Just a note: This chapter takes place over a two-week span, two years after the previous segment.

Moving meditation is something that isn't emphasized enough. Sure, I have a preference for sitting still whenever possible, but I've always been prone to pacing. I got it under control over the years—teachers tend not to like it when a student spends half the day walking around the classroom—but when at home or alone I still like to move to think.

In the end, I almost like shadow-boxing because it facilitates just that.

On rest days, Training Ground Three is a pretty nice place to do both—and, on top of everything else, to practice water-walking.

I drew my kodachi.

I shot across the river, weaving and slashing the empty air as I went. I might have needed a sparring partner any other time, for the sake of balance and safety if nothing else. But I didn't want anyone to see me. Between constantly adjusting my chakra output as I moved across the surface of the water and throwing out punches and kicks exactly where I wanted them to go (and the occasional vicious slash of my kodachi), I practiced how to read the chakra in the air around me and my own body, so I could move blind if I have to. Since being reborn, my feel for my own body was much stronger—I could gauge distances and my strikes much better than I had ever needed to in my old life. But it never hurt to keep in shape.

After a while, I changed over from the Academy style, which is a warm-up at best, to the combination taijutsu/kenjutsu that my mother had taught me. It's more acrobatic, requiring more flexibility as well as speed, and I loosened my control over my chakra's anchoring properties to give myself more of a challenge. If I had to, I could slip across the water as though on ice skates, but I never thought of myself a great skater and it'd be better to hold off on that until I had a moment to grab Obito for the sake of comedy. He needed to laugh more.

In a brilliant moment of cosmic timing, I nearly ended up slipping and landing in the river. Somehow, my flailing translated to doing a completely unplanned frontal split (which, in my old life, I would never have even contemplated). Instead of taking a dive, though, I slapped one hand onto the surface of the river, chakra flaring, and executed a perfect double front handspring (which would have just been physically impossible for the old me). As I rotated through the air, I changed up my game and landed in a rough mockery of Kakashi's freestyle taijutsu starting stance.

I had no idea what I was doing, but why stop when I was on a roll?

Kakashi's style is faster and than mine, but it's all about flexibility and unexpected angles. Kakashi was the only kid my physical age I'd ever seen attack from above, below, upside-down, a handstand, and from underground. He didn't use his dad's chakra saber when he could have—my kodachi is longer and more cumbersome in a style like his—but he used kunai similarly. From what I could tell, his style was really more about the ability to attack from any stance or direction regardless of the user's size. It's the exact opposite of Gai's style at his age—the Strong Fist was basically about turning the opponent into a quivering ball of agony in as few steps as possible—and thus better for me to learn.

I may have been a medical student for a couple of years, but that's nowhere near enough to learn stuff like Tsunade's monstrous strength. Honestly, I'll probably never pull it off. I couldn't say I minded all that much, because ultimately that technique didn't really mesh with any of my other techniques—why be the queen of blunt force trauma when I was already on my way to being the hack-and-slash type? I figured I'd be fine as long as I learned a wide variety of techniques, which Sensei would help with if we both lived long enough.

I had my own take on one-hit-kill jutsu anyway, provided that I could make it as automatic as Kabuto did (or rather, would).

I sheathed my kodachi again.

Tiger, horse, rabbit, rat, dog.

Chakra scalpels flared to life over my hands, providing surgically precise offense (if I timed it right, anyway). I lashed out in a sweeping motion, using two fingers rather than my whole hand in order to maintain precision even at speed, and the air seemed to split.

If I had a choice, I'd still go for my kodachi first, but there would be times when that wasn't feasible. I had to prepare.

I let them go after a moment or two. Chakra scalpels were my backup weapons, and they weren't especially chakra-efficient. As long as I could call them up in a heartbeat, I at least had a chance.

I slowed down. I only knew two major types of taijutsu, and I wasn't exactly going to practice my ninjutsu on the water if most of them were kind of useless. They weren't for direct offense—distraction was always key.

