Sealing Salientia - Chapter 40: Failure - Author: PenSmoke

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, nor make any profit from writing this.

Previously on Sealing Salientia: Straightening up, Naruto turned to Miss Mikoto and waved, still wearing the largest grin he had ever shown. His words rang out as the clamor of the senbon skittering over the rocky floor died down.

"All done!"

Konoha
Monday, October 26th, Year 71

Naruto's smile faltered significantly when he saw the glare that he was receiving from his instructor.

"Naruto!" The voice cracked sharply against the suddenly still air. While the temperature outside this morning has been cool and crisp, it felt like a pleasant summer breeze drifting lazily across the beach compared to the icy tone he was the target of.

Miss Mikoto wheeled herself over to him. Even though she was seated, she was still taller than him. And with the way the lights suddenly seemed to dim, her shadow looked menacing. The black, pupil-less eyes glinted in the shade-filled crevices of her face and her silhouette quickly grew in size, towering over him just a second later.

A quick smack to the back of the head was receiving unexpectedly, followed by a stern verbal reprimand. "No showboating. A good ninja is not the braggadocious fool but the one who finishes the missions quietly and efficiently without revealing themselves to the enemy. Do you understand?"

Her scary silhouette faded out and the glint was replaced by a soft expression. As the lights seemed to brighten up, she called over her shoulder. "Shiranui, stop messing with the lights." A teenaged boy that stood near the entrance seemed to deflate, walking away from the door and the switch panel next to it.

Now that her piece on showboating had been spoken, Mikoto addressed him in her usual calm and gentle voice. "Well done, Naruto. You created a solution to the problem of potentially being caught while staying within the rules of the examination. You may go back to the hallway. We will gather again after everyone has gone, but please do not wander far.

The teen that had been scolded had walked over to him, holding a handful of the senbon in his outstretched hand. He another one in his mouth, like a toothpick. Handing back the twenty or so needles, he then gestured towards his face "Mind if I keep this one, kid? You nearly pegged me with it. Wasn't expecting that sort of attack. Want to keep it to remind me to not judge people too quickly. I use senbon anyway, so it's always good to have more."

Naruto shrugged, one senbon wasn't a big deal. With his tacit approval given, the teen motioned for the white-haired boy to follow, heading toward the door. Naruto could see the next person walking in, a girl he hadn't interacted much with named Natsumi. With a quick thumbs up and a call of "Good Luck" he passed her on his way out. Upon reaching the heavy wooden door, the teen opened it and ushered the younger boy out.

Naruto milled around the other students. He thought about talking to Sakura or Shikamaru, but they looked to both be busy concentrating on their own upcoming exam and he didn't want to disturb them from their plans.

Instead, he shuffled off down the hallway. The underground corridor was long and lit by long buzzing tube lights that cast a sickly yellow pallor across everything. The electricity inside crackled and hummed, as if feeding off the nervousness of the kids contained within. As he trudged along, he watched the flickering pattern in the lights giving a play of moving shadows down the walls.

He found his way to the end of the hall and saw the steps heading up and down. Behind him, he could her the chatter of the students, and the same for above in the main area. But, his ears pricked as he detected a different sound. It was soft and faint, almost covered completely by the shadows and the ambience, but he caught it. Twitching his head from side to side to try and locate the source of the sound, he determined it must be coming from down the flight of stairs that led to more training areas even further below ground.

As he descended down the steps into the next level down, he realized what the soft sounds were. Muffled sobs of crying, possibly covered by clothing or something else. He quickened his pace, and looked around. This chamber was darker than the one above, with only the light from the above hall casting any glow at all. Thankfully, he didn't need to rely on sight in the pitch-black, as the sounds were audible now without concentrating.

Walking towards them, keeping his footsteps light, he waited until he was a few feet away from the sound before speaking up. "Excuse me…"

At the sound of his voice, the sobbing instantly was replaced by a squeak of surprise, and he quickly sensed danger. Immediately flattening down on the ground, he heard the whistle of something flying overheard. He scrabbled up from the prone position into a low crouch, one hand fishing around in his pouch for a weapon to defend himself.

"OH!I'msorry!Areyouokay?I'msosorry!Ithrewwithoutthinkingbecauseyousurprisedme. I'm so sorry about that, please tell me that you're okay!" The rush of words left the mouth of the speaker at almost incomprehensible speeds, only slowing down enough to be somewhat understandable near the end.

Naruto determined from the apology that this person wasn't actually trying to hurt him and let go of the ninja needles he had wrapped his hand around. He quickly popped back up to his feet and responded, "I'm okay, I dodged it. You really shouldn't throw that at people though. You could hurt someone."

