This is chapter 11 of this story. I kind of jump a little bit from where most of you might expect me to start, but I believe there is no point in writing something you readers will perfectly know will happen. So instead, enjoy where I start and please drop a review.
A/N: My tone for Minato this chapter…Kakashi picked it up somewhere
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto
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"I swear, when I get out of this Minato-sensei, I will shut off all of your chakra points!"
Minato would normally be slightly worried about the talented Hyuga's threat, especially since they lived with one another, but he was too busy trying to repress the smirk that was naturally forming on his face. It wasn't voluntary, but it reminded him of a funny incident involving Neji's father. Kushina had confused his Byakugan-ing the hot spring, in an attempt to find his perverted sensei, as peeping. So, much like the situation his father had been in, he was tied to a stump.
"Neji-san, that is not a nice statement at all! Minato-sensei would only have done this if he had a good reason to. Correct sensei?" Lee tried to calm Neji down.
Tenten followed Lee's lead. "Yeah, Neji, there's no reason to flip out right now."
"No reason to flip out?" Neji quickly fired back at the bunned brunette. "Of course there is a reason to, as you so put it, flip out. We have failed the test, which means we are going back to the academy, where I will be forced to endure another year of. I believe that is a sufficient reason to, as you put it, freak out."
Minato had calmed his chuckles and spoke up. "You three don't have to worry about that, actually."
"We don't?" Tenten was surprised by this fact.
"Does that mean that you will pass us because of how impressive we were sensei?" Lee asked in excited manner.
Minato shrugged. "Actually, you guys performed so impressively poor out there that none of you are going back to the academy. I am going to make the recommendation that you be dropped from the program altogether."
All three kids went wide. "Say what?" All three said, Neji angerly, Tenten confused, and Rock Lee dejectedly.
"Your performances were so terrible, that you shouldn't even become shinobi's. Let alone you ignored the one piece of advice I gave you yesterday."
"I did not ignore it sensei!" Lee quickly yelled out in protest. "I made sure to look underneath the underneath, and was always making sure that you were not leading me into a trap or were actually some sort of clone or anything like that!"
Minato sighed. "True, Lee-san, you did do that, but that was not what I meant by it. I was referring to the rules I set up at the beginning of the test."
"What do you mean those rules godfather?" Neji abandoned all sense of decorum at the threat of his future livelihood at stake. "They were quite clear. Those who got a bell passed, those who didn't would be sent back to the Academy. Only 2 could succeed. What could be any clearer?"
"Ah, but those rules should have made you suspicious in the first place. Why would I be able to take on one or two pupils, but they assigned me a team of 3? Why would I assign a test that these pupils would foolishly attack me one-on-one, challenging a jonin freshly out of the academy? The thought you could possibly do it by yourself is ludicrous! I was probably more talented than you were Neji-san, when I took this test with Jiraiya-sensei, and he beat me down as well on my first attempt at the bells. So, tell me, what was the purpose of this exam?"
Minato left the question hanging out there, a key factor if he would pass them. Even if it was his godson, he would still fail him here if his team did not get this answer correctly. He heard a noise coming from Tenten, and turned his attentions to her. "You were saying something, Tenten-san?"
Tenten looked petrified, praying she wasn't wrong, before she took a gulp. "Could it be…could it be we were supposed to work…as a team?"
Minato internally let out a sigh of relief as he nodded. "Yes Tenten-san, you are exactly correct. This test is supposed to teach you teamwork, and seeing if three students can comprehend this concept. You may think power or flashy techniques are keys to succeeding, but you are wrong. It is your team that is most important." He paused for a moment, reflective, before he decided to tell them the story. "Do you ever wonder why you never heard of my teammates? Why there are no stories about them? You think there would be, considering the legend surrounding me."
Lee was the first to answer. "No, sensei, I have not thought of that, but I am assuming that they perished."
Minato nodded. "Yes, they did. They died over twenty years ago, when we attempted the Chunin Exams in Suna when I was 13." He paused his story when he heard a mumble from Neji. "What did you say, Neji-san? Speak up."
Neji looked up at the man and repeated what he said. "They must have been weak, and fated to die." He defiantly decreed.
Minato smirked and shook his head. "Perhaps you are right this time Neji-san, perhaps they were fated to die, but they were anything but weak." Minato took a deep breath as he prepared to tell the story.
