27- Interlude: The Tenth Question.

Naruto Uzumaki.

It had been written on the board, clear as day. With a simple flick of his wrist, Ibiki had pushed the burden of the world onto the named boy. Sweat began to seep from his palms, making them clammy and sticky.

He subtly looked over to his side. Sasuke had not moved, hands clasped over his face as if the information on the board was invisible. No matter his lack of eye contact though, Naruto could feel the sharp sting of his aura burrowing into him and prodding at his moral fiber. He could feel the same energy radiating from Sakura down below, sending jolts of beating dread down the beads of his back. Back and forth, he argued against his own thoughts, wondering what the best course of action was in this situation. Both just seemed so equally terrible, he couldn't choose. His mind divided itself into a clashing school of thought, concepts smashing together like rivaling waves on a stormy beach.

Don't worry, they won't care. Invite them to your Hokage ceremony and see if they're still mad.

What the fuck are you saying? Just toss them away like garbage? Who the fuck even are you Naruto Uzumaki?

Shut up fool. It runs in the bloodline. You think father made his omelet without cracking a few eggshells?

And he was a big dumb idiot!

He wasn't, you are! Don't you get it? You were struggling on the blasted written test; this is your only chance-

Then I don't even have a chance in the first place!

The sight of Ibiki beginning to walk up to the students written to receive their answers briefly snapped Naruto out of his daze. The jonin scanned his papers, matching the photo up to a target before walking over to their desk. In this instance, he was speaking to a young boy with shortish black hair and wide-rimmed spectacles. He looked as nervous as could be, eyes watering as they sat downcast among the ground. His head was stuck leaned over, unwilling to make visual contact with anyone else in the room.

"Watashi Inoue. What is your choice."

The boys lip quivered, physically holding the words back before he managed to finally utter some semblance of speech.

"…Let the other two go to the next stage." He said, barely above a whisper.

His voice was shaky and hoarse, rippling with vulnerabilities that would usually be an obvious sign to lay off of him. Ibiki didn't do this. To him, those vulnerabilities were meant to be exploited, not respected, a sadistic twinkle flickering in his eye as he leered over the still downtrodden boy.

"Watashi, Watashi…"

His voice stayed calm, but any tranquility he tried to project was offset by the fierce slamming of his hand against Watashi's desk. The boy's face shot up to face the proctor, jolted by the sudden movement of his table.

"Is this really what you want?" Ibiki asked.

So predator-like were his features that a lick of his lips would not seem out of the ordinary at this point. Each second spent under his gaze caused Watashi's quivering to increase tenfold, the boy looking mid-way through a fit by the time he once again mustered the courage to converse with Ibiki.

"Yes sir."

"Really? Because I've looked at your profile Watashi. You come from a low-income family, all civilians, no clan. You've had to put in work, so much work."

Ibiki feigned compassion for the genin's plight, but he wasn't fooling anyone. Every word that came out of his mouth was drenched in a disgustingly sadistic glee. He was reveling in his deconstruction of the younger ninja's sense of selves, eyes joyously wide in a way that could only be compared to a small child gazing upon something sweet.

"What about that boy on your team." He said, jutting a figure out to a slightly pudgy ninja a few rows above them. "He was into a mid-level clan, yet never put any work in. He's been the lowest common denominator of your squad since the very beginning, tanking your missions and your grades and now your exams. Can you honestly go to sleep tonight knowing he's going to have yet another chance to underachieve while you're going to spend the rest of your life working part-time at your dads' shop to pay the bills. A genin salary isn't going to support you, as I'm sure you know."

"Y-y-y-yes sir, I can sir." Watashi mumbled, though he didn't even sound sure of the statement himself.

"Why?" Ibiki asked.

"B-because I- "

"Scared of the stigma perhaps?" Ibik cut him off.

The silence he got in response indicated that he was at least close to correct.

"Scared of being considered a filthy traitor, an abandoner? Of being called selfish?"

Ibiki paused for a little after this before his vulturine gaze quickly turning to one of contempt.

"I know what that's like Watashi. You try to keep the village safe with only means that can properly do it, and everyone looks at you like you're a monster. I know you did it. You did it as soon as I mentioned my occupation. I want you to apologize."

"I'm sorry sir." Watashi spoke softly, clearly only doing so to placate Ibiki and get him to leave him alone.

"Louder." Ibiki ordered.

"I'm sorry sir."

Ibiki paused slightly, watching as tears began to well up within Watashi's eyes. The boy was visibly biting down on his lips to try and keep the waterworks in in, a fact that only made him scoff that much harder.

"Fucking pathetic. I'm glad you chose what you chose, couldn't be trusted as anything more than a meat shield." Ibiki berated, before quickly moving over to the next genin.