A soft sniffle was the only response he got for a few seconds. Then, in possibly the most dejected and tiny voice he had ever heard came the words, "I know."

Naruto felt broken immediately on hearing that voice. He wasn't sure what was wrong, but he felt a deep urge telling him that something wasn't right and he needed to try and fix it. "It's fine, I'm okay. Really!" He thought for a second and decided that it would be a good time to introduce himself. "Hi there. I'm Naruto, who are you?"

Another soft sniffle, followed by nearly a half minute of silence. Naruto was about to repeat himself but cancelled his intake of air as he heard the soft voice reply again. "I'm Tenten."

The boy took a moment to position himself next to the potentially crying girl and sat down a foot away. "Why are you down here crying in the dark, Tenten?" He wasn't really sure if there was a better way of going about asking such a thing, and being direct seemed to usually pan out for him anyway.

The silence dragged on for several seconds, only broken by the occasional sniffle and ragged breath. Naruto started to wonder if the girl was either asleep or was ignoring his question. As the interminable quiet dragged on, Naruto thought about speaking a few more times, but never could find something that felt right to say. Instead, he just continued to sit in the darkened hallway.

After several more minutes, the sniffles mostly stopped, and he could now see luminous eyes staring back at him. They were soft, brown, but most importantly filled with sadness. Naruto's cerulean orbs gazed back, consumed by the emotions in front of him. Those eyes were bereft of happiness, looking as if they knew nothing but how to cry.

"They told me I can't be a ninja anymore."

He was so lost into staring at her eyes that Naruto almost missed the sentence. Registering her words, he quickly attempted to shift focus from her eyes to her voice, as to catch what she said.

"They flunked me out of the Academy because my only real talent was throwing weapons."

This got his attention fully, if only because he was concerned about flunking out of the Academy in his own mind. Naruto let her continue as it seemed she needed to say her side.

"I couldn't keep up with the rest of the class in techniques and chakra and skill. Last year, they told me I wasn't going to make the cut, and they sent me over for extra teaching. But, it wasn't enough. And now, they're gonna kick me out. I just wanted to be a great kunoichi, like Tsunade!"

Naruto watched as she finished, the sadness in her eyes flickering and flashing to red-hot anger in some spots, finishing with a broken determination that left her shattered like a dropped mirror. He wasn't sure what to say in response to that, so he went the route that Jiraiya did. Unfaltering confidence.

"It's okay! If you work hard and train hard, I'm sure you'll be a great kunoichi!" It was a line he had actually heard Jiraiya directly say a couple of times previously when talking with the ladies. He just changed the final word to match what Tenten had said.

The girl looked up at him, eyes wet with unspent tears. He decided he might as well keep going. "You have a dream to be a great kunoichi, right? Then work and train until you become one. Don't let anything get in your way. If the Academy says you are good enough, prove them wrong! Become the best kunoichi in the world! Heck, become the best ninja! Nothing can hold you back if you try hard enough!"

He looked back into the chestnut colored orbs that were staring into his own electric blue. The tears had resumed, though no sniffles reached his ears. The face swirled with emotions for a moment, before settling on determination. Tenten steeled herself and started to smile. A moment later, she darted forward and enveloped him in a hug. "Thank you."

Naruto was encompassed by a feeling of warmth and an aura of satisfaction entered his consciousness. The feeling settled into him deeply, reaching what felt like the center of his being. As the emotion flowed through him, he gained a sense of accomplishment and pride, as if he had made someone proud through his actions. He wasn't sure who it could be though, as there was nobody else here. He could feel a rumbling deep within him that he identified as Kurama stirring, which was unusual. Normally the kitsune was quiet during the day unless something was going wrong for Naruto.

A fleeting moment after, the warmth receded from him, and he could feel that his shoulder was slightly wet with moisture dripped from the cheek of the offending hugger. The girl smiled at him. "Thank you, Naruto. You're right. I should work even harder and prove them all wrong." She stood up and offered a hand to Naruto, pulling him up as he placed his hand in hers.

"And I'll train with you. Together we can become the strongest ninjas ever. Believe it!" Naruto joyfully shouted, to which a soft laughter came from the girl.

"That's the dumbest catchphrase I've ever heard. But, as silly as it seems, I do believe you, Naruto." Tenten smiled gently at him, before starting up the stairs. "Don't you have more tests to get to yourself?"

Naruto panicked for a moment, dashing to the top of the stairs. He quickly looked down the hall to see most of his classmates still standing near the training area door. Heart settling after the quick spike in rate, he called back. "I'm good, there's still a few more left to go." He waited the extra few seconds for Tenten to catch up to him. Now that they had left the nearly-pitch black of the lower level, he was able to get a good look at her in total, rather than just the dim light reflecting off of her eyes that he had seen previously.

