The next day, all of the genin returned to a ruined and still smoking village. They silently walked though the rubble and corpses to find a small outfit of jounin who took them to everybody else.
"What do you think would have happened if we had stayed."? Saotome asked quietly, still in shock that his home was in pieces.
"I think we all would have died." Junichi said as he walked by the corpse of a dead jounin.
The day after they returned, a funeral was held for the third hokage of Kohonagakure village. It was a day of mourning for everybody. Junichi stared on at the casket for a long time. To him, death was something that only happened to the weak before. But for something to kill a hokage…it finally dawned on him the power that they were faced with fighting.
"I want an honest answer" Junichi said to Kakashi "Do we stand any chance of fighting the sound in our present state.
Kakashi shrugged and walked away. Junichi walked home in the rain, not caring that he was getting wet and could die of some sort of illness women seem to think will strike you if you get wet. He had never heard of any such things anyway. He didn't walk through his house to the woods either, he just went straight out there to train.
"Hey kid, I thought you might want this back." Zabuza said as he stepped out from behind a tree and handed Junichi the sword.
"Keep it, I'm getting a new one." Junichi said distractedly "What are you doing here, I thought you were on the run or something."
"I was, but they think I'm dead, and according to the records, I am, so I came here." Zabuza said calmly "You've gotten better since we last met. That fire thing you did at the chuunin exam was a high level jutsu."
"It was very hard to learn." Junichi said, "You know, if you want a place to stay, I got room here."
"You sure you want a criminal in your house kid?" Zabuza said jokingly "Yeah, I could use a place at the moment. I'll take you up on that offer."
"Good to hear it. Right now though, I have training to do. Do whatever you wish." Junichi said, going back to his flight training.
The next day they all had to go to some sort of formal ball for the results of the chuunin exam. It was supposed to be a joyous occasion because people were moving up in the ranks and symbolizing new life or something like that. Junichi didn't buy that at all. His current job was finding a suit for this formal event.
The ball was held in some sort of building that hadn't been destroyed. Everybody was just glad to get their minds off of work and missions. Everybody was dressed in their absolute best. Gai and Lee were in matching suits with green ties. All of the girls wore dresses. Even Kakashi was stuck in a suit that looked clean, though he still wore that mask of his. The problem was that everybody was waiting on Junichi and Saotome. They were definitely late.
Saotome was the first to walk in. When he did though, everybody nearly sucked the air out of the room. He was in a suit all right, but he had half of his shirt sticking out of his pants, his tie looked like he had burnt it slightly and it was tied strangely around his neck. His collar was half folded down and half doing some sort of Elvis routine. His cuffs were undone and he was wearing sandals. He looked like he had just now woken up and threw something together.
"Saotome is such an idiot." Kankuro said, standing next to his brother and sister, both of which were perfectly presentable.
"Shutup Kankuro!" Temari said as she hit Kankuro upside his head "He may be an idiot but…he's my idiot."
Everybody was still staring at Saotome's unkempt appearance when, as if the timing couldn't have been worse, Junichi walked in. He was possibly worse than Saotome but in a different way. He was wearing a bright red pimp suit. That's right, he had the shoulder pads, the hat with the feather, the cane, he even had a pinky ring on. One especially snobby upper class woman passed out when she saw him.
"Dude, what the hell are you wearing?" Saotome asked as he stood next to the reincarnation of Big Daddy.
"I'm wearing a suit you moron." Junichi said as he hit Saotome upside the head with his cane "I could very well ask you what you're wearing. Is that blood on your shirt?"
"Yeah… that might be mine. Can never be sure really." Saotome said as he looked down at the stain on his shirt. "At least I'm dressed in a regular suit."
"Barely." Junichi replied, "It took me forever to find this suit and then it was even harder getting the darned thing on. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to mingle."
Junichi walked off, his red shoes tapping loudly on the tile floor of the building. Temari walked up to Saotome and tried to straighten him up.
"What were you thinking when you put this thing on?" Temari asked him as she pulled a tag off of his pants.
"I was thinking about how good I looked in this thing, and I was also thinking about what you were gonna wear." He said with a sheepish grin.
