Saitou's POV
I opened my eyes, oh man my head hurts. I think Tapion hit me one too many times. I was having the most interesting dream too. I dreamt that they made me Hokage. Oh well it was only a dream, if it were that easy then anyone could do it, even Tapion. I laughed. Now there's a sight to see, Hikari would drop her jaw. I got up from my bed and looked over at the clock. It was 5:30 am. I wouldn't mind getting up at this time every morning but Sensei keeps changing the time. Every day, training or meetings are at different times. This is throwing my sleeping cycle all over the place.
I quietly snuck out of my house making sure I don't wake up Mom and Dad. I felt the cool chill of the morning breeze brush past me. I'm glad I brought my jacket. I button it up to keep out the wind. The streets were empty when I walked past. I think only Shinobi would be out and about at this hour.
I walked up the stairs to Old Man's point. It's a cement park in the middle of the city. How ironic but then again we are in a forest. I make my way up to the place where we're supposed to meet. Hikari is sitting on the stair keeping to herself as usual. We've been a team for almost a year now and I've yet to see her even laugh. At least she talks to us now instead of her patented cold shoulder routine.
Tapion is sitting right next to her half asleep. I surprised how much he's grown. He still can't match me in power or skill but somehow I still can't beat him. He's always been like that, its so frustrating. I wonder if Hikari feels the same way.
Sensei finally appeared. She's always late I wonder what she's up too that's more important than her team.
"Good morning, hope you all had a goodnights sleep." She smiled at all of us. Tapion shook his head to wake himself up. "There's no mission today. I called you guys for an announcement." There's no mission. She woke us up just to tell us something. If I could I would slap her. "The Chuunin exam is within a week." She smiled, "And I nominated you guys for the exam."
"What?" I asked. I was surprised I knew we had improved but enough to take the exam? "Really?" I looked over at Tapion who was equally shocked and then he smiled.
"Alright! I can't wait for the exams," He cheered.
"Its not that simple," Hikar smacked the back of Tapion's head. He grabbed it and let out a small noise.
"Oww!, why do you insist on doing that every time." Tapion shouted as he turned around and glared at Hikari. I shook my head. I swear those two are going to kill each other some day.
Hinata-Sensei cleared her throat. "Anyways, that's all I have to say. The exam starts in six days. I want to spend the next three days training and preparing for the exams. That leaves two days rest." Tapion seemed overjoyed, and even Hikari cracked a smile. Me? I was psyched.
Later that day we began training.
The next three days were the hardest I have ever trained. Every muscle was on fire. I don't think I could even perform a simple hand seal. I brought my hands up as if to channel some chakra. My fingers were shaking too much and I separated then and fell on my bed in exhaustion.
Dream flashback
I fell to the ground and looked up at Hinata-sensei. She smiled and offered her hand. I took it but when she lifted me up she disappeared and I was no longer in the forest. I was at my home; I'm five years old. My mom and dad were yelling at each other as all ways. I ran to my room and to the corner I always went when they fought. I looked up and found myself back in the forest. Tapion looking down on me, he offered his hand. I took it.
End dream
My body felt heavy and sore when I woke up. I looked at the clock and was not surprised to see that I slept through the day. One day down, another day to go before the exam. I walked into the kitchen heated some leftovers, ate them and went back to bed.
Tapion was at my door the morning of the exam. Smiling as always. "Hey sleepy head how could you sleep in today of all days." He patted my shoulder. I laughed of course doing my best to hide my nervousness of the exam.
"Hey a full nights rest is a full nights rest." I smirked. "Besides we still got an hour before the exam." Tapion laughed.
"That's why I came, remember we were supposed to meet up early and do all the crap we have to do. And I know you'd sleep through and be late if I hadn't have come lazy butt." I was a little angry but not about the insult but about the fact he was right. He did wake me up. Ha, I consider this one of the most important days and I don't even have the will to wake up on time.
"No I wouldn't have. Miss the exams, sounds like something you would do." I hit tapion on the shoulder and laughed it off.