He was just as ruthless with the following ninja, despite the fact that she'd chosen the opposite option. It became very clear that what you were picking didn't matter to Ibiki, it was wrong. It was always going to be wrong. He would verbally lambast people who offered themselves up, saying that they were complete failures, lazy do-nothings and disgraces to their family who would never have been capable of being chunin in the first place. Anyone who chose to take the chunin slot would be called selfish, greedy and power-hungry with Ibiki seemingly becoming angered that they were going to be considered even a slight rank above what they were currently. He selected his targets at random, bringing a hushed panic from any row he walked past. Depending on his course of action that hushed panic would either become a sharp sigh of relief or a further consolidation of terror.

Naruto had begun blocking out the noise around him, retreating to the solace of his own headspace in an attempt to block out the sounds of Ibikis tongue-lashings. He knew that he would be put into the crosshairs soon, that was for certain, but he couldn't help but go back and forth between the two voices in his head.

You thought it was bad before? Wait until you give up every friendship you've ever made for a stupid ninja position. Imagine how people will look at you…

When haveyou ever cared about this? You've worked so hard for this Uzu-Naruto, so very hard. Maybe these frivolous friendships are what's holding you back?

As if! Friends are the only thing you've ever really wanted! Your Hokage bullshit is secondary, dude.

Lies. To become Hokage is to cement the fact to everyone that you're more than the fox dude. It is status, it is wealth, it is adoration. Friends fade away, but that stigma stays with you forever if you don't throw them to the wayside now!

The voice praising the virtues of friendship suddenly started to become muted. It tried to speak, but it's words would fade out before they could even hope to reach Naruto's true train of thought. The second, bolder voice hungrily latched onto this fact, eating away at the real estate of his mind.

Do it. Cast them away. Renounce your ties and enjoy the acceptance you always yearned for. So what, you lose some delusional Uchiha and his airheaded tagalong? Please, if you're going to become Hokage you'll need to do much worse than that. Do it now, strike when you have the chance Uzumaki or forsake yourself to eternal persecution!

The thoughts burrowed through his head; message amplified by their sound. So powerful, so true, so unbelievably fucking stupid.

What?

Naruto closed his eyes for a second, time beginning to lapse around him. As darkness overtook his eyes, he found himself no longer in the exams room. He was standing on the unbreakable water top, dull sepia lighting flying through the air. In front of him was not a black board and lanes of desks anymore. No, instead what stood before him was a gate and the red fox that had been jailed behind it.

There had not been "two Naruto's" waging a mental battle in his head. There had been one Naruto and one nine-tailed fox. Luckily, said fox just couldn't pass for the real thing when it really needed to. Maybe it was the significant difference in the two's speech patterns, maybe it was the fact that Kurama just couldn't dumb himself down for long enough to be convincing. Either way, Naruto stood before the fox's gate, ripples simmering under the water top.

"I think you need to shut the fuck up." He grumbled.

He blinked yet again.

He was back in the classroom, a small bolt of terror re-imbedding itself into his chest. The moments of time he'd "missed" while conversing with Kurama still remained clear in his mind. Unsurprisingly, Choji had chosen to fail, showing little regard for Ibiki's intimidation tactics. The jonin had considered the plump boy a lost cause when he answered the question "what's your main goal in life" with "that's a toughie…" followed by nearly twenty seconds of deliberation. All in all, neither had come out of the exchange looking particularly good.

What was surprising though, was Neji's response. The proud Hyuga boy who had showed nothing but distain for his teammates, ended up choosing the failing option as well. However, even in the aftermath of casting away his future as a shinobi, he didn't look particularly sad or worried. In fact, the way he'd delivered the decision had been incredibly benign, with his tone of response sounding closer to what you'd speak to a waiter with than one becoming of the biggest decision of his young life. Afterwards, Ibiki had circled around the classroom taking a few more responses (all of which were significantly more affected by his interrogation strategies) before he settled upon Gaara.

He marched up to the boy with the same commanding presence that had brought some of the other genin to hysterics, yet the Suna boy simply continued fiddling with his pencil. He weaved in and out through the crevasse of his knuckles, barely even bothering to look up at Ibiki as he first approached.

"Gaara of the Desert. You- "

"I choose to fail."

The suddenness, as well as the lazy delivery of the boy's words caught even Ibiki off-guard, his pristine, imposing mask briefly shattering in their aftermath. He quickly got back on track, staring down at Gaara.

"That's a very sudden- "

"I choose to fail."

Gaara yet again cut him off, continuing to zigzag the pen around his fingers. He placed a bored looking hand on his chin as he did so, tired eyes more focused on the writing utensil than anything to do with Ibiki. It was almost like he was in a different reality, completely disconnected from the consequences that would befall him in this one.

