he'd been with Zabuza. But this Lee kid was clearly inferior; he couldn't mold chakra, for god-sakes. That was not the sort of thing that should pose a challenge to the Uchiha, or so Sasuke told himself. He worked hard; damn hard. No matter what his kid did, it shouldn't be enough to match up to both blood and effort.
But it had. Not only that, but he'd damn near beaten Sasuke into a pulp, and without breaking a sweat. Sasuke had never landed a blow, and couldn't have landed a blow. Even tracking him he couldn't move fast enough to block, let alone strike. In the end, the Uchiha had been forced to resort to the trickery of genjutsu. It wasn't that he found it distasteful, per se, as shinobi were masters of tricks after all, but for him to be forced to it. He had not 'beaten' Lee in a fight, he'd barely escaped with his neck. Oh yes, while Sasuke was quite normal on the outside, he was seething with anger, mostly at himself, on the inside. So seething that he didn't notice as Ino latched onto him and began droning on into his ear, while Sakura came up from behind and began berating the blond-haired kunochi. It took a moment for him to truly comprehend it all, and he somewhat roughly deposited the Yamanaka onto her rear end for the second time in recent history.
Once again, the genin from his class had congregated, and he supposed that was the natural reaction. They were in unfamiliar territory, even if the building itself was as familiar to them as could be. The noise was tremendous, also not surprising, given the large number of other shinobi present, each grouped up by whatever esoteric means they'd used to devise the cliques. Sasuke found himself noticing more than a few harsh glances in his- and, he supposed, his former classmates- directions. That also wasn't all that surprising, given they were a sort of upstart right now. The only saving grace they had was that the older teams were more happy to be participating at all, rather than worrying about the few rookies who showed up their first chance, rather than the wait the rest had been put through. And, of course, the fact that the exams were at all being held managed to belay most gripes. Still, there were some that harbored an obvious grudge.
Sasuke gave one of them a wide grin of self-assured superiority, which only deepened the scowl- or what Sasuke thought was scowl given how he in was glaring at Sasuke- that the man, a Konoha-nin with a face veil and a set of black spectacles, had on his face. Another shinobi, apparently a teammate of the man's, frowned as he saw the little scene, making his way towards through the crowd towards the little group. Sasuke realized he'd completely ignored whatever conversations the rest of the rookie teams had engaged in. He glanced to the side, noticing that Sakura was watching him with a very strange expression. She was actually beginning to make him somewhat... uneasy. What the heck had happened with her since graduation?
"You know, you should be a bit more low key, I think."
Sasuke's attentions were pulled suddenly to the older boy who'd apparently decided to come over and have a little chat. But he seemed far from hostile, a fact that in and of itself made Sasuke a bit uneasy.
"You're the rookies, right? You just might wanna watch yourselves; a lot of the older genin aren't too happy you're here," the boy continued. Sasuke raised an eyebrow; he appreciated the sentiment, even if it was something he already knew. But why would this guy take the time to come over? Sasuke supposed he could be just be a kind soul, but doubted it; altruism wasn't exactly something he considered to be common amongst shinobi.
"Thanks for the advice," Shikamaru said suddenly, cutting off Sasuke before he could give his own reply, one that would no doubt be laced with sarcasm and veiled hostility. Sasuke was more that self-aware; he had also been making peace with the fact he was, how do you say, sort of a dick. Whatever.
"No problem," the boy said with a smile, "I'm Kabuto, by the way."
"Shikamaru. The kid with the glare is Sasuke, and the girl with the pale eyes is Hinata, and the guy with the chips is Chouji," Shikamaru said, jerking his thumb towards his teammate and friend as he did, "Introducing the rest is a bit too troublesome; you guys can do it yourselves."
Ino scoffed at the snub, while Sasuke found it a bit amusing. It was Sakura who stepped up to finish the introductions.
"Don't mind him," she began, "Anyway, I'm Sakura. The boy with the tattoos on his face is Kiba, the pale kid is Sai, and the guy with the glasses is my other teammate, Shino. Oh, and she's Ino-pig. You can just ignore her, everyone else does."
"You wish, Forehead!" Ino snapped back with a huff, causing Sakura to give her a 'whatever' glare before turning back to Kabuto.
"Ah, thanks, I'll keep that in mind," Kabuto said as he chuckled and rubbed the back of his head, "Anyway, I figured because you're new, I could give you a bit of advice, and not just to try and keep a low profile."