Well, I thought, time for the airborne stuff.

I pushed off from the surface, launching into a cartwheel to build momentum. Twisting in the air, now leading with my feet rather than my hands, I executed a double back handspring as I went. I kind of hoped I wasn't underestimating the width of the river (considering that my eyes were still closed), because hitting the bank now would suck and probably hurt, but it was too late for that. As my feet touched the water again, I sprung upward and bent my knees, swinging my arms along with them, and there, I've landed again. I went for one last rotation, leading with my head, and my legs splay out in the air into a very deliberate split. The fact that I probably got ten feet of air on each move meant I was on the other side of the river by now.

I would never get over the sheer physical difference between shinobi and baseline humans. I went from average idiot in one life to someone surpassing Olympic-level gymnasts over the course of eleven years and one probable death.

And I wasn't anywhere near the strongest one here. A sobering thought.

I opened my eyes to the sound of slow clapping. Glancing up at the sky, I guessed that it was about noon. I'd burned an hour flailing around on my own in Training Ground Three.

Good. That gave my interim sensei time to get back from a ramen run.

"Not bad." Kushina said. She had the sarcastic slow clap down, but I didn't think she was being sarcastic just then.

I bowed, hiding a grin. "Thank you, Kushina-san."

"Don't let it go to your head." Kushina said, wagging one finger in a mockery of seriousness. "You still have a ways to go before you can face that Gai kid Minato keeps going on about."

"I know. I'm not ready yet." I admitted. It stung only slightly—Gai was simply better than I was. Still, it did say something about my progress that neither Sensei nor Kushina seemed to think I'd have any trouble fighting Asuma, who was my actual first opponent in two weeks.

Obito would be facing off against Gai first. I wasn't sure how to feel about that, but at least Sensei and Kakashi were both on hand to help him train. There were four others in the tournament: Rin, Kurenai, Tonbo Tomitake (that one guy who wore bandages over the top half of his head) and Shimon Hijiri (the other guy with long bangs whose eyes somehow stayed invisible). I wasn't really sure what to expect out of the latter pair, but I knew that Rin could do no worse than a draw against Kurenai.

Kushina patted me on the head, which made me briefly wonder if there was some kind of magnet installed in my brain.

"Well, even if you're not actually read to face Gai—or you think you aren't—don't worry." Kushina told me. I blinked up at her. "I think you are ready to be a chūnin. Everything else will fall into place."

It was maybe the third time anyone had said that.

That I could be chūnin. First, Obito had said it two years ago. Then Mom, after I'd made it through the Second Exam again with my team alive and well. Sensei hadn't said anything, but he might not have needed to—the fact that he'd asked his fiancée to train with me spoke volumes without any words at all.

Now Kushina.

I hoped everything would go as planned. It'd be nice to see that happen at least once.

"Now, let's see where you've gotten with your explosive seals." Kushina said, and we sat down together on the riverbank, poring over scrolls for the rest of the afternoon.

I'll say this for the Chūnin Exam arena: it's dramatic as hell. The only thing I ever thought was missing was a ring of fire separating the spectators from the fighters—that's probably because I watched too many movies as a kid the last time around. There wasn't enough of The Lion King's atmosphere. It wasn't raining, it wasn't surrounded by fire and/or hyenas, and no one in the crowd had much riding on who won. Except maybe gambling money, because some things never change.

Then again, if there was, I guess that would make me Scar. I sure as hell wasn't Simba.

I kept my hands at my sides, rather than reaching for the blade at my left hip. Even in official matches, "false starts" didn't really mean anything, but if I punched my opponent in the face before the match started…well, let's just say that I'd be on the Hokage's shit-list for at least a month.

And besides, Mom and Sensei and Rin and Obito and Kakashi were all watching, which made me somewhat less likely to just haul off and sort my opponent out the way I'd liked to have.