"Wow, I'm sure everyone in this room thinks your very cool Gaara but I'm here to tell you- "

Snap!

Gaara slammed the pencil against the table with such force that it launched the led onto the ground. Its wood foundation splintered over itself as Gaara snapped to life with enough manic energy that Ibiki, battle-scarred, shaped by combat Ibiki, flinched slightly.

"Isaid I choose to fail so I choose to fail. I do not wish to interact with you or your pointless dribble any longer than what I have already allowed so stay silent." He said.

Ibiki stayed silent for a little while before he began glowering at the boy. If this were under any other conditions, he would've fully let loose an ANBU-boot camp level lashing upon the boy. For now though, he let Gaara's insolence go unchecked. To engage with him further would take too much time and probably end with him refusing to speak further anyway.

"There's always one." He grumbled to himself, beginning to walk upwards towards the higher rows. His eyes scanned the lanes, looking over the students one by one before settling upon a target that seemed unspecific.

"You over there. You're next."

He motioned towards Naruto's general area, but just that by itself was a problem as Hinata's name had also been written down for her team and she was sitting just by him. Ibiki's language and hand gestures had not been specific, meaning a bone-chilling stiffness briefly ran over the ninjas. This was mainly irrational, seeing as they'd both be asked eventually, but it was still understandably uncomfortable to not know whether you were going to have to make a life-changing decision or just watch someone else do so. There was also a minor detail that intensified their strife…

And that was that Hinata was going to choose to become a chunin.

From the outside looking in, this seemed like an impossibility. There was no way shy, frail, stuttering Hinata Hyuga would even think about doing something like that, but she was. Her index fingers, burdened by guilt, pressed together erratically, pale eyes staying locked towards the floor. She wasn't choosing the option because she wanted the chunin position that bad (at least that's what she told herself), she was choosing it because she couldn't afford not to. For a Hyuga heiress, the future head of the main house to be a genin for eternity? It was disgraceful, an utter embarrassment to both her clan and herself. However, there was not just social stigma on the line with her decision, no. Hinata could deal with prejudice, hell, just last night she'd overhead clan elders making bets about if she was even capable of passing the first stage. The real worry came in the form of banishment from the clan.

If a Hyuga were to underperform on the level that her failing would be, it would lead to dire consequences. She'd either be demoted down to the branch house or outright orphaned, the latter meaning the forceful deactivation of her byakugan. Not only was this process painful, but in the shinobi world, it was a fate that ranked below death itself. Those with deactivated byakugans were known as "two-tones", named for their inability to see in anything more than black and white after their sight was rehabilitated. For even vaguely high-up Hyugas, becoming a "two-tone" was not uncommon if they were to fail the chunin exams three times in a row. Hinata's fate was essentially sealed if she was barred from ever entering them again.

Hinata waited on baited breath for Ibiki to speak, a slight squeak escaping her lungs as she tucked her shaky hands to her chest. If she didn't accept this choice, her life would be over. Lush greens would turn to dull greys, subtle violet to a bitter black. The flush sunlight of the early sunrise would become indescribable from any other time of day. The beauty of the world…gone completely, with Hinata probably stuck doing farm work in a tepid, colorless country side. She'd do anything to avoid that, even if it cost Kiba and Shino their own dreams.

"Naruto Uzumaki, what do you choose?" Ibiki asked.

Hinata breathed a small exhale of relief, knowing that she had at least a few more seconds of not making a decision. Meanwhile, Naruto continued starring downward. He could feel Sasuke and Sakura's attention latching upon him, even if neither were actually looking at him. He breathed in slightly, letting the air run across the inside of his cheeks before sighing.

"I choose to fail."

Hinata's eyes widened, briefly silencing her internal pondering to look at the boy a couple of seats beside her.

But Naruto, how could you-

Ibiki scoffed, then he snorted, then he laughed. It was a blood-chilling contrast, seeing a man who had been so viciously cerebral prior absolutely losing his shit over what was a relatively benign statement. Naruto looked up at him with a tepid glare, folding the edge of his lip into his mouth in what looked like a half-pout.

"What's so funny?" He asked, the simmering anger in his tone meaning it come out more like a growl than anything else.

"I just expected a little bit more deliberation from the boy who so famously stated to anyone who would listen that he was going to become the next Hokage." Ibiki said, acutely summarizing what everyone who knew Naruto was thinking.

Sasuke's eyes drifted towards his friend, not a single speck of adulation in them despite the fact he'd essentially been told he passed. Sakura finally turned around to look, a look of surprise on her face. She genuinely thought Naruto would at the very least flirt with the idea of taking the position. With all that talk about becoming Hokage, the one apparent constant in his life, how could he not?