"Advice, huh?" Shikamaru murmured before shrugging and giving a small smile, "Guess it never hurts to get some of that."
"Thank you, Kabuto-san." Hinata said, taking a place beside her teammate and giving him a small bow. The boy continued to rub the back of his head in embarrassment.
"Ah, you don't have to do to that, it's nothing really," he said, and then reached into a pocket, withdrawing a large stack of what appeared to be cards. Sasuke watched with a mix of amusement and somewhat forced disinterest; this had all came about because of his little glare, huh?
"These are my Ninja Info Cards." he said, flaring them out in a wide fan. He was apparently quite proud of this fact.
"So, what the heck are those?" Sakura asked, curious nature shining through in spades as she edged forward. Kabuto just smiled.
"Ninja Info Cards," he reiterated, and Sasuke could of swore he heard a beat echo in the distance, if just for a moment, before the boy continued, "They don't appear much at first; in fact, they appear blank."
To demonstrate he shuffled a few times before placing a single card face up, indeed showing that they were, to the naked eye, purely blank white cards. Sasuke felt himself being drawn in a bit, own curious nature sparking up as this Kabuto character made quite the show of things.
"I've been getting ready for this exam for a long time. Each one of these cards is chakra encoded with everything I've learned in studying and preparing. And while they appear blank, when I use my chakra on them, like so," he said, placing a single finger on the center of the card and closing his eyes for just a moment. With a small poof, the blank of the card transformed into a miniature map of the shinobi world. Numbers appeared above each of the nations, rising up into a 3D pillar based upon the numbers. Konoha had the highest, followed by both Kusagakure no Sato and Amegakure no Sato. Takiagakure and Sunagakure had their share as well, though no where near as much as the former three. A few other small places had a number of two, usually so small that Sasuke had to strain for a moment to even see it.
"This is the Geographical Distribution of all the candidates in the exam. That just scratches the surface, but it gives a good example of the type of things I've been able to find out," Kabuto said with a grin, looking up and scanning the crowd, "So, is there anything you guys want to know?"
Finally, unable to contain himself, Sasuke stepped up and made the first request.
"I want to know about the team from Takiagakure no Sato, led by someone named Ji, and the genin Fuu, Hanuel, and Seok," he inquired, crouching down in front of the cards. Kabuto just nodded, shuffling up the map card back into the deck. He paused after a few shuffles, quickly jerking a set of three cards from the stack at various places, holding them dramatically in front of his face before spreading them out in front of them, single finger on each and channeling his chakra in to reveal their secrets.
The first was Seok. His statistics were impressive, but not absolutely amazingly so. A number of C-rank missions, and even a B one under his belt. Apparently he was known as the Arbiter for some unknown reason, and despite his bruiser-like appearance he seemed to actually excel in the art of ninjutsu. He was finally noted as possessing 'unusual chakra.' Whatever that meant.
The second was Hanuel. She was a taijustu specialist, with the same missions under her belt that Seok had; clearly, they were not a team thrown together for the exams alone. Strangely, she was also noted as being blind, yet apparently remained a ninja regardless. It certainly explained her peculiar headwear, at least, but little else. Regardless, her taijutsu was impressively high.
Finally, there was Fuu. Unfortunately, the data on her was far scarcer than Sasuke would have liked; her abilities were a mystery, and her missions matched up with her teammates, except for one very strange exception. She had an S-class mission listed, for some reason or another. An error, Sasuke silently pondered, or something more?
"Well, that's sort of helpful," Sasuke said, still frowning at the lack of information on the three strange shinobi he and the other young genin had encountered the other day.
"They're from a minor village, its hard to get inform from places like that some times. I mean, look at this new Kuukuugakure no Sato; no one has even heard of it." Kabuto said, with a sigh and a nod.
Moments later, Sasuke's head snapped towards the crowd once more; that was a lot of killing intent, all directed towards their area, and Kabuto in particular. Suddenly, a hunched man burst from the crowd. Kabuto leaped back as the man rushed him. The man threw a straight punch, which Kabuto managed to evade with a fairly impressive amount of speed. What he did not expect was the sudden spike of ivory that burst from the strange man's heavily bandaged and bulky right arm that seemed massively out of place even on his odd frame. The spike jammed into the wall an inch or two from where Kabuto's head had been a moment before, causing the Konoha-nin to stare with wide and fearful eyes.
