Chapter Eight: Jonin Exams Part I
The exam was scheduled to start at ten o'clock in the morning, in one of the academy classrooms as the class went outside for shuriken and taijutsu practice. Partly out of anxiety and partly because it was habit, Rin arrived to the classroom twenty minutes early. When she arrived, there was no one in sight. The classroom lights were on and after peering through the small sliver of window lodged in the door, Rin found the entire room to be empty.

Perhaps she had been the earliest to arrive?

Rin paced in front of the classroom for a good five minutes, waiting for someone else to show up. But five minutes later, Rin was still the only one present. Inwardly, she debated whether or not she should just go in.

Her adventurous side won out and she found her hand reaching for the door knob, twisting it and pushing the door open before stepping inside. The classroom was a typical academy one, with three sections of seats containing five rows each. After reaching out to feel if anyone's chakra was nearby, Rin began walking down the aisles of each row, digging through the underside cubby of the desk for any type of instruction or perhaps, the exam paper.

She found nothing so Rin moved on to the podium, digging through the shelves. All she found were academy level textbooks and some academy assignments.
Rin frowned; she was certain that she hadn't gotten the location or the time wrong. A brief glance at the clock on the back wall informed her there were ten minutes until the scheduled begin time.

She sensed her surroundings again, wanting to make sure no one was around when she slipped out of the room when she felt a stream of pulsing chakra that she didn't notice before. Following her senses, Rin realized that the chakra was being emitted from the blackboard. Pressing her right hand against the board, she poured some of her chakra into it. Kanji appeared on the board, revealing the real testing location. Once she removed her hand from the board, the kanji immediately disappeared. Rin exited the classroom, taking off in the direction of the Hokage tower.

She made it to one of the spare council rooms, turned into a testing location for this particular occasion, to see that there were already sixteen other jonin hopefuls there, Itachi and Asuma, who she briefly recognized from the academy, included. Rin quietly slipped to Itachi's side as the others eyed her as she entered, undoubtedly already sizing her up as competition.

"The others have already formed temporary alliances," Itachi informed her in a hushed voice. "Perhaps it is best if we stick together as well."

Rin nodded in agreement. If anything, Rin would benefit teaming up with Itachi rather than the other way around.

When ten o'clock hit, there were twenty two chunins in the room. A puff of smoke appeared at the front of the room, resulting in all of the chunins tensing up, hands hovered around their weapons. Itachi and Rin were no exceptions.

"Ah, looks like three of you didn't make it past the preliminary cut," a man that Rin recognized to be the head of the Nara clan, Shikaku Nara, drawled as his black eyes roved over the chunins before him. "Lesson one: any jonin should be able to gather accurate information in a timely manner."

The room remained dead silent.

"Well good, you're not a troublesome bunch. Find your name at one of these tables and that will be your assigned seat. The first exam is naturally a knowledge exam, full of questions that any jonins should know. Please complete it within the hour. Also, there's a questionnaire on the last page of the exam that you must fill out, but it won't count towards your exam score. Any questions?"

No one spoke.

"Good, take a seat and I'll pass out your exams shortly."

Everyone in the room scrambled to find their seats, moving quickly down the aisle to spot their names. Rin moved to find her seat, but a light tug on her sleeve from Itachi stopped her to her tracks. She turned to find his Sharingan activated and pointed to the seat located in the last row, the very end. She thanked Itachi before moving to take her seat, noting that Itachi did the same. He was seated two rows in front of her, three seats from the edge.

Shikaku pulled out a thick stack of papers, dropping what looked like a thick packet on everyone's desk. Rin tensed when Shikaku slapped her packet on her desk, eyeing the small font. There were already eight questions on the first page alone; was it possible to finish the exam in time?

When he called for them to start, Rin quickly flipped through all of the pages to find a total of 100 questions and a bonus question. Like Shikaku mentioned, the last page was a questionnaire that was mandatory for her to complete. It was practically impossible to finish the entire exam in one hour; either it was designed to set them up for failure or there was an underlying message.

From a few seats over, Itachi was thinking along the same lines as Rin. He thought back to Shikaku's instructions; Shikaku only stated that the questionnaire was mandatory, but didn't mention that he had to actually complete any of these questions. The bonus question was strange, as it was something that everyone would skip over when pressed for time. Itachi imagined that the bonus question was the most important question, so he worked on drawing the chakra networks that were required by hand. When Itachi finished, he found the kanji for "lie" staring right back at him.