"Honestly, I'm a little disappointed. Every time a Hokage announces that they will soon choose a successor, the betting pool on it goes through the roof with interest. I was planning to add your name as a joke candidate, maybe make a little bit of novelty ryo on the side ya know?"

"That's pretty funny." Naruto said back, actually smiling somewhat.

"Oh, but it's not why I'm laughing Naruto. I find it hilarious that for thirteen years, you were essentially a one-goal individual, that was all you cared about and now, when the chips are down and you can really pursue it, you give it up. And for what? "The power of friendship?" Give me a break."

"You're clueless."

Naruto's slight smile faded, a more lukewarm expression of irritation replacing it. This took Ibiki off-guard somewhat. He'd expected a boisterous show of defiance from the Uzumaki boy, not the low, drowsy one he was currently receiving.

"How so?"

"No one with any sense would want to become Hokage with those choices."

Naruto attempt to mumble but his fiery tone was unable to keep up the cool and collected façade. He quickly began flaring up at his own words, looking upward Ibiki with an unmistakable spark in his eyes. The memories that were fueling this, however, were the furthest thing from warm. Instead they were damp and blisteringly cold, consisting of shattered ice and aching bones, split blood and crackling lightning.

"Well, let me change the question, why do you want to be the Hokage?"

"To lack a purpose in this world…it's a truly awful feeling."

"My dream is to protect the people precious to me, the ones who kept me from feeling that."

"You can make fun of it all you want, but that's really what's important. Those who break the rules might be scum, but people who abandon their friends are worse than scum!" Naruto barked, nearly looking as if he was about to pounce up and punch Ibiki right in his face.

"You're delusional. Do you think any of the Hokage protected the Village by making daisy-chains and "talking it out" Konoha's history is built on blood and war, because those leaders had the guts to do what was right by the village even when it meant making a decision that didn't please everybody."

The room noticed Ibiki's cadence become slightly more serious. That wasn't to say he hadn't been before, but there had clearly been an element of performance in his previous interrogations. Now, the lines between the "interrogative" drill-sergeant Ibiki and the real, hardened soldier became that much murkier. Despite this shift in demeanor though, Naruto remained unphased.

"You're still not getting it! How can I put my dream over either of theirs' huh?" Naruto angrily motioned to both Sasuke and Sakura. "To be Hokage is to care for everyone and everything in the village and make it better for the people who live here. A Hokage who made it to where he is on the broken backs of the people around him is a Hokage in rank only!"

Ibiki's face stayed stagnant for a few seconds, as if he were made out of stone. This actually worked better in unsettling Naruto than any reply could, the Uzumaki boy backing down slightly in caution of what Ibiki would do next. After a few more tense seconds of silence, Ibiki brought his hand up to his bandana and began unwrapping it. The blue cloth was swiftly removed from his head, revealing the contents that lay underneath it. What he revealed was a set of deep, darkly colored scars.

A collective gasp was let out by the room as they observed the sight. It was almost like the scars had replaced any semblance of hair on his head, veins of deep-rooted yet well-worn scare tissue running over his skull like a pulsating wrist. Suddenly, the bandanna became entirely justified in the minds of the ninjas who had previously thought it unnecessary.

"Do you know how much I had to sacrifice, how much I had to see, to end up where I am today, Naruto?" Ibiki said, voice barley above a whisper.

The sharp intake of his breath indicated that this low tone was not going to last until even his next word. This was accurate, as Ibiki let loose with a verbally venomous lashing that was delivered at a higher volume than any of his previous.

"But please, educate me on the morals of a shinobi. I'm sure you know better. I'm sure good intentions will heal the village because there's nothing you can't achieve with enough good intentions. It's a one-size fits all solution to everything isn't it?! Just slap some good intentions on it and it'll be as good as new! Hey, why don't you pass me some of those good intentions so I can fix my fucked-up head?" He yelled, force of his voice nearly physically pushing Naruto back.

What he didn't realize was that by attempting to match the boy in a firefight, he was only giving him more warmth to fuel his own flame. Ibiki wasn't dumb. He hadn't just got in a screaming match with a thirteen-year-old genin purely because of his emotions. He was still attempting to bait Naruto into changing his mind, but, if he was being truly honest with himself, he may have taken a more difficult course of action than intended. Naruto scoffed at his words, slamming his hands down against the desk.

"Oh, you turned the hot water up too high in the shower, big deal!" He snarled.

More flashes ran through his head.

Rain.

Steel.

Tools.