The exam building was huge. It was across from the headquarters where we routinely enter to receive new missions. To make sure we didn't lose our papers I decided to hold onto them. Hikari didn't really care but Tapion protested. I smiled reminding him of all the times he's lost something important, onetime particularly my bike. I liked that bike. It was shiny and blue with big wheels.
Walking down the halls I noticed all the other gennins. Some were from konoha but a great many from cloud, wind, stone, fall, grass and so fourth. Then I spotted a cloud gennin the one that tried to fight me a few months back. He spotted me as well. Hmph...I nodded to him and he did the same.
To fight now will get us kicked out of the exams. We'll have to settle our score later. I look forward to it.
We head on over to the desk. The too shinobi handling the papers were pretty normal looking. Wearing the standard uniform, they took our paper work and looked at it and then at us. Then they handed our papers back.
"Go to room 47 and wait for the instructor of the first exam." We nodded and left and headed for the room. When we entered and saw a sign. It read: teams do not sit together. I looked over at Hikari and Tapion. We all just shrugged ann separated. Hikari took a seat off to the side near the window. Tapion took the farthest open seat back. I took a seat in the second row.
I would be kidding myself if I'd I wasn't nervous. My palms were sweaty and my heart was going a million miles an hour. I looked around; at least I wasn't the only one feeling nervous.
The instructor didn't show up for an hour. I was beginning to think that there wasn't going to be any exam. Then a woman entered the room, a very attractive one at that. She was average height, long black hair. She had her hair back in a high ponytail and wore an eloquent red cloak.
"Hello all, this is the first of three tests in the Chuunin exam." First of three tests? Interesting. She continued to talk as other shinobi come into the room. They passed out several papers and pencils to everyone I only could assume this would be a written test. However how can a written test tell if you're ready to become a chuunin?
"I am instructor Tenten. Before you, is a written test. You will have one hour to answer best you can. There are four rules. The first rule you guys will start off with 10 points, the test is made up of 10 questions and each one is worth a point, but this test uses a subtraction system. Basically if you get all your questions right you get 10 points if you get three wrong you end up with 7 points. The second rule is that this is a team test whether you pass or not will be determined by the combined scores of your teammates. So each team will compete to see how many points they can hold on to from the initial team score of 30. The third rule is that if anyone caught by the testing officers doing sneaky activities namely cheating will have 2 points subtracted for every offence. The fourth and final rule is that those that lose all their initial points during the test and those that don't answer any questions correctly will be failed along with their 2 teammates" She paused a bit after the explanation.
You have got to be kidding me. Talk about pressure. I looked down at the test. Wait a second there're only nine questions here. Where's the tenth?
"Oh and one more thing, you'll notice that there's only nine questions on the test. The tenth and final question will be given 45 minutes into the test and not before." She looked at all of us and smiled. "Begin."
I looked over at the Shinobi watching us making sure we don't cheat while everyone quickly grabbed their pencils and started scribbling. I looked at the first question. Crap this going to be hard. I sort of understood the first question and when I said understood I really meant no idea. Ok then next question isn't so bad. I had to do this on our mission to the Wave country. I quickly scan through the rest of the test. I was able to answer question 6 and 7 and I BSed question 4. Half an hour had past and I noticed a lot of people forced to leave. I could hear names were being called out, in the background of my thinking; they lost their points.
These questions were impossible, how were we ever supposed to be able to know all this. The only way to pass this is to cheat my through it. Wait a second. That's it; this system of marking and scoring is making is so that people will have to cheat. This test isn't a test just to measure our intelligence it's also a test to see how well we can gather information with our skills.
At this point I said screw it what have I got to lose, with the way things were going I won't pass this test. I used every method I could think of to get answers from people around me. Reflections off of head protectors, sounds of people's scribbles, the whole nine yards. I just hoped that Hikari and Tapion figured this out as well. I managed to answer the rest of the questions, if they were right or wrong I could not say. I looked up at the clock 15 minutes left. It was time to hear the last question.
