Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, the manga or the anime. Sorry about the wait people, stuff happened. Thanks for your suggestions for things to watch as well by the way. I would actually be watching some of it right now, but I have work to do now, it's just gonna have to wait… Anyway, enjoy.
Chapter 25: The Second Test
The oversized trees towered over the wire mesh fence that separated the rest of Konoha from the training ground. The murky, humid and damp atmosphere within the enclosed area was a stark contrast to the bright, crisp and hot weather that the rest of the hidden Leaf village was currently experiencing, and looking in; it took the eyes a few seconds to acclimatise to the gloom. Not that there was much to see other than the endless foliage anyway.
Naruto put his hands behind his head.
"I can't believe that the second part of the exam is in here again!" he thought to himself, oddly pleased that there was finally some familiarity.
"That stupid closet pervert's exam…" he thought, remembering the revelation that he had been unaware of an active genjutsu for nearly half of the exam. Then there was the issue of that tenth question.
"It was the tenth question last time too…" the blonde remembered. What was the obsession? He pondered this for a moment.
"Either way, I guess I was a bit lucky to make it through" he conceded inwardly. That made two written exams he had been fortunate to make it through. He smiled to himself.
"Well, isn't luck part of skill too? Didn't Kakashi-sensei say that once?" he asked himself. He turned to the two girls on his left.
"Looks like we got here early again" Naruto observed, moving his thoughts back to the present. Hanabi nodded, almost imperceptibly. Hinata on the other hand seemed distracted.
"You okay Hinata?" Naruto asked, concerned at the spaced out girl. At the sound of her name, the lavender eyed Hyuuga blinked and turned. Naruto looked over to where she had been looking.
"Just a tree…she was probably just thinking" he told himself confidently as the long haired girl nodded.
"I-I'm fine Naruto-kun" she managed. The spiky haired boy smiled.
"What were you thinking about?" he asked lightly, causing the pale girl to blush.
"I-I was just remembering w-when you got cut by t-that examiner" she replied, embarrassed.
"And when I tried to offer you that ointment…" she didn't add. She had hardly been able to eke out a sentence around him back then. The fact she was stuttering was at the very least a testament to the fact she was able to speak to him nowadays. It was slow and steady progress, but progress she was happy with.
"I just have to get rid of this silly stutter now" she told herself. The most annoying thing was that around anyone else, with the occasional exception of her father, she was able to speak almost entirely normally. The indigo haired girl watched as Naruto's face contorted at the memory of the dangerous woman.
"I hope she's not the second examiner again, she's crazy" the blonde grinned nervously, remembering the pleasure with which she had described his impending bloody death in the forest.
"Who is?" a sultry voice asked, purring into Naruto's ear mere moments after the words had left his mouth. The blonde felt an arm around his shoulder, and something sharp poking into his back. On his left, Hanabi looked stunned. Next to her, Hinata looked more worried than anything else.
"I sensed her, but she's really fast…too fast. I should have been paying attention" Hinata said to herself, replaying the split second actions over in her head. Unfortunately the trapped blue eyed ninja was not afforded this luxury and was concentrating on not being stabbed by the fiery Jounin.
"Hi, Anko-sensei" Naruto managed, stiffly. The purple haired kunoichi raised her eyebrows.
"You don't sound very scared" she observed. Naruto gave a small chuckle, still arching his back to avoid the point of the kunai.
"I wasn't totally surprised" he admitted. Anko gave a laugh of her own.
"You were still too relaxed, even if you did manage to sense me. I guess you've improved though" she told him. Naruto grinned.
"Or you've got worse" he joked, goading her slightly. Though he didn't see the glint that appeared in the scantily clad kunoichi's eye, the expression on the faces of both of his team mates told him he had just done something wrong. Well, that and the next words that were whispered into his ear.
"Y'know, I hope you don't run into any accidents in there" she said in a low undertone, so that only the blonde could hear her.
"Because I would hate to see any of that lovely warm blood of yours spilled" she breathed, at last eliciting an involuntary shudder from the younger ninja. The two Hyuuga sisters were only able to look on, Hinata fidgeting uncontrollably from the combination of both the closeness of Anko to Naruto, and the dangerous look in the Jounin's eye.
"Ha! Finally" the brown eyed woman laughed, releasing the sweating Genin from her grip.
"I preferred you before" she admitted.
"The younger ones are always easier to scare…" she muttered wistfully, the three team mates still struck dumb by the massive personality swings they had just witnessed.