"The Village Hidden in the Void is not a 'minor' village." the man said, and Sasuke noticed for the first time that his headband bore the strange open circle that they'd seen at the gates. He also noted that the thick spike seemed oddly organic to the boy. It took further examination, likely only a few seconds despite seeming far longer, particularly for the one with the spike in his face, for Sasuke to realize exactly what it was: bone.
"Quiet down you; you can't start killing each other without us saying so," echoed a gruff voice. Sasuke looked over his shoulder, finding a man in a strange gray uniform, a long black trench-coat, and a black bandana, surrounded by other, younger men and women in similar attire, "So sit your happy asses down before I kick you punks out of the damn exam here and now."
The hunched foreigner wielding the bone spike slunk back, eying the man with open hostility that he masked fairly well as he spoke.
"I apologize; I guess I'm just a bit eager," he said, but was more or less ignored by the large man, who simply scanned the room. He rested of a select few; Sasuke noted he was one of them. The look was almost indistinguishable, and Sasuke couldn't help but get the feeling the only way he'd been able to tell at all was because he was allowed to. He didn't like that feeling.
"My name is Ibiki Morino, administrator of part one of the Chuunin Exams. Now introduce your punk asses to your seats before I start cracking heads."
Η
Hinata stared at Ibiki with shock, abet not at the things she expected. He'd been somewhat theatrical about the consequences of taking, and possibly failing, the last of the questions. To never be able to test again, stuck as a genin for the rest of your life. Was the man even capable of such a decree? It seemed unlikely, but it was hardly something you wanted to risk, was it? Apparently not, as scores of shinobi began to stand up in refusal before being coldly escorted from the room.
But what else shocked her was that she was not one of them. She hadn't even the desire to be one of them. Strangely, her doubts and fears seemed... cleared away by his declaration. She could pass this question, just as she could pass the rest. And her teammates were no different.
Of course, her trust was well rewarded when Ibiki revealed the truth of the tenth question and went on to congratulate the remaining genin of their achievement. The lingering silence when he announced it was time to proceed to the second part of the exam seemed out of place, however, and she couldn't help but notice as he glanced towards one of the windows with a curious expression on his face.
Θ
Anko hurt in a way she hadn't hurt in so very long. It was a sort of good hurt, the kind that brought satisfaction from knowing you spent the previous night truly extravagantly; you had truly lived for at least one night, and the pain was the lingering reminder of all you had done. Anko had no regrets, despite the pain. No, not a single regret in the world.
She lay sprawled out her bed, at least moderately decent thanks to having absently pulled the sheets over herself. They did little to warm her, however, given how soaked they were with a number of bodily fluids that one really didn't want to think to much about. The specialist wondered how long she had been laying there; she could see the eye-seeringly bright light of the day shining through her window and wished dearly that she had the will to get up and close the blinds.
"How the hell does he do it?" she wondered aloud, followed by a sore and long groan. Naruto had gotten up quite early and gotten dressed without saying so much as a word. Had Anko been not riding the high she was that might have come off as somewhat insulting, but she suspected the boy had enough on his mind and had made her damn happy enough not to care. Really, though, she was more surprised he was moving at all; she literally had lost count, and yet he never seemed to stop. Or even slow down. Quite a gift he had. Never being one to back down from a challenge, she'd gone until it hurt, and then some. But, as said, she had no regrets.
Absently, she knew she was supposed to be somewhere, but right now, she just couldn't be fucked to care.
Not one damn bit.
Ω
Author Note:
The delay can be attributed to the fact that I am both incredibly busy lately and simply haven't had as much inspiration for this part of the story. However, I am getting into more exciting aspects, I hope. Had a few hints on future development in this chapter, and I enjoy focusing a bit more on Hinata, as I find her the hardest to write, really. Also a nice break from writing Naruto too much, despite the name of the story.
I don't intend to spend more than a chapter each on the first to parts of the exams; they're fairly mundane and I simply want to move into the far more actiony segments. Suffice to say, we're getting there.
Just for a heads up, you've seen how long one arc of the story ended up being in chapters and words. I'm in this for the long hall: I will finish this story, even if I have planned out no less than seventeen arcs.
God help me, I've created my own monster. But, at least its a fun one! The next chapter is already in the works, and it'll show the abilities of some other characters that haven't gotten much screen time, as well as have a nice Gaiden as well. Look for it in a few weeks!