Chapter 25

"There will be three parts of these Chuunin Exams." Says a guy up the front, capturing everyone's attention. He was big and tough-looking. "The first part is a intelligence test, the second part is a survival test, and the third part is a strength test." He explains. I smile confidently. Too easy. "You may be thinking this is easy," oh how did he know? "however, these exams may be the hardest things you've ever come across. If you thought they will be anything like the exams you took to become a Genin, think again." I liked the sound of that, I need a challenge.
"This will be a breeze." I heard Guy mutter to himself. Apparently he likes to talk to himself sometimes.
"Now, this first part is merely answering a few questions." He says. I raise an eyebrow. He picks up a big pile of paper and starts putting on in front of each person. I frown, not another written exam.

It took him a few minutes to do that, then he goes back up the front. Guy hit his head against the table, it would seem he's just like me, dreading written pieces.
"You will have 45 minutes to answer each of these questions. I don't want to hear a sound... Begin." I look at the paper in front of me. I read the first question. 'Name the most dangerous kinjutsu.' I blink a few times. 'How the heck am I supposed to know something like that!' My eye twitches. Guy had the same clueless expression as me. We both look at each other with an expression that said 'I'm screwed'. It's now that I regret not studying much in the two years I spent at the academy. I've decided that once I return home, I am going to study a lot more.

I managed to answer (guess) some of the questions, and I let Guy copy some without being caught, because I know exactly how he feels.
"Your time is up." Says the guy up the front. I look around, I saw Ibiki sitting two tables down from mine in the same row. He had the biggest grin of confidence ever. Maybe he is super smart or something. "I will come around and collect your papers soon. Now, as for the next part, you will be meeting at the gates of Konoha at precisely 9am tomorrow. Do not be late."

I got up and follow Guy outside. "Thanks again Ayama, if you hadn't given me any answers I would've turned in a blank sheet." Guy says.
"Nah, it's fine. But most of them were just guesses..." I admit.
"Well I'm sure they are right!" He says with a thumbs up.
"Yeah thanks." I say, not taking too much notice to the fact he just complimented me. "So what do you suppose we're doing tomorrow for this survival test?" I ask.
"I have no clue. But I reckon it's gonna be tough, so I must train to prepare for it." He says.
"Can I come?" I ask, really needing to move around after sitting around for ages... okay, it was about an hour, but so what? He gives me a thumbs up and grins.
"Of course! We must make the most of our youth!" He exclaims. I sweatdrop.
"Um, yes, that's right." I reply, kinda speechless and give him a thumbs up too. His smile widens and he grabs my arm and drags me along with him. By this time Ren and Kiyoshi came out looking for me.
"Hey look, she's going off with that weirdo again." Kiyoshi says, pointing me out.
"Heh, I wonder if they're going out?" Ren replies.
"Oooh! We should so follow them! Lets go!" Kiyoshi exclaims and drags Ren along with him.
"Yayayaya, stop dragging me!" Ren complains, then runs alongside him.