Lie? Lie on what?

Moving on, Itachi flipped to the questionnaire, eyes scanning the instructions.

Please fill out the questionnaire as honestly as possible. All information will be used for the sole purpose of forming compatible teams and assigning suitable missions.
That seemed completely normal, except the previous question instructed him to lie. Itachi's eyes scanned the page: strengths, weaknesses, and favored combat style.

Ah, Itachi understood the purpose of the assignment. He quickly filled out the obvious: his sharingan and fire ball jutsu in the strengths, wrote taijutsu for his favored combat style just for the heck of it. Itachi debated whether he or not he should fill in something for weaknesses, but ultimately decided that leaving it blank would be too obvious that he figured out the true nature of the questionnaire. Kenjutsu was his final answer, not too unbelievable, but a lie at the same time.

To kill time, Itachi began filling in some of the other questions. It was a failsafe just in case he actually needed to fill out some of the questions to pass although Itachi was 95% sure that he figured out the true nature of the exam.

On the other side of the room, Rin took an entirely different approach. She powered through the questions, pencil scratching the paper at an alarming rate. The tip of the lead hardly left the paper, save for when she turned the page.

The first few questions were easy, hardly chunin level before the questions got progressively harder to the point where Rin suspected that it some of the knowledge was beyond jonin level. Still, Rin hastily scribbled down the answers since she knew them. With seven minutes left to spare, Rin flipped to the second to last page containing a bonus question.

Rin had been about to skip the bonus question and move on the questionnaire, since Shikaku specifically mentioned that the questionnaire needed to be completed to pass, but one quick look at the question, Rin changed her mind. Drawing the specified chakra networks? That would take her one minute max, as her medical training ensured that Rin was able to draw a full body diagram containing all organs, major arteries and veins, chakra networks, and nerves in under ten minutes. Just a few chakra networks? Practically nothing.

Thirty seconds later, the bonus question was completed. Without sparing much of a glance to the completed question, Rin moved on the questionnaire, quickly reading the instructions.

Information to be used to form compatible teams and assign suitable missions? Rin couldn't recall Minato sensei possessing such a thing. According to her knowledge, each shinobi's file was filled out by their academy teacher and then their jonin sensei. By the time that a shinobi was promoted to chunin, their speciality would have already been made clear during the combat portion of the exam.

Perhaps it was just to update their files? Even if that was the case, something about the instructions bugged her.

Rin bought time by filling in things that she definitely knew already appeared in her file. For strength, she put medical ninjutsu, while placing offensive medical ninjutsu as her combat style. Weaknesses...well everything but medical ninjutsu?

Noting that there was one more minute remaining in the hour, Rin quickly scribbled a quick list of all of her weaknesses: close combat, long range combat, genjutsu, ninjutsu, taijutsu, kenjutsu, and fuinjutsu. Fifteen seconds left, Rin moved to close the packet when she spotted the bonus question again.

This time she saw it: the kanji for lie, but it was too late to change any of her answers as Shikaku called time. One guy attempted to continue writing, but was immediately disqualified on the spot. Shikaku collected the exam papers, telling all of them to come back to this room in two hours. All of the chunins shuffled out of the room. The moment the door closed, discussion erupted in the hallway. Most of it were complaints about how it had been impossible to finish the exam. When Asuma gently reminded his companion that they were supposed to fill out the questionnaire, a few of them went pale, clearly having forgotten.

However no one mentioned the true purpose of the exam. Either most of them didn't figure it out or those who did deemed it wiser to keep their mouths shut. Itachi was one in the latter category while Rin mentally berated herself for figuring it out at the last second.

"Lunch?" Rin didn't turn down Itachi's offer.

Lunch was a quiet affair as Itachi was never a man of many words and Rin didn't know what to quite say to him. With Shisui, it had been so easy since he was so easygoing. In regards to Izumi, medical ninjutsu was always a go to topic when the conversation died. But talking to Itachi was almost like communicating with Kakashi when she first met him; it took her many years to figure out which topics she would solicit a decent response from him. That, and she learned how to be comfortable with silence.

When lunch ended, Itachi insisted on paying for her share, citing that he still owed her for saving his life. Rin wanted to protest, but if Itachi was anywhere as stubborn as his cousin, then she would just be wasting her time. So, Rin let him.

