The next morning

Haku woke up quite early next morning, deciding to take his mom's advice. He went down into the dining hall, wondering if they served breakfast at 6:00 am. He was surprised to see Iruka sitting down eating his breakfast, expecting him to be still sleeping. He decided to investigate.

"What are you doing up? I thought you would still be sleeping at this hour."

"My match is the first one, at 8 am. I wanted to get to know the kind of ground there is in the arena and maybe get some practice on some training dummies before my match."

Haku was surprised to hear this. Iruka had seemed like a lazy ninja, but it seems that it's his way of throwing people off.

"Seems I underestimated you."

Iruka shrugged. "Happens all the time."

"How about you and me spar, Iruka, just to see if we're both ready for our matches"

"Sounds good to me."

They both changed into their combat attire and picked up their equipment. While they walked, they commented on how some of the applicants looked pathetic and shared their predictions of who will win.

When they entered, they suddenly stopped talking. They were now opponents, and were treating each other as such. Each had a cloth covering their weapons, so now they drew their weapons. Haku naturally drew his great grandfather's sword and put his claw bracer on, but what Iruka drew was unusual to Haku. Iruka pulled two 3 ¼ feet long poles, one of them with a small blade at one end, and joined them into a 6 ½ feet long spear. Iruka also pulled out a small round shield and attached it to his left forearm.

"A spear, unusual for a ninja isn't it"

"Not if your family has made it their specialty for three generation."

They both got into their fighting stance, and the battle begun. Haku tried to seize victory by rushing right up to Iruka and placing his sword to the his opponent's neck. But, he hadn't expected Iruka to be as proficient with his spear as he was. Every time Haku made an advance, Iruka would simply force him to defend with well-placed thrust or two.

This battle seemed like it would end as a stalemate, when suddenly, Haku felt something hit his left arm hard. When he looked up, he saw that Iruka had thrown his shield. Haku finally saw an opening. When Iruka pulls back his arm to throw his shield, Haku planned to rush him. Either he'll get hit by the shield, or he'll get close enough to put his claws to Iruka's neck and win this sparring match.

So he waited. Iruka finally got tired of waiting for Haku to attack, and decided to throw his shield again. Haku saw his opening and ran as fast as he could. Iruka saw the ploy too late, and had to submit. Both were out of breath at this point, so when Iruka dropped his spear to show that he submitted, both just laid on the ground and caught their breath. After that, they both laughed at how exciting that match was.

"I didn't expect you to see the gap in my technique so soon, Haku."

"Neither did I, but after that hard hit to my left arm, my mind kind of looked for any opening so I could avoid further hits."

They both got up, and since it was almost time for the first match, Haku went and had a seat so he could watch it.

The matches were pretty dull. All the people Haku expected to win did, including himself. The rest were all had to be carried out of the arena because they were knocked out by their opponents. After that, thewinners found themselves sitting in a waiting room, waiting for the Hokage's attendant to tell them to come in.

Four chunin: Haku Uchiha, Sora Haruno, Iruka Uzumaki and Zabuza Hattori. Their destinies were intertwined, and it was finally time for them to meet.

-To Be Continued…