Me and Guy trained for the rest of the day, until the sun was gone and the moon took it's place. I felt like my knees were going to give in and the sweat that poured off me was unbelievable, it's like training with both Ren and Kiyoshi in one – and that says something.
"I'm.. going... to.. win.." Guy pants.
"No... you're... not..." I pant. Just then Guy steps forth to begin running, but his leg gave in and he fell over. I fell over too.
".. Draw." We both say in unison, then agree on it.
"Well well, seems they're only training buddies." I hear Ren's voice.
"Yeah, boring." Kiyoshi says, they both approach us. I just groan in response, too exhausted to even move my head to face them. "So are you planning on staying here all night or..?" Kiyoshi asks, crouching down and poking me. I groan again.
"Looks like she's sleeping out here then." Ren sniggers. Kiyoshi grins, but I didn't see it. I groan louder. 'Why can't they just carry me back or something? So lazy.'
"Why don't we carry them?" Kiyoshi suggests. 'Finally, his first good idea in how long?'
"Why would we do that? They have legs." Ren says. I sigh.
"I dunno, 'coz we're teammates?" Kiyoshi says. I smile.
"So?" Ren asks. "I'm sure she can manage." I frown. 'These two are hopeless.'
"I will carry Ayama back, and you can carry him." Kiyoshi says, grabbing my arm and putting it around his neck, pulling me up onto his back. He stands up and my head just plops lazily on his shoulder.
"Why would I do that? And why are you carrying her?" Ren asks. 'Well obviously because he cares about me.'
"Because it's like a way of training, weight-lifting." Kiyoshi replies. 'Forget my last thoughts.' I sigh. "Oh, now I get it." Ren says, then picks Guy up. "Geez this guy is heavy." Guy starts snoring. I couldn't believe it, he was asleep already.
"It's probably those leg weights." Kiyoshi says.
"What leg weights?" Ren asks, stealing my thoughts.
"Under those orange leggings. Haven't you noticed?" Kiyoshi asks. My eyes wouldn't even open I was that exhausted, so I couldn't see, it was pretty frustrating. I think that's when I was ready to fall asleep myself. "Anyway, lets go."
"Wait wait wait, where does this guy live anyway?" Ren asks.
"How the heck would I know?" Kiyoshi replies, then starts jumping through the trees. The cool breeze of the wind felt nice on my face.
"Is she asleep?" Ren asks.
"I think so." Kiyoshi replies. 'No, I'm not. I'm wide awake.' I was so exhausted, I couldn't even groan anymore.
".. I think she pushes herself too much." Ren says. That small little voice telling me to sleep disappeared. I wanted to hear this.
"Yeah.. she might end up killing herself one day." Kiyoshi replies.
"Yeah, she tries so hard, it's actually kind of inspirational." Ren says. 'Inspirational? Me?'
"Yeah it is. I'm actually glad she's on our squad." Kiyoshi says.
"Mm, same." I would've emotionally cried, but yeah no energy, it wasn't gonna happen. The drowsiness was taking over. 'No! No no no, I can't fall asleep yet! I wanna listen to them!' My hearing became muffled, but I did hear one of them say something that sounded like: "Oroher" then I felt Kiyoshi tense up slightly.

The next morning I woke up to two faces staring at me. It made me jump and I hit my head on the bunk above. "Ow!" I groan and hold my head.
"Morning sleeping beauty." Kiyoshi scoffs.
"Leave me alone!" I gush – morning crankiness.
"Heh, I liked her better when she was sleeping." Ren chuckles.
"What time is it?" I ask, remembering that we had to be at the next exam by 9.
"It's 8. We have an hour." Kiyoshi answers. I jump up and go into the bathroom and lock the door. I got out of my clothes and got in the nice warm shower. The water here was so much more nicer than the water back home.

I must've stayed in the shower for about 20 minutes before getting out and changed into my ninja attire. I go out of the bathroom and ruffle my shoulder-length hair with my towel.
"Long enough shower?" Kiyoshi asks.
"Yeah, you should have one, it's nice." I say.
"Yeah, she's right." Ren says. I look at him. "What? I had one earlier."
"Oh, right." I say and continue ruffling my hair.
"Alright then." Kiyoshi says and goes into the bathroom. I blink a few times.
"He better not take forever." Ren says. I nod and continue ruffling my hair. After it was dry enough I brush it – there were a lot of knots – and put my headband on. I grab the three puppet scrolls and attach them to my belt around my waist, then put my bamboo stick in the slot in the belt around my upper body.
"Well I'm all set." I say, grabbing my ninja sandals.
"Good for you." Ren says. I seriously felt refreshed, and it was the best feeling in the world. "Nice bruise."
"Huh?" I notice he was looking at my arm. I look at my upper arm and see the biggest bruise ever. It was really noticeable. I just had that urge. I poked it to see how much it hurt – and it hurt a lot. I wince slightly.
"Here." Ren says, holding out some ointment. I look at it.
"Nah, that's only for gashes and stuff. I'm tough." I reply, grinning. He rolls his eyes.