With 75 minutes to kill before they were due back at the Hokage Tower, Itachi suggested that they could train in preparation for the next section of the exam.
"So confident that you passed?" Rin teased.

"Ah. I presume you figured out the true nature of the exam as well?"

Rin let out a nervous chuckle. "Well not really? At least, I didn't catch on the code in the bonus question until we had to turn in the paper, so I didn't get a chance to change any of my answers."

"So you answered them truthfully?" Itachi inquired.

"I mean, I wrote medical ninjutsu for strength since I knew that already existed in my file for sure. As for weaknesses, I literally wrote that I was terrible at everything aside from medical ninjutsu."

"That's smart," Itachi complimented. "When your opponent sees it, it will confuse them greatly."

"You think they're going to distribute the paper to our competitors?"

"That's my guess. Those who answered honestly will be at a disadvantage. Or perhaps, it is a strategy to answer truthfully, as those who figured out the code will be doubtful of everything that is written on the papers. Either way, we will have to use our judgment to determine what is a lie and what isn't. For example, it would have been too obvious if you did not put medical ninjutsu as your strength like it is for me if I did not put fireball jutsu, as every Uchiha knows it."

"So next stage...one on one combat with the other participants?" Rin deduced.

"Very likely. Team combat is a possibility, but I wager the percentage of that happening is lower."

"What if I have to fight you?" Rin questioned, her worry beginning to increase tenfold. Even if she knew all of Itachi's moves - which she didn't - she still didn't stand a chance at winning.

"Then I suppose we will both have to do our best," Itachi responded. In actuality, it was more like Rin needed to do her best to not get her ass kicked too early in the match.
Despite her worries, Rin still agreed to spar with Itachi. After all, it's not like she had anything to lose at letting him see her fighting style. She would lose anyways.

Training with Shisui had helped improve her speed marginally; she was able to keep up with Itachi a lot more than she did when she sparred with Shisui, but Itachi was still faster. Throughout the spar, it was surprising to hear Itachi give pointers on her stance, allowing her three seconds to correct it before attacking again.

Tsunade's training came back to her the longer the spar went on. Despite taking some blows, which Rin easily healed without much thought, her mind analyzed every move. Though barely obvious, Rin eventually figured out Itachi's weakness: always a fraction of a second slower to cover his right side than his left. Still, considering Itachi's speed, a fraction of a second slower practically meant nothing.

Rin felt Itachi building up chakra in his upper chest area, quickly adding fire nature chakra to it, while a steady stream of chakra began to make its way up his mouth area. Then she saw it, Itachi forming the first hand seal for the Uchiha style fireball jutsu. Quickly molding her own chakra and running though the seals for a water wave jutsu, the two jutsus were released at the same time. The two jutsus clashed, cancelling each other out.

Within the evaporation mist, Rin began to move, knowing that Itachi was surely using his Sharingan to seek her out. Hopping onto one of the trees and perching on one of the sturdier branches, Rin completely suppressed her chakra. Closing her eyes to concentrate on locating Itachi's chakra signature, Rin quickly pinpointed his location. Three o'clock, with three shurikens incoming.

Rin jumped down from the branch, her hands grabbing ahold of the branch and allowing her body to swing in an arc. Keeping one hand on the branch, her other hand reached for a kunai in her holster, cutting the wires in one clean sweep as her momentum propelled her upwards. Landing on the branch once more, Rin shot three senbons in Itachi's direction before taking off in Itachi's direction.

As Rin neared Itachi, she spotted Itachi dodging the senbons with ease, using his Sharingan as an aid. Channelling chakra to the soles of her feet, she used the extra boost to propel her straight to Itachi, her flute already in hand. Rin swung the flute, aiming at Itachi's right side, but as predicted, Itachi was ready to counter with a kunai.

The two metals clashed together.

Rin didn't let up on her attack; her left hand was ready with a kunai and she swung it, slashing at Itachi. She managed to nick Itachi's cheek, a dribble of blood already running down his face as he broke the genjutsu and managed to jump backwards, out of her reach.

"Interesting technique there. Managed to catch me off guard for a few seconds." Hearing that come from Itachi's mouth slightly boosted her confidence. She had managed to land a hit on the Uchiha prodigy!

"Let's call it?" Rin suggested, hand outstretched to make the truce. Itachi reciprocated her action.