"You have about a quarter of an hour before I make any announcements" she called back cheerfully, walking towards a small hut by one of the entrances.
"That's the second examiner?" Hanabi asked, still shocked. She got two slow nods in reply.
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"Ah! I feel better for that!" Mihoto exclaimed brightly, stopping at the back of the group in front of the training ground. The boy standing next to her immediately slumped down to the ground and leaned against a handily placed boulder.
"This is the forty fourth training area then?" he asked from his prone position. The smiling twin nodded, while Eri regarded the tall brown eyed boy darkly.
"How long do we have?" Mihoto asked the two of them, surveying the crowd. Sho shrugged, while Eri joined her twin in her examination of the remaining Chuunin exam participants. They all seemed to be here now.
"Not long" was the succinct reply, before the brooding twin resumed her analysis of the examinees. Accepting this, Mihoto decided to take the weight off her feet and sat down next to the resting ninja.
"It's going to be long exam…" the dark green eyed kunoichi told herself. This second test was going to start almost right after the first had finished. She sighed slightly and as her sister's eyes wandered over the competition Mihoto's caught sight of a yellow sign affixed to the fence.
'WARNING: YOU MAY DIE'
Mihoto smiled, nudging the dozing boy next to her. He groaned, pretending to be asleep and the girl laughed to herself.
"You're not the one who needs to conserve your energy" she murmured. Sho smiled, his eyes still closed.
"Fair enough. What is it?" he asked, opening his eyes. Mihoto pointed to the sign and laughed again as the tall ninja pretended to faint at the sight of it, raising a hand to his forehead theatrically. They had been in tough situations before; one of the advantages of waiting to take the exam was the extra mission experience you gained.
Ignoring the two sitting down, Eri looked around.
"Sixty six remaining" she thought to herself, performing some quick calculations. The field had been reduced by well over half by the first exam. It had to be reduced by a lot more before the third exam. The auburn haired girl gave a rare smile.
"Finally… some real action"
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Anko looked over the throng gathered in front of the fence. She didn't bother counting, though she had to admit, by the looks of it Ebisu had done quite a good job.
"Anyway, if they aren't all here by now, then they deserve to fail" she reasoned. And with that, the purple haired Jounin leapt out from behind the small hut and threw a small smoke bomb to announce her presence.
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The flash of the explosion, and the cloying smoke it produced instantly garnered the attention of the entire group, and even though the blonde had expected something like this…
"She's always got to make an entrance…" Naruto grumbled inwardly, waiting for the smoke to clear. As it did so the figure of a purple haired and pony tailed woman materialised. To the shock of those who hadn't seen her before, this examiners clothes did not leave much to the imagination.
"I am the second examiner, Mitarashi Anko!" the woman shouted enthusiastically, to the stunned surprise of most of those in front of her.
"I don't know what she's expecting…a cheer? Applause?" Naruto wondered, a heavy silence falling over the area. Dismissing the lack of response with a small wave of her hand, Anko began her explanation.
"Before we begin, I have to have you sign… these…" she announced, producing a wad of papers almost magically from somewhere in her coat and handing them to the nearest ninja. As they were passed around, the scantily clad Jounin continued her speech.
"You will be in this, the forty fourth training area, for five days. You may not leave until the end of those five days. It is a circular area, about twenty kilometres in diameter with a river running through it. The area is also heavily forested, as you can see, and has a tower in the middle" her eyebrows furrowed as a nervous Genin raised a hand.
"Yes?" she asked quizzically.
"This…" a black haired leaf ninja asked, holding the paper he had just been handed up. Anko said nothing, allowing him to continue.
"…it… '…absolves the village of Konoha of any deaths or serious injury that may occur during this, the second stage of the Chuunin exam'" he quoted, reading from part of the document. Anko shrugged and nodded.
"From here on, people will die. It's a fairly standard consent form" she explained.
"I don't want to be held responsible. Though you can give up here" the purple haired Jounin went on, smiling. The questioner shook his head quickly.
"Right. I will now explain what you have to do to pass this test" Anko stated. She smiled, knowing she now had the attention of the entire group.
"You must get hold of these!" she announced, pointing to her forehead. There were a number of confused looks, and a small silence, before finally someone spoke up.
"Your forehead protector?" a voice asked. Anko rolled her eyes.
"No. You will attempt to steal other team's hitai-ate's" she sighed.
"Of course, not everyone will have theirs on their forehead" she admitted, pointing to one Genin who had hers sewn onto her belt.
"Either way, each one of your team must acquire a different enemy's hitai-ate, and not lose their own, to pass this test. One per team member, that's three" she explained, making it as clear as possible.