I bang on the door harder than Ren. "Kiyoshi! Get out!" I shout. Ren was about to punch the door down.
"Get out dammit! We're gonna be late!" Ren shouts. We heard the taps stop and Kiyoshi came out with a towel around his waist.
"What?" He asks, shaking his head, making the water fly off his hair and onto us. I look away, no I did not blush, this was just gross (he does have a nice upper body though ;) )
"We're gonna be late, we've got 10 minutes before we have to be there." Ren says.
"Ohhh, right." He says then comes out and grabs his ridiculously big bag and rummages through it until he finds his ninja clothes then he drops the towel (luckily I wasn't looking) and gets dressed. I faced the blank wall the entire time. I know I seem boyish and all, but I'm not a boy, so they just can't do that, it's just wrong.

We found ourselves running to the gates of Konoha – we arrived just as the proctor (the same one from yesterday) started talking.
"Welcome everyone. This is the second part of the exam," He explains. Chitori-sensei saw us arrive and whacks us all over the head for being late, her hand got wet after that because all our hairs were still pretty damp. Kiyoshi's was dripping wet. "this is a survival test. There is a destination in these woods that you must find, then you will grab a scroll, which will then tell you where to go next, but be warned, there are only 5 scrolls, so the first 5 teams to get there will have the advantage. Those of you who do not make it, will have to either track down the squads with the scrolls or use the clues around you and work it out." He explains. I had to admit, this sounded fun. "Each of you will get a small map of the Land of Fire so you hopefully don't get lost. There are no clues on the map, it's just a plain map. And the scrolls location is marked on the map, but you will have to look at it closely. This part may last several days, and some of you may not make it back alive. This is why we call it a 'survival test'."
"Here you go." Says a Jonin, handing me a map, and going around to the rest of the squads. I look at the map. Ren and Kiyoshi lean over and look too. I heard Kiyoshi chuckle to himself, he must've figured it out.
"Now, good luck and be careful. Begin." Says the proctor and every squad jumps off.. except ours. I look at Kiyoshi, mentally questioning the whereabouts of the scrolls. He gave me a blank look.
"What?" He asks.
"Do you see the mark?" I ask. He snatches the map from me and examines it. Chitori-sensei sighs.
"Would you three get out there already?" She questions. I nod.
"Come on, we'll work it out on the way." I say. They both nod and we jump off into the forest.

"I can't see anything." Kiyoshi says, his eyes still glued to the map.
"Watch out!" I exclaim. He looks up and gasps, but doesn't stop in time. He ran dead-smack into a tree. Me and Ren stop to laugh.
"This is pathetic." Ren laughs.
"Tell me about it." I laugh. Kiyoshi frowns at us and straightens the map out and looks at it.
"Ayama, you're smart, surely you can spot it." Kiyoshi says, jumping onto the same branch as me and handing me the map. Okay, so I was wrong, none of us are smart enough to figure this out.
"We'll find it using instincts." I say. They both seem to agree on that. I roll the map up and slide it in my belt. "Lets go!" I say. Then we all jump off in a random direction. I really hope they're not following me, because I'm following them.

2 hours later Kiyoshi pointed out something that pissed us all off. "I've seen that tree before." Kiyoshi says, stopping. Me and Ren stop.
"What do you mean!" Ren questions.
"I've seen it before! .. Or felt it." Kiyoshi says. He was right, this is the same tree he ran into. It even had the small dint. We all sigh of frustration.
"Don't tell me we just went in a circle." Ren grumbles.
"Seems we did." I sigh. I look up and jump to the top of that tree then look around. I get the map out and look at it, comparing it to the scenery.
"See anything?" Kiyoshi calls.
"This way!" Ren says, being the hasty person he is, he ran off in a random direction. I had hunch he was going the right way. I don't know why, I just did. Me and Kiyoshi struggled to catch up to him, he's incredibly fast and he gets faster everyday – I swear it.