Instructor Tenten stood up from her chair. "Okay, before I give you the tenth question you have to decide whether or not you're going to take it or not. If you choose not to take it your points will be reduced to zero and you fail with your teammates. Now if you take the test and answer incorrectly that person will lose the right to ever take the Chuunin Exam again."
What? What kind of choices are these. Take the last question with a possibility or failing and never becoming a Chuunin or not take it and fail the current exam. A couple of shinobi stood up and left the room, more followed by every passing minute. A good third of the room was gone now. I turned around to look at my team. Hikari had that determined look on her face. She was going to take the question. Then I looked over to Tapion, he was grinning as usual. Both of them were going for it, but could I take the risk. I didn't know what to do. If I get out now, I take them with me. They'd kill me if I did that. On the other hand if my destiny is to be the best then the outcome of this exam doesn't matter. My path will only change. I'll do it. I nodded to Hikari and Tapion telling them I'm with them.
When everyone that the instructor thought would leave left, she smiled at the remaining people. "Is this everyone that is willing to hear the final question?" They all nodded, "Then congrats, you all pass."
"What? But we haven't even taken the question yet how did we pass." Said Batou. He sat a row in front of me.
"The tenth question was a leap of faith. Every mission you take on as a Chuunin is a possible life and death one. Because you don't want to die, because you don't want you're comrades hurt...can you avoid the dangerous mission? The answer is no. Those who can't put their destinies on the line who cling to the uncertain future of 'there's always next year' and walk away from their chance, have no right to become a Chuunin. Now if you would go down the hall Instructor Nara Shikamaru is waiting for you. Good luck to you all in the second test." She then left the room. I can't believed I past the test, that we all past the test. I quickly got up and joined Hikari and Tapion as they left the room. Second test here I come.
A/n: I couldn't come up with a new test for the chuunin exam so I thought I'd try a different narrative for this chapter to change things up a little. It'll be back to third person next chapter. I might go into other character head later on.
I opened my eyes, oh man my head hurts. I think Tapion hit me one too many times. I was having the most interesting dream too. I dreamt that they made me Hokage. Oh well it was only a dream, if it were that easy then anyone could do it, even Tapion. I laughed. Now there's a sight to see, Hikari would drop her jaw. I got up from my bed and looked over at the clock. It was 5:30 am. I wouldn't mind getting up at this time every morning but Sensei keeps changing the time. Every day, training or meetings are at different times. This is throwing my sleeping cycle all over the place.
I quietly snuck out of my house making sure I don't wake up Mom and Dad. I felt the cool chill of the morning breeze brush past me. I'm glad I brought my jacket. I button it up to keep out the wind. The streets were empty when I walked past. I think only Shinobi would be out and about at this hour.
I walked up the stairs to Old Man's point. It's a cement park in the middle of the city. How ironic but then again we are in a forest. I make my way up to the place where we're supposed to meet. Hikari is sitting on the stair keeping to herself as usual. We've been a team for almost a year now and I've yet to see her even laugh. At least she talks to us now instead of her patented cold shoulder routine.
Tapion is sitting right next to her half asleep. I surprised how much he's grown. He still can't match me in power or skill but somehow I still can't beat him. He's always been like that, its so frustrating. I wonder if Hikari feels the same way.
Sensei finally appeared. She's always late I wonder what she's up too that's more important than her team.
"Good morning, hope you all had a goodnights sleep." She smiled at all of us. Tapion shook his head to wake himself up. "There's no mission today. I called you guys for an announcement." There's no mission. She woke us up just to tell us something. If I could I would slap her. "The Chuunin exam is within a week." She smiled, "And I nominated you guys for the exam."
"What?" I asked. I was surprised I knew we had improved but enough to take the exam? "Really?" I looked over at Tapion who was equally shocked and then he smiled.
"Alright! I can't wait for the exams," He cheered.
"Its not that simple," Hikar smacked the back of Tapion's head. He grabbed it and let out a small noise.