"Let me heal your face." Itachi didn't protest and allowed Rin's hand to glow green for a few seconds, closing the skin. He wiped the blood off of his face after Rin finished healing him.

"You are a sensor type, aren't you?" Itachi inquired. Rin knew exactly what Itachi wanted to know.

"Yes. I've been working on my sensory skills for about a year now. With my understanding of the chakra network, I can use it to predict what move the opponent will make next depending on where the chakra is flowing through the body."

"That was how you were able to counter my fireball jutsu," Itachi stated.

"Well sort of. I could feel you molding your chakra and that your chakra was flowing towards your mouth. I still have a hard time differentiating between the different chakra natures. I only knew it was fire because I encountered it before when I fought Izumi."

"Ah. And you can predict moves in hand to hand combat?"

"A little bit. Shinobis unconsciously channel a bit a chakra into the limb in which that they will use to strike next, but my reaction time is still too slow to counter it."

"That an interesting way to utilize your sensory skills. Not only good for tracking, but also in combat."

Rin shrugged. "Well, I don't have the Sharingan, so got to keep up with you somehow right?" Itachi cracked a brief smile at her teasing jab.

All twenty two exam participants were waiting inside the testing room, sitting in clumps based on their unspoken alliances. Most groups had three or four members, the largest alliance was six people. Rin and Itachi were the only pair, while two participants, a Hyuuga and another Uchiha were lone wolves.

"I'm surprised that no one has tried to team up with you," Rin whispered to Itachi, who seemed to be completely at ease while Rin tried to size up their competition.

"Well I asked my cousin to join us," Itachi said, jerking his head in the direction of the older Uchiha. "But he is adamant that he wants to pass on the basis of his own merit. Undoubtedly, the Uchiha clan will believe that I carried him through the exams if we worked together."

"That's awful."

Itachi merely shrugged. "The elders of the Uchiha clan have a very conservative mindset. They don't approve of a lot of things, like me being friends with Shisui who is considered to be apart of the branch family, or how much time Shisui and I spent with Hatake senpai since he's an outsider. They even had a lot of choice words to say about you healing us, since you found out some clan secrets, but their opinions don't really matter. Shisui and I will continue to do what we want."

Rin huffed. "I didn't even find out any clan secrets. All I know is that your Sharingan can change shapes, but I don't understand what it means."

"It's an advanced form of the Sharingan which contains greater powers than the normal Sharingan," Itachi explained. "However, overuse will cause blindness."

"And why are you telling me this? Isn't that supposed to be a clan secret?"

"Maybe I am optimistic that you will find a way to stop the blindness," Itachi said. "So far, our clan medics don't have much of a solution other than to not use it. The only known way to stop blindness is to implant a sibling's eyes, who also unlocked the advanced form."

"But that's…"

"Uchiha Madara was the only one who was known to have done that; however, the possibility that greed can drive another to do the same thing is unsettling. So…"

"I understand," Rin told him. "I'll work on it."

Shikaku appeared in the room, cutting their conversation short. All of the low murmurs in the room died out.

"Lesson number two: you must be able to look past deception. What may seem to be useless could very well be the most useful information. For those who didn't fill out the questionnaire or answer the bonus question are disqualified."

From there, Shikaku began listing off names. Six people stood up and left, leaving a remainder of sixteen people.

"The second part of the exam will take place at five o'clock today at Training Ground 10," Shikaku stated. "You will be pitted against a randomly matched opponent to assess your combat skills. In my hand are the questionnaires that you have filled out, each person will receive a copy of each participant's answers. Whether or not you use them is your discretion. Lesson number three: a jonin has good judgment."

After distributing the papers, Shikaku waved them off. The group dispersed, the participants no longer hanging around with their unspoken comrades as there was a possibility that they would be pitted against each other in the next test. Rin wagered most either went to train or were going to study up with the info sheets that were given.

"There's no way to know whether or not these are reliable or not," Rin stated as she casually flipped through the sheets of paper. "It's almost better to go in blind than with the wrong information."

"Perhaps this is another test to see if we are able to gather accurate information knowing that we are given unreliable information," Itachi hypothesized.

"How? Follow the ones who decide to go training? Even so, I don't think they will show their true strength in a simple spar."

"We'll break into the Hokage's archives," Itachi suggested. "There's bound to be information on our competitors in there. For the jonin exams, they would have separated the files from the rest of the shinobis, so it will be easy to find."