The girl was dressed in a pink Chinese kimono-style shirt with a golden seam down the center the tied together in small gold bows, with a faint flame pattern in darker pink near the bottom. Red pants with a slight camouflage patterning covered the top of ninja sandals. The hair was the same deep brown of her eyes, tied in two buns, one of either side of her head. She had a light flushing of the cheeks as well, and her eyes were still a little red from crying.

Naruto continued with the thought that had struck him a moment earlier. "You said you wanted to be just like Tsunade, right?"

Tenten nodded vigorously. "She's my idol! She's the most powerful kunoichi in the whole village, maybe even the whole world! I'd love to meet her." The bun-haired girl brandished a smile as potent as any katana.

"Wait for me at the main entrance after school. I have a surprise for you." Naruto instructed her.

She raised a curious eyebrow, but seemed to acquiesce to his request. "Okay, I'll see you after school then. Good luck Naruto!"

Naruto waved good bye to his newest acquaintance and bounded back down the hall, just as the last kid finished up his test and exited the room, followed moments later by the instructors and other ninja that were helping to perform and judge. Miss Mikoto Uchiha was the last out, wheeling herself through the entranceway. Her commanding voice called out above the thrum of conversation that had started amongst the kids. "All first year students, please proceed outside for the remainder of your exam."

As bodies pushed against each other and the flow of children steadily moved towards the outside area, Naruto sidled up next to Sasuke in the jostling crowd. "How'd you do?"

Sasuke smirked. "Too easy. If you never left the circle, they couldn't capture you. And you?"

Naruto grinned. "Exactly. A handful of senbon and I hit most of the dummies in one swing."

The raven-haired boy retorted back, "Only most? I got them all." A light punch on the shoulder. "Gonna have to keep trying there, whitey."

At that, Naruto felt his blood boil a little bit. Sasuke always seemed to get under his skin, and it unnerved him. But, he let it slide. He could show all of what he could do, hopefully, in the next exam. The group continued to slowly pulsate towards the outside, moving as a blob of students, being pushed and prodded by teachers in the back.

The bright daylight and cold air outside led to a double-whammy sensory overload for most students, and Naruto could see several of his classmates shivering from the cold and blinking from the sun. He quickly started up the technique he had been using earlier to stay nice and toasty warm, and relaxed once it kicked in. The same boy that ended the first round of exams was called up first, Yuzuke.

Miss Mikoto again spoke loudly to get their collective attention. "This will be the final round of the first-year examinations. All students will be asked to demonstrate 3 techniques, as well as show a practical usage of them in the course of a mission. If you have more than that you would like us to know about, you can write them down on a list, as well as including a practical use for than on a mission, on a piece of paper and hand that in to your instructor."

Miss Mikoto gestured for one of the several chunin around the area to step forward. "If it is an attack or genjutsu, a chunin can step in and be your target if needed. We ask that you go all out to showcase your ability, it will be up to the individual chunin to dodge or repel your attack if it is injurious or deadly."

The chunin disappeared back into the crowd and a new voice spoke up. It was an older male voice that he recognized, emanating from behind him. He, as well as most of the students outside, whirled around to focus on the newcomer. Hiruzen Sarutobi stood behind all of them, speaking loudly. "It is time to show what you are made of! Let us all see the rewards of your hard work. Good luck to all of you!"

Miss Mikoto wheeled away from the area that the student had been called to, ushering students back. "Please, move back to give him enough room to perform."

As the crushing crowd of students was pushed a dozen feet back to provide room, the student named Yuzuke started his demonstration. Naruto and the others watched as he demonstrated the standard three Academy jutsu. Starting with a sloppy, but still feasible transformation, he explained how it could be used in a mission. Next was a clone technique, cleaner but not perfect. Lastly a replacement technique where he switched with a nearby chunk of wood.

Naruto watched with a slightly bored disinterest as the students came up, one by one. As Shikamaru was called, he started to get excited. This was, of course, followed by disappointment as his lazy friend performed two of the basic Academy tricks, albeit each was very clean. His third was the Shadow Possession jutsu, which connected to and froze a chunin nearby. However, Naruto had already personally witnessed that technique previously. He had been hoping for something new to learn about his quiet classmate.

The next student to be called up rose his excitement levels much higher and he wasn't alone. Large numbers of whispers broke out amongst the first-year students as Sasuke Uchiha was called forward to display his techniques.