"There names were Hinata Sozuki and Koba Riichi. Hinata as a total tomboy, an expert on fire jutsus and was highly interested in swords. Koba was a bit of a goof, he was our class deadlast, but I knew he was incredibly reliable and quite good at taijutsu. We had been a team for three years just about, and were getting ready to take the Chunin Exams a second time. We had taken it in Konoha the year before, but got knocked out in the second round by a group of pretty powerful Taki shinobi, one of them was promoted to chunin that year in the exams. But we were much more focused, and we managed to make it to the finals, which was six team bracket competition. We had to fight in the first round, and defeated the Kumo nin that we faced with little injury and were rested when we faced our competition in the semi-finals, a team from Suna. We didn't have any knowledge of them, so the fact that one of them was a Jinchuriki came to a total shock to everybody from Konoha."
"Sorry, but what's a Jinchuriki?" Tenten interrupted the narrative with this poignant comment. Minato had been expecting that question, since it was a taboo term in Konoha still. Naruto and his secret would be kept out of the public realm until Minato was sure his son had fully accepted his burden.
"A Jinchuriki is a person who, in an effort to control one of the nine Bjuu, is made into a living seal of the demon." He explained, to the wide eyes of the three.
"A living seal? Why don't they just kill them, like you did with the Kyuubi?" Tenten asked.
"That is a story for another day, Tenten-san. Anyway, we were challenging the Suna team, and had quickly knocked out the two teammates of the Jinchuriki, neither of whom should have been taking the exam yet in the first place. I assume they had just been full-ins, just to the Jinchuriki could enter the exam. I don't remember his name, but I remember his face. He had dead green eyes, and short jet black hair, and he wore a gourd on his back, which was filled with sand he could control, even without him willing it to do so. He could manipulate sand whoever he wanted, even sand that wasn't in his gourd, but it was that sand that would protect him from being even touched. He had shown no cares about his teammates, and had just stood idly by as we defeated them.
It was three on one, and we felt we had the advantage, but no matter what we did, nothing was hitting him. Koba couldn't him with taijutsu, and none of Hinata's fire attacks were doing anything. My seals weren't of much help either, and I hadn't mastered any of the lightning jutsu Jiraiya-sensei had taught me. So, I made a gambit that I regret to this day." Minato paused for a moment, looking at his enraptured students, before continuing. "I cast a seal I was still learning, a double entrance seal. It is a seal that links to marks to one another, allowing things stored in one to be released at the other seal. It only works over short distances, but it was perfect for this match.
I made the seal on a scroll I laid on the ground, and another on a scroll I was holding. Then, I had Hinata and Koba maneuver the Jinchuriki over the other seal. He had been half-heartedly attacking us, making us dodge, but I thought I had found a way to get back at him for underestimating us. So, I pulled out one of my custom explosive tags and activated it, and sealed it into the seal, and threw it as far away as possible."
The three students gasped, having learned in class about both explosive tags and seals. It was a highly idiotic idea to mix the two together, and was suicide to seal an active explosive tag into a seal. Doing so was a very potent combination. Tenten, however, noted the genius in the concept, having been interested in seals already for some time.
"Because of how the seal worked, the explosion blew out both scrolls, and was magnified by the chakra in the seal. The guy never saw it coming. One moment he was lazily stalking us, the next he is up in smoke. Koba goes in to try to knock him out, hoping the sand wouldn't stop him, when the sand sends him flying back. The smoke clears, and the guy is suddenly flopping around. The force of the explosion blew up both of his legs, tearing them to shreds. We thought the match was over, and we were certain of it when he obviously passed out. We were waiting for the instructor to announce to us we had won, but that was when we heard this scream. It was coming from the guy, as the sand from his gourd, and from the ground began to collect around him. First the legs were reformed with sand, and then his body formed, with one giant tail. The guy was the host of the one tailed bjuu, a tanuki named Shukaku. As I later learned, he gives any host insomnia, making it impossible to sleep in most cases. And when they do sleep, he temporarily gains control over his hosts body. And with wounds as bad as the ones I had inflicted, it near total control of the body.
From there, it was a mess. Sand shinobi began to intervene, and sensei came into the fray to try and get it under control. We tried to help as best we could, but it was a terrible situation. Eventually, we found ourselves huddled together and we made a plan. We had collected enough data to know if he was woken up, the beast would be reigned into his seal. So, we went in, Hinata turning the sand into glass and Koba breaking it up while I helped try to disperse sand with a lightning jutsu that I wouldn't have tried in any other situation. We were actually making a lot of progress on our part, we had a couple other shinobi helping us, and we had opened the face temporarily. I made a move with a seal I had prepared, a shock that was supposed to wake him up for a moment. But that is when it happened. Sand spikes shot from the demon's paw, and I could only watch as they impaled Koba and Hinata. After that, I was knocked out by a spike landing a few inches to the right of me. Another shinobi came in and saved the day, using the opening we set up to wake up the boy long enough for the demon to be forced back into the seal." Minato looked longingly off to his left, thinking about it.