"The last match of the first round will be Asuma Sarutobi versus Keisuke Gekkō." The proctor—Tsume Inuzuka—gave us both a grin that threatened to crack her head in half. She seemed to be looking forward to the bloodletting. Or maybe she wanted to see if I could mess with Asuma the same way I had two years ago.

Speaking of two years ago, both of us had gotten physically bigger. I'd put on a few inches and more pounds of muscle than I'd probably ever had in my old life (because I was a mouse potato with no real strength at all), and was almost tall enough that I could use a real katana smoothly. I was actually about the same size as Asuma, barring the fact that he was still wider in the shoulders. It wasn't enough to intimidate him, though. Not after out-thinking him back then.

I was kinda glad that Hayate was stuck at school, though. Mom could have written him a note or something, but I guess her priority was a combination of "school is important" and "he shouldn't see his big sister lose."

I'd already put in my hours of practice and I could almost fight my teammates evenly. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to find her lack of faith disturbing or what.

And anyway, I wasn't afraid of Asuma. I knew what he could do—I'd watched his match against Ebisu and hadn't been all that impressed. Ebisu wasn't the be-all and end-all of opponents, but he was tricky enough to at least force people to fight him with guile and tactics. I hadn't seen much of Asuma doing just that—he was all power, and when you got down to it he wasn't even strong. (Granted, that was a month ago, but I assumed there would be some consistency in how Asuma fought.)

Assuming I won, I was afraid of Gai.

(Seeing the ridiculous beat-down Gai and Obito gave each other an hour ago, my fear of one Maito Gai was renewed with a vengeance.)

If I didn't, then…whatever. I didn't see myself losing to Asuma, but if I did, Gai was his problem.

The arena went silent, waiting for the cue.

"Ready?" Tsume asked. Kuromaru lay by her feet, lips pulled back from his teeth.

My greatest accomplishment in life is being quality entertainment for a giant Inuzuka dog. Clearly, this is the life. I thought, crazily.

Asuma and I both nodded, though we didn't take our eyes off each other. That would have been stupid.

"GO FOR IT, BRATS!" Tsume shouted, one hand slicing through the air like an axe.

Asuma charged.

I sure as hell didn't.

Because of Kushina's help, I mostly needed to stall to complete my plan. I was going to seed the entire arena with explosive tags and traps starting in this match, in case I moved on. They'd only respond to me, and I needed every advantage against Gai that I could get. The traps weren't activated by physical pressure, but I still liked the idea of having enough explosives to make even Deidara pause. Obviously I wasn't nearly in the Rock-nin's league, but I figured that demonstrating some forethought would be a bonus in the eyes of the judges.

I slammed my palm into the dirt and shouted, "Explode!" with my chakra following the dormant lines I'd laid.

I closed my eyes against the dirt and smoke thrown up by the blast, but I could still feel Asuma's chakra warp to the arena's sole tree as he used the Replacement jutsu. Just as well, really—it would have been bad form to knock the Hokage's son out in the first few seconds of the match.

I pulled my kodachi loose from my hip strap just as Asuma crashed back into me, kunai out.

I didn't even have to draw to block—my metal sheath was enough. There was a bit of a scrape along the outside edge of the metal, taking off some paint and paneling, but not enough to compromise its structural soundness.

He was still in the air.

Bad idea.

Blocking overhead might have given me some leverage problems, but being in the air had made it so that the only leverage he had was based on his launch speed, vector, and weight.

Asuma hadn't hit his growth spurt yet, and I was still on the ground.

My right thumb flicked my kodachi loose from the sheath, just as I planted my forward foot solidly in the ground with my chakra. With my left hand, I grabbed Asuma's jacket collar as he passed overhead.

Twist aaaaaand launch.

Asuma went hurtling toward the far arena wall.

I straightened, kodachi level with his throat as he recovered and stood. I might have been too far away to directly threaten him, but Icould damn well do it indirectly.

After a second, I finally thought of something to say, even if it was under my breath and incredibly lame. "And once again, Physics class rears its ugly head…"

Asuma scowled up at me, looking like a pissed-off lion cub. Even if he was from the freaking monkey clan.