"Of course, if you lose your own, you have until the end of the five days to try to get it back" she continued, beginning to run through the last few things before she could be interrupted.
"Killing is permissible from the start of the test. Of course, if a team loses a member to an injury that stops them from continuing, or if a team member dies, the rest of that team will fail" she ignored some of the shocked looks she was getting.
"As you can tell, there is no luck involved in obtaining three enemy hitai-ate's so this will be a complete test of your ninja skills, both for protecting your team mates and defeating enemies" she paused, looking around.
"One last thing, you go to the tower during the last day. You will spend four days in this training area, minimum. You will be unable to enter the tower before then" she informed the assembled teams.
"Any questions? No? Good, because I'm not taking any" the brown eyed woman grinned, not allowing enough time for any questions to be called out.
"When your team has filled your consent form out you will be assigned and then led to a gate" she finished, turning away from the ninja and going back to the small wooden shelter by the first gate.
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Watching the purple haired Jounin walk away, Naruto mulled the information the woman had just given over, unconsciously raising a hand to his forehead protector. Though the one he was wearing now wasn't the exact same one that Iruka had given him all those years ago, the idea of it being stolen unsettled the blonde.
"But I can take one more step towards becoming Hokage with this exam!" he told himself, excitement quickly growing inside him.
Beside him, Hinata noticed her team mates' apparent unease and her hand went to her own hitai-ate that hung around her neck. Lost in her own thoughts the long indigo haired girl didn't notice the smile that started to creep across the blue eyed boy's face and jumped at the sudden shout.
"All right! Let's do this!" Naruto called out, eliciting a strange look from Hanabi, while her sister recovered from the shock.
After signing his name on the consent form, and watching impatiently as both Hinata and Hanabi did the same, Naruto practically dragged the two sisters to the small wooden shelter.
"Gate number twenty three" Anko informed the three of them, motioning to a ninja in the background to lead them to their entry point.
"Naruto-kun! It looks like I shall be leading you to your gate! Congratulations on passing the first test!" a very familiar voice called out excitedly, and loudly. Naruto's eyes widened at the sight of his green spandex clad friend.
"Bushy Brows! What are you doing here?" Naruto asked in wonderment. Lee smiled, striking his nice guy pose.
"I am aiding Konoha by taking part in the organisation of the Chuunin exams!" he explained with a smile, before a more serious expression moved across his features.
"Seeing the new up and coming fires of ninja youth in all their glory while I do so!" Lee enthused, theatrical tears falling down his face. Next to Naruto, Hinata hid a smile at the exuberance of the boy in the bowl cut. Away to the blonde's left, Hanabi fought a grimace from her face.
"This must be the Lee-san the Neji-nii-san talks about…" she told herself. From the conversations she had had with her cousin she had found out that this guy was half of the reason that missions could so often be unbearable. Now she could see why he said that.
"Follow me! We have the furthest distance to go, let us show our youthfulness!" Lee cried, suddenly pointing forwards and setting off at a sprint. The three team mates leapt off in pursuit, forced into running to keep up with the taijutsu specialist.
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Just over ten minutes later the four Konoha ninja were all standing in front of gate twenty three, three of the four of them breathing quite heavily due to the speed they had been going.
"We made good time; you now have twenty minutes rest!" Lee praised the three of them. Naruto looked up at his friend and sighed, the spandex clad Leaf ninja was now jogging on the spot.
Two minutes later the three of them had got their breath back and now Naruto was the one fidgeting in anticipation. Both Hanabi and Hinata were waiting calmly, though the older of the two did glance at the exasperated blonde periodically.
"Naruto-kun…" Hinata thought worriedly, hoping that he would be able to stay calm during the test. With little else to do, the long haired girl checked the contents of her weapons pouches and kunai holsters before encouraging Naruto to do the same. She smiled as the blonde took the brief escape from boredom willingly.
Away from the three team mates, Lee was doing sit ups.
Eventually, after what seemed like an age to the hyperactive orange clad ninja, the time came, signified by Lee springing from his horizontal position and taking his place by the gate. He unlocked the gate, and then smiled at the three people in front of him.
"Good luck. I shall see you in five days time" he said reassuringly, pushing the entrance open.
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So that's chapter number twenty five. There will be fighting in the next chapter, so look forward to that. Again, sorry about the lateness… I'm trying my best. This chapter gave me a little difficulty for some reason as well. Hopefully the next one will go more smoothly. Well, until next time.
Later.