The raven-haired boy ignored the trend that had been set by the first students of doing the basic Academy techniques. He immediately flickered through hand seals, raised his hands to his lips and shouted "Great Fireball Release!" A flurry of flickering flames burst forth from his mouth, blasting through the air. The temperature around every student immediately rose several degrees, and Naruto could feel the warmth even through his warming cloak of chakra on his skin. As Sasuke continued to blow, the fireball grew and grew, stretching out to three meters across and reaching upwards of five meters away. The conflagration ended with a burst of air and the fireball exploded from the inside as Sasuke charged through it to show his next skill.

Several small metallic chunks glinted in the air as they flew across the outer area of the Academy, catching and dragging the residual flames from the fireball with them. Behind each, a thin line of razor sharp metal filament trailed, reaching back towards Sasuke's hands. "Phoenix Flowers!" came the call, as he tugged the wires that traced to his fingers, causing the spinning fiery shuriken to twist in their trajectories, curving them around a tree, where they dug in, causing the bark to splinter and peel.

As Naruto watched, he could heard Shikamaru mutter behind him, "Showoff." Naruto wanted to agree, but he also wanted to see more.

As if obliging to Naruto's unspoken request, the Uchiha scion launched vertically into the air, eyes turning red and spinning around the central pupil, now visible against the Sharingan background. Sasuke flickered through handsigns, before yelling out "Conflagration!" A circle of fire appeared from his outstretched hands about a meter across, and fell onto the tree where the shuriken continued to lightly scorch the wood. The blazing disc fell with great speed towards the ground and washed over the branches of the tree like water, splashing flames out across each part of the plant in a fiery haze. Sasuke landed next to the tree a moment later, standing next to his blazing demonstration.

As Sasuke stepped away from the inferno next to him, a stream of water blasted forth and drenched out the fire, revealing a heavily scorched tree. The water jet came from Hiruzen himself, who seemed to be grumbling about kids messing with his trees.

"Thank you Sasuke. Sakura, please come forward."

When Sakura moving forward past Naruto to start, he gave her a quiet "Good luck!", to whch she responded with a smile. She went to the display area and demonstrated her three techniques, which returned to the trend of the basic three. Her display was nowhere near the spectacle that Sasuke had put on, and it seemed to sadden her that the "Oooh"s and "Aaah"s of admiration from the crowd that the Uchiha had received failed to carry over into her demonstration.

She finished her display, returning to the group and Naruto awaited his own name to be called a few students later. More showing of the same Academy techniques at varying levels of skill made Naruto question what he should do. Should he be a show-off again after Mikoto had specifically admonished him not to do so? Or should he listen to when she said that they should go all-out. Shikamaru's words from a couple weeks earlier also rang in his head about not giving away extra information and not raising others expectations.

As his name was called, he settled on what to do. Walking forward to the area where everyone had bene displaying their abilities, he fished through his sealing pouch. He had some techniques that he had already shown off in front of the class, that would still be effective at showing his skills. He turned to face his fellow-first year students.

His bit his thumb, flashed a few handsigns, and slammed his hand on the ground, verbally speaking "Summoning!" A flash of red and orange appeared through the emission of the ninja smoke that always seemed to accompany such a technique. The large toad that appeared in front of him now was about a meter tall, a katana across his back, webbed hands grapping the handle, ready to draw it.

"Thank you for coming, Gamahiro. If you wouldn't mind, could you slice that tree up for me?" He said pointing at the heavily burned tree that was doused only minutes earlier. "We're showing off how useful our abilties can be." With a nod of his head and the ringing of metal against sheath, the katana was quickly drawn from the scabbard and flashed through the trunk of the tree, chopping it into multiple large logs that came tumbling down. As the slicing was happening, Naruto had pulled out a roll of paper and was scribbling something on them.

Once completed with the task at hand, Gamahiro looked at Naruto questioningly. "Thank you! You may return if you wish." The toad croaked out a response and quickly disappeared. Naruto finished drawing the last symbols on the paper, and stood up to address the teachers.

"That was an attack, obviously, though the toads have many other uses. Now it is time to show how I can help in moving things." He placed the scroll on the pile of logs, and activated it. The logs quickly disappeared, absorbed into the sealing matrix within. He bent down to pick up the scroll and tossed it at the waiting chunin. The older ninja quickly reached out a hand to grab it, looking bored. As the paper was about a meter from its' intended target, suddenly another poof of smoke happened and instead of a small bit of paper being thrown, a pile of twenty large logs came tumbling through the air at a very surprised chunin. As the teenager barely scrambled out of the way, Naruto said "And that's how to combine moving things around with a time-release seal to make an attack."