Come on, Simba, remember who you are.

I grinned crookedly.

Come at me, kid.

I ducked under Asuma's roundhouse, planting one hand and launching myself away when he tried to follow up with a stomp. His punches weren't weak at all, but I'd been training with Kakashi and the long-established chūnin had long since decided that if I was going to try and really punch his lights out, he should get to repay the favor.

Too bad for him that, by that point, the gap between us wasn't overwhelming. He was still stronger and faster than I was, but it wasn't the kind of gap that, for example, existed between Minato and everyone else in speed.

And the difference between Asuma and I, when you got down to it, was about the same as the distance between Kakashi and I. But in reverse.

Honestly, half of my attention wasn't even on Asuma at all.

It was on planting explosives all around the ring for the next round. While Sensei hadn't gotten around to teaching me how to lay seals by touch and will alone (presumably because he thought I was going to get myself blown up by accident), I was pretty good at laying mini-tags everywhere if I had to. If a normal tag had the explosive power of a large grenade or a stick of dynamite, mine were very tiny chunks of C4.

By the time I finally got around to forcing him into a submission hold, outward curve of my kodachi resting against his Adam's apple, I had enough explosive tags hidden all around the stadium to make my next match a little bit more even.

"EXPLODE!" I roared, slamming my chakra through the pre-prepared lines I'd woven through the ground.

Gai was launched skyward by the blast…only to explode into smoke and leaves as he used the Replacement technique.

Sonovabitch.

Gai, as expected, was a lot harder to deal with than Asuma had been.

The way my forearms were throbbing after blocking just one of his signature overpowered kicks…well, suffice to say that I sure as hell couldn't beat him in a slugging match. He was at least as fast as Kakashi, if not faster, which meant I was lagging behind. He had twice the physical and spiritual endurance I did, whether on offense or defense. Sure, his taijutsu specialization meant that I could outrange him, but fuck if I could get away long enough to actually take advantage of that.

Still, he wasn't quite as quick as some of the people I trained with. I felt his chakra shift farther away, but he still landed directly on top of another trap.

EXPLODE!

He wasn't going to get another running start at me if I could help it.

"The hell was that, Gai?" I called. "At least dodge somewhere safe!"

I didn't dislike Gai. I was just afraid of getting pounded into the ground. For some reason my mouth refused to listen to either distinction.

"Your concern for your opponent's health does you credit, Keisuke-kun!" Gai said at the top of his lungs.

Once again, we were trading close-range blows and I felt my bones rattle under each strike. I could at least manage to turn his blows aside, which was better than nothing even if it hurt like hell. I ducked under a roundhouse and over a follow-up sweep, throwing myself into a back handspring.

Gai followed, and I leapfrogged over another would-be punishing kick.

"Thanks for the compliment, Gai-san," I grunted, because a spin and a full-powered punch had followed immediately after and I blocked it badly. The strike drove my own elbow in a glancing blow against my side, making me wince.

I ducked again and drew my kodachi one-handed, slashing at his supporting leg.

My sword gave a hideous shriek as it met Gai's leg weights.

Dammit.

I straightened, completely screwing up a blocking stand. Gai, being Gai, got past it easily.

And then Gai punched me in the chest.

Specifically, my developing eleven-year-old left breast.

Suffice to say I got the wind knocked out of me in short order. My eyes watered enough that everything was a swimming blur and I could just barely tell that Gai had slowed down quite a lot. In hindsight, I have no idea how I managed to avoid his much-slower follow-up punch, which should have left me unconscious. I just remember staggering backward, wheezing, and landing on my knees.

I even dropped my sword, curling inward around the brand new weak spot that puberty had given me.

After what felt like a while, my blood stopped pounding.

"—kun? Keisuke-kun? I appear to have done you a most unyouthful injury." Gai was saying, sounding more confused than I'd ever heard him.