"Oww!, why do you insist on doing that every time." Tapion shouted as he turned around and glared at Hikari. I shook my head. I swear those two are going to kill each other some day.
Hinata-Sensei cleared her throat. "Anyways, that's all I have to say. The exam starts in six days. I want to spend the next three days training and preparing for the exams. That leaves two days rest." Tapion seemed overjoyed, and even Hikari cracked a smile. Me? I was psyched.
Later that day we began training.
The next three days were the hardest I have ever trained. Every muscle was on fire. I don't think I could even perform a simple hand seal. I brought my hands up as if to channel some chakra. My fingers were shaking too much and I separated then and fell on my bed in exhaustion.
Dream flashback
I fell to the ground and looked up at Hinata-sensei. She smiled and offered her hand. I took it but when she lifted me up she disappeared and I was no longer in the forest. I was at my home; I'm five years old. My mom and dad were yelling at each other as all ways. I ran to my room and to the corner I always went when they fought. I looked up and found myself back in the forest. Tapion looking down on me, he offered his hand. I took it.
End dream
My body felt heavy and sore when I woke up. I looked at the clock and was not surprised to see that I slept through the day. One day down, another day to go before the exam. I walked into the kitchen heated some leftovers, ate them and went back to bed.
Tapion was at my door the morning of the exam. Smiling as always. "Hey sleepy head how could you sleep in today of all days." He patted my shoulder. I laughed of course doing my best to hide my nervousness of the exam.
"Hey a full nights rest is a full nights rest." I smirked. "Besides we still got an hour before the exam." Tapion laughed.
"That's why I came, remember we were supposed to meet up early and do all the crap we have to do. And I know you'd sleep through and be late if I hadn't have come lazy butt." I was a little angry but not about the insult but about the fact he was right. He did wake me up. Ha, I consider this one of the most important days and I don't even have the will to wake up on time.
"No I wouldn't have. Miss the exams, sounds like something you would do." I hit tapion on the shoulder and laughed it off.
The exam building was huge. It was across from the headquarters where we routinely enter to receive new missions. To make sure we didn't lose our papers I decided to hold onto them. Hikari didn't really care but Tapion protested. I smiled reminding him of all the times he's lost something important, onetime particularly my bike. I liked that bike. It was shiny and blue with big wheels.
Walking down the halls I noticed all the other gennins. Some were from konoha but a great many from cloud, wind, stone, fall, grass and so fourth. Then I spotted a cloud gennin the one that tried to fight me a few months back. He spotted me as well. Hmph...I nodded to him and he did the same.
To fight now will get us kicked out of the exams. We'll have to settle our score later. I look forward to it.
We head on over to the desk. The too shinobi handling the papers were pretty normal looking. Wearing the standard uniform, they took our paper work and looked at it and then at us. Then they handed our papers back.
"Go to room 47 and wait for the instructor of the first exam." We nodded and left and headed for the room. When we entered and saw a sign. It read: teams do not sit together. I looked over at Hikari and Tapion. We all just shrugged ann separated. Hikari took a seat off to the side near the window. Tapion took the farthest open seat back. I took a seat in the second row.
I would be kidding myself if I'd I wasn't nervous. My palms were sweaty and my heart was going a million miles an hour. I looked around; at least I wasn't the only one feeling nervous.
The instructor didn't show up for an hour. I was beginning to think that there wasn't going to be any exam. Then a woman entered the room, a very attractive one at that. She was average height, long black hair. She had her hair back in a high ponytail and wore an eloquent red cloak.
"Hello all, this is the first of three tests in the Chuunin exam." First of three tests? Interesting. She continued to talk as other shinobi come into the room. They passed out several papers and pencils to everyone I only could assume this would be a written test. However how can a written test tell if you're ready to become a chuunin?