He stepped down from the area to a few laughs and whoops from his classmates, while Miss Mikoto called the next student up on stage. Naruto accepted the few congratulations tossed his way, working on going over to one of the proctors to get a piece of paper. After obtaining the item, writing down the other techniques he knew but didn't want to show off and how to use them, he returned to watch the rest of his class show their abilities.

When Ami was finally called and done with her performance, Miss Mikoto called out again. "Thank you, children. You are dismissed for the day. Your parents or caretakers will be informed of the test results later this week. Classes will resume at the start of next week for those who passed, and classes will be arranged according to skill level."

She took a moment and then addressed them again. "It has been my pleasure to instruct you through this part of your ninja journey. I wish you all the best of luck moving forward!"

Naruto was slightly confused by this, it sounded as if she was no longer going to be their teacher. As the press of students started to move outward away from the Academy, he maneuvered his way over to his teacher.

"Miss Mikoto?"

"Yes, Naruto?" came the response.

"What did you mean by that, are you not going to be our teacher anymore?"

A look of melancholy combined with pride came over her face. "No, I will not be your teacher going forward. Those who advance will have a new instructor teaching second year students. Those who do not advance will alternate to a different teacher to see if that makes a difference. Those who do not return will have no teacher. Regardless of the outcome, I will no longer be your direct teacher. If you ever need advice or have a question that you think I can answer, I will certainly try my best to assist you though."

Naruto felt a bit sad at this. He had grown to like Sasuke's mom as a teacher. She was kind and gentle at times but tough and scary when needed, which was a big change from the teachers that he had previously. Pa and Ma were both no-nonsense and tough, whereas Jiraiya was goofy yet powerful. Not sure on what the correct thing to do was, he settled for giving her a hug. He reached over the mechanical apparatus of the wheelchair to give her the best hug he could from that angle.

"Thank you for teaching me so many things in such a short time. It was a lot of fun."

"You are welcome, Naruto. Best of luck going forward." She stopped for a moment and thought. "Make sure you keep Sasuke moving forward too. I can sense you guys are going to be stuck together for a while."

Naruto supposed that made sense. They were clearly right near the top of the class in abilities and skill, and would both likely move up together in the Academy. He didn't see Sasuke stopping being his rival anytime soon, either.

"I will!" Naruto replied with a jaunty smile and a wave as he walked away. He could see that the bun-haired girl, Tenten, was already sitting on the steps of the school, the chime signaling the end of the school day ringing a few minutes earlier during their demonstrations.

On his walk over, he watched as the girl waved at him and stood up. "Hi Naruto! What did you have to show me?"

Naruto smiled mischievously, knowing what he had in store. "Walk with me, I'm going to show you my house!"

The girl by his side looked at him oddly. "Why should I do that?"

"I have a surprise for you." Was his enigmatic reply.

While Tenten didn't look entirely trusting of him, it seemed that his earlier interaction had been enough to assist him in convincing her, as she started down the steps to follow his outstretched hand in the direction of his home.

They walked slowly through the streets, turning various corners on their way to his residence. He either outright ignored or re-directed all of Tenten's attempts to find out what his surprise was. He could see it was wearing on the girl, as her face turned into more and more of a pout as the walk proceeded.

Finally, at the entrance to the clan compound, she stopped cold. "Naruto! You can't just go wandering into a clan compound! Especially the Senju one! I know that I said I wanted to meet Tsunade, but I'm not going to break into her house to do so." She puffed out her cheeks and crossed her arms in a huff. "I didn't think you were so reckless."

Naruto turned at her display, smiling as he did. His smile brightened up even more as he noticed a pair of familiar figures walking towards them behind Tenten. Instead of answering the girls' response, he greeted the people strolling down the street.

"Heya Pops! Hello Miss Tsunade! Can I bring a friend over?" Naruto grinned from ear-to-ear as his newfound friend whipped around at the words.

A short moment later, he could hear an excited rush of words, similar to when he first met the girl. This was followed by a sharp sound very reminiscent of a squeak, and Tenten started to fall backwards towards him. He quickly caught her, slightly struggling under the unexpected weight. He looked at her face to find eyes closed, a gigantic smile on her face, and that she seemed unresponsive.

Jiraiya's voice kicked in. "Six years old and already making the ladies faint. Just like your Pops." From his side, he could hear Tsunade snort in derisive laughter.

AN: Another character introduced, hope you enjoy the portrayal. The only major character from Konoha in Naruto's age bracket left to make an appearance is Rock Lee, which will be soon. Hopefully everyone likes where I take the characters and change them around due to the new circumstances in this AU.

Constructive criticism is welcomed as always. Thank you to everyone for reading!