"What? We'll get caught," Rin sputtered, completely taken aback that Itachi dared to suggest such a thing. Besides, Rin had already been busted once for stealing something from Minato sensei; she didn't need to add a second offense to her record.

"I'll do the sneaking in," Itachi said. "You will distract Hokage sama while I do it. With my Sharingan, I will commit all of the files to memory and I can recreate them afterwards."

Reluctantly, Rin agreed to the plan, seeing that Itachi seemed to have the utmost confidence that it would work. "I've been inside of the Hokage's archives before. Minato sensei has placed sensory seals in a lot of places, so that he knows who is in there at all times. I can draw you a map of the layout and where all of the seals are located, but there aren't many blind spots since the seals have a pretty large range."

The two of them stepped inside of a dango shop. While Itachi went to order, Rin grabbed a napkin and began to sketch on top of it, placing x's where the seals are located. Itachi returned with a few skewers of dango, offering one to Rin. She took it, biting into the first one, while she continued to finish the map.

After she finished, Rin passed the map to Itachi, who studied it intently.

"Do you know the range?"

"I think for those particular seals, it extends about a meter out."

"Do you know how big the area is?"

Rin gave him a rough estimate of its dimensions and using the scale that Rin drew on the napkin, Itachi began to do some calculations. Rin watched as Itachi circled two spots on the map.

"As expected of the Hokage. Only two blind spots, if our estimates are correct."

"He'll be aware of your presence in the archives."

"The only option is to impersonate someone else's chakra. Someone who would normally have access to the archives."

"Is that even possible?" Rin questioned.

"Ah, probably not," Itachi admitted. "I suppose the most I can do is suppress my normal chakra signature as much as possible and create a generic one, so that won't be able to pinpoint it to me. Now, here's the plan…"

"Those two are certainly interesting, aren't they?" Shikaku commented to Minato, who was shaking his head in amusement after Rin left, after having barged into the room to request for a spar in preparation for the second part of her exams. Minato had declined, citing the amount of paperwork he had to finish. When Rin didn't leave after his refusal, Minato was immediately suspicious. Still, he went along with whatever she was plotting, pretending to listen to whatever she was saying.

Minato felt a slight tug of his chakra, indicating that his seals had sensed a foreign presence in the Hokage's archives. Subtly, Rin's body shifted so that it faced in the direction of the archives.

So she got an accomplice this time? Minato mused, but made no move to stop the infiltrator. After all, he had an inkling that it had something to do with the jonin exams.

"Breaking into the Hokage's archives isn't part of the exam, is it?" Minato asked, eyes narrowing at the prospect that Shikaku would neglect to mention that particular detail to him.

"Of course not," Shikaku immediately denied. "The test was set up to test one's ability to gather information. I imagined something along the lines of spying on the other participants or talking to those who are close to them...not something this troublesome."

"But I suppose it's not outside of the parameters that you set them," Minato mused. "The files are still there, aren't they?"

"Yes. I reckoned the Uchiha boy copied all of the files with his Sharingan."

"Ah so the accomplice was Itachi?" That was certainly interesting.

Shikaku cocked his head slightly to the left. "I thought your seals could detect one's identity?"

"Under normal circumstances," Minato corrected. "But I suppose I might have told Rin a little too much, so she knew how the seals worked. If I had been a bit sloppier with my work, they might have taken advantage of the blind spots and gotten away undetected. Still, they're the only ones crazy enough to actually do it."

"An unexpected alliance. The next stages of the exam will certainly be interesting."

Interesting, indeed. Minato couldn't wait.

A/N: Hello again!

I think this jonin exams arc really highlights how bad I am at writing fight scenes (I try, but then it doesn't come out as cool as I hope so oh well). Sorry to disappoint!

There were some spacing issues and I think I have fixed it all, but let me know if you see anything amiss.

So a guest review mentioned to me to write Itachi/Kakashi training arc. If I do write one, it won't be included in the story, but as I am writing, I realize that I do leave a lot of subplots hanging so I will most likely be writing bonus chapters once the original story is finished. So leave your suggestions along the way and I might get around to it!

Posting early this time because my irresponsible self wanted to write more this weekend rather than study so that's good for you all, but not for me haha. Next chapter title is naturally Jonin Exam Part II. There will be three parts in total and after that, we will get to some fun stuff (missions, and other things). :)

Thank you for reading and until next time!

-MM