It was my fault for fucking up when I went for a block rather than a sidestep, but I was pissed off. It had less to do with feeling like Gai had landed a cheap shot (since, in hindsight, he hadn't), and more that I'd been reduced to a kid in the fetal position in public. Shame burned me—I wanted nothing more than to destroy him for humiliating me like that.

What can I say? Sometimes I'm not a good person.

All in all, I was probably down for about ten seconds. About long enough for Gai to notice and then say something.

I sent chakra to my hands without any seals at all, and went for Gai's face with my chakra scalpels.

He just barely jerked back in time. As it was, my glowing hands passed within centimeters of his nose, and I was too angry to care about anything but the fact that I'd missed.

I settled into my mockup of Kakashi's style. Blood pounding in my ears, I was almost too angry to think. How dare you, I thought. How dare you?

It was like a mantra.

It was also an awful tack to take.

Gai was my friend. Maybe we weren't especially close and maybe we weren't the sort to see eye-to-eye, but if I'd been thinking straight I wouldn't have risked our friendship over a promotion. Sorry, but no. Not that ambitious, normally.

"I am glad to see that your injury has not dampened your enthusiasm, Keisuke-kun, but—!"

"SHUT UP!" I shrieked, slashing again and again. I was too dangerous to block—I was acting more like Kabuto and less like Rin, only neither of them ever attacked in a blind rage. I was acting, all told, like Sasuke.

Sasuke of the far future, anyway.

I managed to stay pissed off for about another thirty seconds, by which time I'd cut muscle fiber in both of Gai's arms, before my higher thought processes caught up with me.

Gai was looking at me like he'd just found out that his friend was a werewolf. And not the Remus Lupin type, either. Still, his weights were too thick for me to cut through, which means he could, in fact, block with his feet. It'd saved him from a thorough mangling.

I dismissed my chakra scalpels, pushing down a brief sensation of horror. What the hell was wrong with me?

Other than how I apparently could be pissed off enough by public humiliation to go on a revenge-bender for a minute.

"Keisuke-kun…was…are you a girl?"

Oh.

…For God's sake, Gai.

"…You are literally the last friend I have to realize that." I told him flatly, in a voice that was still a little warped by residual adrenaline.

The Dreamer chose this moment to chime in with a cheerfully evil, THIS IS THE STUPIDEST THING YOU'VE EVER DONE.

Gai, I noticed, seemed like he was on the brink of some kind of shouting fit.

And I was too far away to stop his word vomit.

Oh hell.

"FORGIVE ME, KEISUKE-CHAN, FOR I HAVE OFFERED YOU UNBELIEVABLE INSULT!"

Gai was like a speaker system at a concert. Loud enough to rock your bones. I was torn between clapping my hands over my ears or rushing over to slap him in the face, so I ended up being too frozen to do either.

"FIRST WAS THE TIME WE MET, WHERE I ASSUMED YOU WERE A BOY WITHOUT NOTICING YOUR UNDENIABLE CHARMS! THE SECOND WAS WHEN I CHALLENGED MY RIVAL TO A SUMO MATCH IN YOUR PRESENCE. THE THIRD WAS AT THE PUBLIC BATHHOUSES, WHERE—!"

I ended up contemplating a lot of courses of action while he was talking. Among them, ritual suicide.

I settled for slamming my chakra into my legs, launching myself at him like a rocket.

And then I kicked him in the groin.

It was quite possibly the stupidest match in the history of the public arena.

Overall, Gai and I decided we were even. Gai didn't mean to cheap-shot me, and I didn't really mean to try and take his nose off. He did, however, choose nearly the most embarrassing method of apology short of being Major Alex Louis Armstrong, and I definitely cheap-shotted him.

In penance, I agreed to be his sparring partner for two weeks (during the time he was developing the Primary Lotus). And he agreed to stop lamenting his past transgressions against a "flower of Konoha." Forever.