"I know the world's not nice; I know it's not fair! That doesn't mean I have to help it be that way and if you think it does, you're a lost cause! This isn't me being a pushover or whatever, this is me being selfish. If I have to throw my friends away to become Hokage, then what's the even the point?! If I can't even help my friends, what chance do I have of helping the village huh?!"

Silence clouded over the classroom, not a single word emerging into the resting abyss of dialogue. Practically every eye in the classroom was poised upon Naruto, but his own were locked squarely upon Ibiki. The jonin bit against his lip, realizing that the more heated the discussion got, the more it favored Naruto. However, even with his rational thoughts trying to cool them, the scorching rebuttals continued to stay on the tip of his tongue and the longer he kept it shut, the more they burnt it. A few seconds later, he realigned his vision and looked forward at Naruto with a wilting glare.

"You're a fool."

Was all he said. He meant it.

With a rough grumble he turned back to his clipboard, running a finger through the names.

"And lastly we have- "

He searched around for his intended target, only to let out a small laugh when he found her sitting at only arm's length from him.

"Hinata Hyuga. Now, what is your- "

"I choose to fail!" Hinata yelled before he could even finish speaking.

Ibiki's eyes became wide, while Neji looked down at her with slight surprise. The jonin man quickly recomposed himself, further evaluating her answer with disappointment. When she'd came into the room, she'd seemed infinitely nervous, constantly fidgeting to the point she looked uncomfortable in her own skin. As the test had dragged on, she'd clearly gotten more and more anxious to the point that Ibiki had almost found it endearing. That being said, he had, quite vindictively mind you, saved her specifically for last on this section of the test, knowing she'd be one of the most entertaining to see crack under the pressure. It was alot like a child saving his most favorite food to try and prepare himself for the flavor, which here came in the form of the fear and insecurity of the heiress to one of Konoha's most powerful clans.

But here she was now, making her answer before Ibiki had even had a chance to mess around with her. She was still clearly nervous, hell, her eyes were practically glued shut on account of the fact she'd most likely immediately start to cry if she were to open them too wide, but she was also appeared too lost in her own head for Ibiki to properly get a word in. He hoped he was mistaken, but from what he could tell, this answer was most likely going to be final.

"You are aware of what happens to people of your clan status under these circumstances, Ms. Hyuga?" He asked, attempting to use a formal tone to try and snap her awake.

"Y-yes!" She shouted back.

Ibiki wanted to try and pry the vault that was her lack of confidence open, but he imagined it would do more to irritate him than satisfy his sadistic side. Hinata had literally balled herself up like a turtle, collar of her hoodie covering the underside of her face while her head rested against her knees. Her eyes were snapped shut, angled so low that Ibiki could only truly make out the back of her head. Everything else was locked away, lost to the confines of her nervousness. And this was supposed to be the next head of the Hyuga clan…

He reached into his pocket, retrieving both a cigarette and a lighter. His staunchly steely-eyed expression melted away, leaving an animated portrait of exacerbation and fatigue in its wake. This was gently alleviated when he took the first puff of the cigarette, but it was still a far cry from the stoic, sometimes aggressive Ibiki that had been previously roaming the halls. He looked over at Naruto, attempting to glare but simply being too weary to properly execute it.

"Thanks to your inspirational speech Naruto, you've really fucked up my fun. It's over now. Done. Finished."

His tone was suddenly lazy, bringing a slight weariness upon the candidates as he walked up to the front of the room. The dull weave of the cigarette smoke ran over his features, fading out to nothing as it fizzled through the air. He grabbed an eraser and began scribbling the names off the blackboard with a bored arm.

"This was a trick question. Any team who's selected member chose to fail passes to the next stage. Anyone who's didn't, you fail but you can come back next time. The chunin exams instill the necessary skills needed to be a chunin. Chief among those is comradery and a loyalty to your squad mates. That is why the ones who offered themselves up as sacrifices pass." Ibiki explained, clearly reciting a script he had been given.

Silence stayed in the room, further annoying him.

"You can speak."

A mixture of cheers and arguments rang out, alternating between the teams whose candidate had offered themselves up and ones who had tried to take the promotion immediately. Naruto, who been lifelessly balancing his head on his palm, looked up bemused. He had locked himself in a trance and hadn't heard what Ibiki had been saying, with only the sheer escalation in noise being able to snap him out of it. His turned over to Sasuke with a questioning gaze, only to find the Uchiha smiling brighter than he potentially had ever seen him.

"What happened?" He asked, beginning to feel a tiny bit creeped out.

"We passed to the next stage. You passed to the next stage." Sasuke said, quickly correcting himself.