"I am instructor Tenten. Before you, is a written test. You will have one hour to answer best you can. There are four rules. The first rule you guys will start off with 10 points, the test is made up of 10 questions and each one is worth a point, but this test uses a subtraction system. Basically if you get all your questions right you get 10 points if you get three wrong you end up with 7 points. The second rule is that this is a team test whether you pass or not will be determined by the combined scores of your teammates. So each team will compete to see how many points they can hold on to from the initial team score of 30. The third rule is that if anyone caught by the testing officers doing sneaky activities namely cheating will have 2 points subtracted for every offence. The fourth and final rule is that those that lose all their initial points during the test and those that don't answer any questions correctly will be failed along with their 2 teammates" She paused a bit after the explanation.
You have got to be kidding me. Talk about pressure. I looked down at the test. Wait a second there're only nine questions here. Where's the tenth?
"Oh and one more thing, you'll notice that there's only nine questions on the test. The tenth and final question will be given 45 minutes into the test and not before." She looked at all of us and smiled. "Begin."
I looked over at the Shinobi watching us making sure we don't cheat while everyone quickly grabbed their pencils and started scribbling. I looked at the first question. Crap this going to be hard. I sort of understood the first question and when I said understood I really meant no idea. Ok then next question isn't so bad. I had to do this on our mission to the Wave country. I quickly scan through the rest of the test. I was able to answer question 6 and 7 and I BSed question 4. Half an hour had past and I noticed a lot of people forced to leave. I could hear names were being called out, in the background of my thinking; they lost their points.
These questions were impossible, how were we ever supposed to be able to know all this. The only way to pass this is to cheat my through it. Wait a second. That's it; this system of marking and scoring is making is so that people will have to cheat. This test isn't a test just to measure our intelligence it's also a test to see how well we can gather information with our skills.
At this point I said screw it what have I got to lose, with the way things were going I won't pass this test. I used every method I could think of to get answers from people around me. Reflections off of head protectors, sounds of people's scribbles, the whole nine yards. I just hoped that Hikari and Tapion figured this out as well. I managed to answer the rest of the questions, if they were right or wrong I could not say. I looked up at the clock 15 minutes left. It was time to hear the last question.
Instructor Tenten stood up from her chair. "Okay, before I give you the tenth question you have to decide whether or not you're going to take it or not. If you choose not to take it your points will be reduced to zero and you fail with your teammates. Now if you take the test and answer incorrectly that person will lose the right to ever take the Chuunin Exam again."
What? What kind of choices are these. Take the last question with a possibility or failing and never becoming a Chuunin or not take it and fail the current exam. A couple of shinobi stood up and left the room, more followed by every passing minute. A good third of the room was gone now. I turned around to look at my team. Hikari had that determined look on her face. She was going to take the question. Then I looked over to Tapion, he was grinning as usual. Both of them were going for it, but could I take the risk. I didn't know what to do. If I get out now, I take them with me. They'd kill me if I did that. On the other hand if my destiny is to be the best then the outcome of this exam doesn't matter. My path will only change. I'll do it. I nodded to Hikari and Tapion telling them I'm with them.
When everyone that the instructor thought would leave left, she smiled at the remaining people. "Is this everyone that is willing to hear the final question?" They all nodded, "Then congrats, you all pass."
"What? But we haven't even taken the question yet how did we pass." Said Batou. He sat a row in front of me.
"The tenth question was a leap of faith. Every mission you take on as a Chuunin is a possible life and death one. Because you don't want to die, because you don't want you're comrades hurt...can you avoid the dangerous mission? The answer is no. Those who can't put their destinies on the line who cling to the uncertain future of 'there's always next year' and walk away from their chance, have no right to become a Chuunin. Now if you would go down the hall Instructor Nara Shikamaru is waiting for you. Good luck to you all in the second test." She then left the room. I can't believed I past the test, that we all past the test. I quickly got up and joined Hikari and Tapion as they left the room. Second test here I come.
A/n: I couldn't come up with a new test for the chuunin exam so I thought I'd try a different narrative for this chapter to change things up a little. It'll be back to third person next chapter. I might go into other character head later on.