"The boy died from bleeding out, and Suna resealed Shukaku into his ancestral container, a blessed teapot from a very ancient and powerful monk. And I was without my team. But without teamwork, we wouldn't have lasted that long. Without teamwork, who knows what damage Shukaku could have done. Without teamwork…I probably would have died. Hinata's last words were to warn me of the spike that knocked me out. If she hadn't said anything, I would have been impaled and killed as well.
Teamwork is something that can not be overstressed. When you work with a team, you are much stronger as a whole than as individuals. And for teamwork, you will do things you never thought impossible. After that, I became obsessed with the idea of reaching your teammates as quickly as possible. That was why I initially developed the Hirashin no Jutsu, to teleport to my friends so I could save them.
But on that same point, don't let your regrets hold you back. They promoted me after that exam, due to all the potential I showed and such, and I rejected it. I was inspired to follow the vow a man sensei had introduced us to, to stay a genin for the rest of his life. Jiraiya-sensei knocked some sense into me, saying that Hinata and Koba wouldn't want me to spend my life ignoring my potential. One shouldn't live their lives for the dead." Minato finished his rant, giving them a moment to let it sink in.
After a minute, Lee suddenly bowed down to Minato. "Please, sensei, give us another chance. I swear I will perform the best teamwork ever!"
Tenten nodded. "Please Minato-sensei, give us another chance."
Neji said nothing.
Minato looked over the three, before nodding. "Fine, I will give you another hour. However, there are two changes to the rules. Now, you must really capture the bells from me. And secondly, you cannot untie Neji from the stomp. Do so, and you will automatically fail and be kicked out of the program, understand?"
Tenten and Lee gulped, looked at each other, and nodded. "Hai, sensei."
Neji only glared at sensei.
Minato simply nodded. "I'll be waiting for you." With that, he vanished from the genin's eyes, dropping something none of them noticed.
The three genin looked towards one another to try and figure out what to do. Neji struggled with his ropes, while Tenten and Lee looked at each other. Tenten nodded slightly towards Lee, who moved to the back of stump and grabbed the ropes. Neji squirmed in protest.
"Are you really that stupid? He said not to untie me. I will escape myself."
"I will not let my teammate to be trapped to this stump. For teamwork's sake, we need all three of us. I know I am not the best, and I still have very far to go to become so. I know you are very good though, Neji, probably a lot better than I will be for some time. Tenten and I cannot do this alone, so I am untying you so we can win."
"You idiot! If you untie me, none of us become shinobi? Do you think he will not know what you did? Godfather is anything but stupid, something you apparently are.
SLAP!
"Shut up." Tenten moved her hand away from the cheek of Neji. "Just shut up. Lee-san is my teammate, and I will not let anyone ridicule him for no good reason. Both Lee and I think this is for the best, and if you weren't so stubborn, you would realize that to. So let us help you, then we can go and get the bells. Understand?" Her tone was very forceful, making Neji listen. Neji paused for a moment, before sighing.
"Fine, hurry up Lee." He said in a defeated manner, and quickly found himself free of the ropes. If they had been normal ropes he could have escaped fairly easily, but something about the way his godfather tied them, or something about the ropes themselves, made it impossible. Neji stood up, and brushed himself off. "So, what is the game plan?"
Suddenly, in a flash, Minato appeared before them, picking up the kunai he had dropped.
"You disobeyed my direct orders. Do you know what that means?" He menacingly stood over the three.
Tenten looked around before finding her voice. "Yeah, it means we were using teamwork, and being good team members!"
"Hai, Tenten-chan is right!" Lee upgraded the suffix of his female teammate. "We are working as a team, just like you wanted us to."
Neji looked at the two and sighed. "I'll back them up here. We are a team now, sensei, just like you wanted." Neji was internally praying that this act of bravado wouldn't get them booted from the program altogether.
"I only have one thing to say to you three." Minato paused, turning his attention to each three, building up the suspense, as all three unconsciously leaned in, awaiting their fates.
"You pass."