"Why, because you wanted to look down my dress and stare at my boobs all evening?" She asked sarcastically as she pulled a piece of cardboard out of his collar and fixed it.
"For once, not completely." Saotome said as he zipped his fly "I just wanted to see how beautiful you looked in a formal dress instead of your regular clothes."
"You are so bad at lying Saotome kun." She said, as she had to actually untie his clip on tie because he had tried to straighten it and undid the tie.
"Well you know, at least I tried to give you an answer you wouldn't hit me for so you have to give me an A for effort." He said with a grin "Besides, this is just a henge."
With a poof, he was suddenly standing there in front of her in a perfectly arranged black suit. His hair was combed, his teeth were brushed, he smelled clean, and there were no stains on his clothes or anything. Even his shoes looked like they had been shined recently.
"Did you just make me do all that work for nothing?" Temari asked slightly annoyed by his choice of jokes.
"C'mon baby, lighten up. We're having fun tonight." He then bowed down and held out his hand "I would be honored if I could have this dance."
"Saotome kun, there isn't any music playing and besides, I don't know how to-" Temari was about to say when suddenly Saotome snapped his fingers and music began playing. It was appropriate music too, that is until they started breaking out in quick jazz music.
Saotome grabbed Temari and started dancing, being the first on the floor. She screamed at him at first, but then suddenly realized that he was in step with the music and doing an actual dance. So she just let him lead, slightly astonished that he knew how to do anything with that much coordination.
Junichi was the second on the floor. He calmly walked out with all his gear on. With a sudden movement, he threw his cane into the crowd, next he took his hat and threw it the other way, revealing his slicked back hair and letting some woman catch it, then with a flourish, he took off his coat to reveal his black collar shirt with a red tie and threw it into the crowd. He stopped for a second and held his hand in a thumbs up symbol and smiled, his teeth giving off the shining for the nice guy pose.
Gai and lee both did an identical nice guy pose from where they were standing. Saotome stopped as he dipped Temari back and did his own nice guy pose. Kakashi held his thumb up, but his teeth didn't shine because he wore the mask. Naruto tried his hardest to do the nice guy pose, but he looked like he was constipated because he was trying so hard. The last person to try was Gaara, who held his thumb out right, but his eyes got real wide when he smiled, freaking everybody out.
Junichi then held out his hand, waiting for some fine woman to attach themselves to it. He was slightly surprised when Tenten took his hand and together they danced next to Satome and Temari.
It was at this point that everybody joined in with dancing. Kakashi and Kanoe were dancing. Zabuza got a dance with Kurenai. Shikimaru danced with Ino once and then quit. Lee and Gai danced by themselves…Sakura tried to dance with Sasuke, but he would have none of it, and ended up dancing with Neji. Naruto was looking for somebody to dance with when he turned and saw Hinata, to which he ran over, grabbed her, and started attempting to dance. Chouji just kind of swerved around with a bag of chips in his hand. Even Gaara got a dance in here an there with whoever was willing to stand him, which was actually quite a few girls as it turned out.
Soon, everybody was gathered around Saotome and Temari. Saotome was dancing like he had been doing this his entire life. Temari on the other hand, had never even heard of swing dancing, but in Saotome's deft hands, she looked just as experienced. They continued on for several minutes until he ended by dipping Temari but keeping his back straight just as the song ended abruptly.
Everybody was clapping and laughing. After such a tragedy, this was just what everybody needed. There was much dancing and eating and laughing and healing for about an hour, until at last it was time to call forth who had become a chuunin.
"Um…they gave me this paper and it has the names of the new chuunin on it." Kakashi said uncomfortably into the microphone "And the next chuunin are…"
He trailed off as a drum roll started, not actually getting what it was for. He was waiting for it to stop when Gai walked up and told him it was for dramatic emphasis.
"Oh…so the next chuunin are…" Kakashi began again letting the drum roll thing go "Nara Shikimaru, Nagama Saotome, and Junichi…it doesn't have his last name here."
Everybody clapped as the three boys went up and received their vests. There was one more round of nice guy poses, then everybody went back to dancing until finally everybody just left. It was a truly perfect night to possibly the worst week ever.