It took a few seconds for the words to fully take hold in Naruto's mind. This period of time was entirely too long, leading to Sasuke temporarily thinking that Naruto had had a stroke. Then, out of absolutely nowhere, Naruto started grinning. At first, it was a slight grin. A "cloudy but the suns kind of visible" grin. Then it began to continually escalate, becoming wider and wider until Naruto was beaming with enough force that Sasuke actually felt a tingle of heat on his skin.

"Oh my god, I can still become Hokage!" He screamed, thrusting his arms up into the air in victory.

His motions forced Sasuke to lean back somewhat as to not get slapped in the face by the rampaging bundle of energy that Naruto had transformed into. Otherwise, he probably would've hugged him. He would never in a million years admit it to his face, but…even in the aftermath of his speech, Sasuke had not been particularly excited about moving onto the next round without him.

"Yes! I can't believe we passed!" Naruto yelled triumphantly, clearly so stunned he was saying whatever popped into his brain first. It was for this reason that what he proceeded to say may have been forgivable.

"I can't either." Sasuke laughed.

"And we passed because something I did!" Naruto continued.

Sasuke's face dropped.

"Well…"

"You guys did jack shit, but that's okay because I saved it!"

"Let's not get carried away here-"

A sudden rustling of the desk beside them brought both Sasuke and Naruto's attention away from their conversation. A flash of violet sped past Naruto's eyes, before the boy suddenly found something clutching against him hard enough to nearly discharge the wind out of him. Looking down from the vice grip, he found Hinata latched onto him. However, she was not the same nervous, quiet Hinata that he had met before. Instead, she was comically bawling her eyes out, tears flushing outward at speeds faster than most waterfalls were capable of. Her gaze was far off, indicating that the sudden turnaround of emotions had been too much for her brain too handle. She clearly didn't even know where she was, much less who she was holding onto.

"TheirnotgonnatakemyeyesIstillhavemyeyesohmygodigettokeepmycolorohmygod!"

Her words were jumbled, stumbling out of her mouth with literally no filter. This acted in strange synchronization with her tears, which were so plentiful that they were literally beginning to dampen the front of Naruto's jacket. The Uzumaki had at first thought it was kind of cute. He looked up at Sasuke with a small smile, almost braggadocios about the situation. This look lasted for around five seconds until karma kicked in and Hinata dug her hands into him. Naruto's body folded like a deflated balloon, eyes widening as a side effect. His previous chill energy was replaced with a more frantic one, as he cried out in pain.

"Sasuke! Get her off, get her off!"

Neji walked through the halls of the exam, being quick to exit the area once Ibiki had dismissed them. At first, the stage had been interesting enough but that ultimatum had quickly sucked the energy out of it. Not only had it been fake, but Ibiki hadn't even been willing to stick to his "zero equals a fail" rule on account of the fact that he didn't give enough of a shit to actually mark the work. It was clear to Neji that he had only really cared about bit where he got to yell at them.

"Seriously anything you want Choji and we'll give it to you." Ino's distinct voice rang out from his front

"Really?"

"Yeah bud. If you hadn't been lucky, you'd be a forever genin right now."

There was Shikamaru's

"Okay, you guys pay fifty percent of my bill when we go get barbeque tonight!"

"…Look, when we said anything- "

The voices of the other candidates melted past him as he trudged along, attempting to exit the exam building before his team could catch up to him-

"Neeeeeeeeeeji!"

-an absurd pipe-dream he quickly realized was impossible thanks to Lee's apparent dojutsu level range of sight. He barreled through the crowds like a torpedo, eventually crashing onto Neji in a hug. The Hyuga boy stayed completely still, hoping that Lee's brain was so primordial that if he did so, the boy would cease to be able to see him much like a frog. Tenten quickly appeared at his side, all smiles now that she was secure in her position as opposed to before when she had threatened to blow him up.

"Hey Neji." She said, tone seeping with the awkwardness that came when their last interaction involved, once again, her threatening to blow him up.

"What do you two want?" He asked quietly, barley willing to even shoot the tow a glance of acknowledgment.

At the seriousness of his tone, Tenten straightened herself out from the overly-cheerful act she'd been putting on while Lee dropped the hug and shifted over next to her.

"Look, I know we all get to pass and everything, but thanks for what your answer. I mean, you didn't even know- "

Neji snorted, cutting off her thanks. He looked over at her with an expression that conveyed only pity and a slight twinge of distain, a far cry from the earnest friendship that she had been offering him.

"Do you honestly think I didn't realize it was trick question? With a rule system that emphasized "teamwork" as much Ibiki's did, I genuinely don't know how you couldn't have. Well, Lee I understand …I expected a bit more from you Tenten."

Teten's face shifted to a glare.

"What's that supposed to mean?" She asked bitterly, knowing exactly what it was supposed to mean.

"What is that supposed to mean?" Lee asked her, politely.