All in all the exams ended with my entire team being promoted—Rin, Obito, and I were all officially chūnin-ranked shinobi right on schedule. Gai was also promoted (based mostly on his match with Obito, I think), as was Asuma. Overall, we had a much higher proportion of graduates than most Exams did, but we needed them.

Either that or standards were lowered during wartime.

I sighed mentally. Chūnin at age eleven.

There were only two years until we were handed That Mission.

We'd just have to be ready.

To: Kei-chan/Half-Pint/Keisuke Gekkō/Squirt

From: Rikuto of the Chinatsugumi

(After a huge blotch of ink indicating someone's failed attempt to cross something out without ruining a page…)

So…uh. It's been a while, hasn't it?

Shit. I keep thinking, well, you're a kid and it's not like kids grow that fast, right? I mean, you're probably still knee-high to your sensei and barely capable of reaching the kitchen counter and stuff.

And then I remember that Miyu-chan and Kazu-chan are a hell of a lot bigger than they were when they got here, and then Za-chan had to go and remind me it's been like two years already. Two years! Two damn years since you choked before the Chūnin Exam finals and saved me a thousand ryō I was gonna bet and then didn't.

Got a runner to confirm it, after some bribery and also a punch in the face, but hey—congrats on your promotion. I'm not even sure if there was an Exam, and really, I wouldn't have gone if there was since the twins are at that age when they start to try to gum me to death or get themselves ground to death in the wagon wheels because clearly walking is the shit. Going by the screaming an hour ago, Kazu-chan nearly did it again. Either that or he found out how I was getting ants into Nami-chan's bags.

Uh, where was I… Oh, right. So here's your stupid promotion gift from me, but if you tell anyone it was me I'll be sure to come back from the dead and haunt your ass, until you gouge your own eyes out in penance for being a shitty secret-keeper.

P.S.: Don't be surprised if your first attempt to call on 'em knocks you out.

To: Keisuke Gekkō

From: Chinatsu Kasai

Rikuto isn't as smart or as stealthy as he thinks he is. Even for a former Rock-nin, he's a blockhead.

The first scroll—red ribbon—is a summoning scroll. I think it used to be Rikuto's, but I haven't seen him summon anything since I met him. Maybe he stole it. Regardless of what particular species this scroll is tied to, they're probably not battle summons, so make of that what you will.

The second scroll is green with gold caps, and it contains a number of sealing techniques that Akira has compiled over the years. Some of the seals, if written wrong, may take your hands off, so try to learn these with some kind of supervision if you must.

The last scroll is blue with several basic elemental jutsu detailed inside. Everyone contributed one, though it's likely that Shiro-chan's particular technique is useless to anyone without the Ice Release bloodline. Once again, only use while supervised.

Best of luck, congratulations, and happy belated birthday(s).

A/N: Ta-da, the results of our timeskip! I wasn't planning on writing a tournament arc a second time, so here are the details:

1. The bracket for this Exam is as follows: Obito versus Gai, Tonbo versus Shimon, Rin versus Kurenai, and Kei versus Asuma. Gai won, Tonbo and Shimon knocked each other out, Rin and Kurenai fought to a draw, and Kei beat Asuma. Due to the two draws, Kei and Gai fought the final match after an hour-long delay. Kei was considered the winner.

2. Obito was trained by Minato over the month-long recovery period, while Rin was trained by Yamaguchi-sensei, and Kei was trained by Kushina.

3. Shimon and Tonbo are both members of the Torture and Interrogation Unit later in the series.

4. Kurenai canonically isn't promoted until age 14, which gives her another two years to prepare (since she's a year older than Kakashi is).

Also, the next chapter will focus less on the goofy half of how these kids grow up (and how this series tends to treat the lower ranks of shinobi), and more on why they needed to be promoted now. See you then.

P.S.: Sorry about the late chapter. On the upside, I now know I'm getting to go to the professional program I've been banking on, so now I have one less thing to worry about. Hopefully that translates to more frequent updates.