While he was by no means stupid (especially book-wise), Lee obviously had trouble deciphering even basic language riffs when they weren't phrased in the same strangely formal tone he always used.

"He's calling you dumb Lee." Tenten replied, not taking her glower off Neji.

Lee quickly snapped into a glare as well, slightly embarrassed at his belated reaction to the insult.

"I have no clue as to why the two of you continue to pursue me as some kind of ally beyond what I am formally bound to do, so please let me illustrate our relationship. Had I not realized what Morino was attempting to do, I would've sent both of you off to rot even if I had to do the next stage entirely by myself."

Tenten was caught off-guard by his cruelness and began looking at the ground dejectedly. On the flipside, Lee continued to get angrier, clenching his taped fists as he yelled at Neji.

"Your actions are dishonorable of your clan Neji Hyuga! There's not a single great shinobi who got where they are by shunning their associates away!"

Neji stayed completely deadpan, not even bothering to look at the boy who was essentially screaming into his face.

"You have to realize Lee, an untalented deadender and a parentless street rat are not two people I would ever be willing to be associated with. I'll see you both tomorrow."

He began to walk off, completely disregarding any further lectures that Lee continued to yell at him. As he sunk into the inner-reaches of the crowd that had built up around the halls, not even the slightest fleck of regret showed up on his face. Although, there was one newly-informed thought that ran through his mind. When he'd first been paired with his teammates, he thought they were the lowest of the low when it came to being deadweight. Now he realized that, while (in his mind) neither Lee or Tenten were at all serviceable ninja, most of the others were deadweights to the deadweights.

The chunin position was as good as his.

Team Seven let out a collective sigh of relief as they reached the outside, the feeling of sun being a refreshing addition on their skin after the hours spent inside. Ibiki had said that their next class started tomorrow and would go on for a number of days, so the responsible thing to do would be to get home early and have a nice, light dinner before going to slee-

"You guys want to go to Ichiraku?" Naruto asked, receiving an instant nod from Sasuke and Sakura.

"I'll need it after all that stress. Seriously, take in how I look with pink hair because tomorrow it's all going grey." Sakura joked, running a finger through the bright locks of her hair.

"Should we go invite Kakashi?" Sasuke asked, mentally remembering the path to the man's home in his head.

Sakura nodded, but Naruto held up a quick finger.

"Hold on, I'm so fucking thirsty and I think I saw a vender a little while back."

"Vender" was Naruto speak for vending machine.

"Oh, get me a water bottle." Sakura asked, reaching into her pockets and taking out her purse.

She dug through it to find the necessary change, while Sasuke raised an eyebrow.

"Naruto, you tried this before. The Ichiraku guy goes ballistic if you bring in outside drinks, just buy it at his shop."

The boy didn't listen, gladly holding a palm out for Sakura's money before turning to Sasuke with little care for the inevitable screaming match that was now instore for his future.

"One, Mr. Ramen's a cheap-ass motherfucker and sells water bottles for, like, five ryo more than you get them at any vender. Two, we'll just drink them while he's not looking, it'll be fine."

"Bullshit. Maybe Sakura can do it, but you drink with your whole mouth over the lid. Even if he doesn't notice the sound, it'll still take you three seconds flat to unstick your lips which means you'll basically be having to read his movements three seconds in advance on top of then hiding the water bottle- "

"Shut up, shut up!" Naruto yelled as he turned away to the direction of the vending machine. "I don't have time for your water bottle physics class, I'm thirsty. You guys go on ahead, I'll meet you at Ichiraku."

Sasuke begrudgingly did as told, while Sakura followed alongside him. Naruto quickly dashed towards the machine, running alongside the exams building before finding it sitting by itself on a rough patch of dirt. Naruto almost thought it looked lonely, almost because it was a vending machine and not a human with legitimate feelings. He ran up the machine, quickly crouching to stuff both he and Sakura's change into the coin slot.

Vending machines weren't exactly what you'd called "well-designed" in the shinobi world. They were large metallic boxes with glass outsides that displayed the snacks that lined its shelves. Speaking of shelves, each one was wooden with a number painted onto its front in shiny black paint. Each of these shelves corresponded to a button on the outside that had the same number painted onto it. These buttons were connected to a string that, when pulled, would pull the shelf out from under the snack and drop it down to the bottom of the vending machine. However, as Naruto was finding out now, this process was always finicky and unstable. The strings lock that released after the coins were detected by the weight sensor of the machine, refused to go off even after Naruto tossed an additional amount of money into the slot. He thrashed and clawed at the button, attempting to try and force the string to detach the shelf. When that didn't work, he moved onto trying to trigger the sensor by shaking the machine. When two minutes passed, this had begun to resemble the five stages of grief.

A footstep echoed out behind him, shooting Naruto's glance over to its person. Without even taking a few seconds to look at who it was, he immediately shouted:

"Hey, do you know how to get this thing working?"

The figure stepped into view, more clearly jogging Naruto's memory. It was the boy who he had sat next to in the exams, with the ashy grey hair and glasses. When actually focused upon, he looked a lot older than he had when only seen in the corner of Naruto's eye. At the very least he was sixteen, but Naruto guessed even older judging by his height and facial features. He stepped forward, a slight smirk on his face as he reached over to the machine.

"Oh, this one? This is easy, they forgot to turn the master lock off. So just go- "

He gently fiddled with the controls of the machine, pressing the five button in twice before hitting the nine once and then the eight twice. A sharp click emanated from the machine, much to Naruto's amazement. The spectacled boy smiled, holding a hand out towards the buttons.

"Now just pick what you want."

Naruto pulled the water button twice, the two bottles rolling to the entrance flap along with the ice cubes that had been stationed with them. The other boy quickly inputted another button combination that was too quick for Naruto to see and reinstated the lock with another sharp clicking sound from the machine. Naruto's turned to him with amazement, blue eyes resembling the color of the water packaging in the sunlight.

"Woah, that's awesome! Are you the guy who built the vender?" Naruto asked, a stupid question when considering he'd literally just seen this guy in the exam rooms and it was unlikely that he was a vending machine builder as well as a maintenance worker in his spare time.

The boy rubbed a hand behind his head, laughing to himself as he did.

"Nah. My name's Kabuto Yakushi, you might know me as the one-man genin?" He said.

Naruto blinked blankly.

"Nope."

Kabuto smiled in self-embarrassment, thrusting a palm against his forehead.

"Ah, I've exposed myself for nothing."

Naruto crossed his arms with a small smirk.

"Now you've got to tell me what that title means!"

Kabuto looked over at the boy through his spectacles, as if he was gauging whether he should do as instructed and just accept it or try and weasel his way out of this conversation. He chose the former.

"I'm called that because I've taken the chunin exam six times, this is my seventh. The first time I did with my team, I failed but they passed. The second time, I subbed in for a team that had had a member pass the last year. From then on, I've taken the exam by myself only."

This explained why Naruto had not seen Ibiki interact with him, as he was probably ineligible for the question on regards of not even having anyone to screw over in the first place. Judging by his phrasing, he'd been immediately passed so Naruto struck up a different avenue of conversation.

"Wait, six times? How old are you."

"Eighteen, turning nineteen this year."

Naruto's eyes widened.

"And you've done the exams six times?"

"Yep, the most attempts of anyone in history I've been told." He said, harshly whispering "by a lot of people" under his breath.

The Uzumaki's eyes angled themselves, as he found this statistic hard to believe. He wasn't particularly savvy at estimation but even he could tell that that seemed extraordinarily low. Surely there was some old loser who was forty-five and kept doing it every year. Then again, he didn't see anyone like that.

"Really?"

"Yep. They bar you from the exams once you turn twenty-two but everyone aside from me usually calls it quits before they even reach eighteen. I'm the only one who's stuck with it."

Kabuto seemed disturbingly cheery considering he was currently describing how much of a complete loser he was, but Naruto didn't have it in him to judge the boy. If he wasn't careful, he could turn out the exact same way.

"I'm sure you'll get it this time." He tried to encourage.

"Fingers crossed." Kabuto replied, giddily doing exactly what was described with an overly-jolly inflection in his voice.

It made him appear to be a little bit deluded, as judging from the hardened undercurrent in his voice, he had been figuratively "crossing his fingers" for so long that they may as well have been merged into one big finger. Kabuto quickly snapped back to a more grounded tone as he noticed Naruto heaving the two water bottles under his arms.

"Do you have somewhere you need to be?"

The remembrance of commitment visibly washed over his face, snapping Naruto into an upright posture.

"Oh shit! You're right, I gotta go meet my friends!" He explained, beginning to dash off.

As he did so, he briefly turned back, slinging the two water bottles under one arm while using the other one to wave back to Kabuto.

"Hey, I'll see you later Kabuto. Good luck on the exams!" He yelled, sprinting into the horizon.

Kabuto returned the wave with a smile, arm gently tilting like it was being controlled by a light breeze of air.

"You too!"

Naruto turned back forwards, continuing to run along into the village streets. Even the usual looks he got from the villagers did nothing to phase him, he was that much closer to being a chunin! The sun shining down on him was more than enough to accentuate the moment, recreating the whimsical feeling of running towards the end of year winter break. Only this time he actually had friends to spend it with…