Hi everyone, are you ready for the Chuunin exams? I know I am! I think you'll be quite happy with this ... I THINK ... Anyway I'll shut up.
Breaking the Habit
Chapter ten
The four of us walked up to room 301 on the third floor at Three-Thirty, five days after we took our applications from Kakashi sensei at the bridge. There was many more Genin waiting to get in but there was two other ninja's, about a year or two older then us, blocking the doorway. Some of the people wanting to get in were trying to move them out of the way and they kept failing and getting thrown to the side. "Heh, you're taking the Chuunin exams and you can't even get past us?" One of the men standing in front of the door said. "You might as well go home."
"Please let us get though, were supposed to be in there." Begged a girl dressed in pink, she whore her hair in two buns at the top of her head. She walked up to them but the other one of them easily pushed her out of the way and she landed on the floor.
"That's harsh." I herd someone from far behind me whisper.
"Did you say harsh?" Asked the guy who just pushed the girl onto the ground. "Don't kid yourself were being nice by comparison. The exams are gonna make this look like a picnic. Some of you won't survive, some of you might be scarred for life, and others might go crazy. For Chuunin's it's always life and death, we are qualified to lead missions, the lives of your team mates are in your hands, so you better be though enough to take the heat. Fragile little girls don't belong here."
"Nice speech, now both of you step aside and let me though." Sasuke said calmly walking up them. "And while you're at it reverse the GenJutsu, we can see your illusion. Were going to the third floor anyway."
"Well, well you noticed our GenJutsu."
"Go ahead Sakura tell them, I'm sure you saw it. You have the sharpest eyes on out entire team, I'm sure you saw it from a mile away."
"I did?" She asked. "Oh! Well, yeah this is only the second floor." The 301 sign above the door turned into a 201 and everything down the halls turned back to normal.
"Well let's see if you can handle this!" The other exclaimed, he went to high kick Sakura, I did the same to block it but some guy in a green jump-suit blocked both of are legs by grabbing are ankles with his hands. Wasn't he one of the dude's getting thrown around when got here? He let go of both of us and we stood there while he walked up to Sakura.
"I am Rock Lee, you are Sakura correct? Please be my girl friend! I vow to protect you with my life!" I covered my mouth with both my hands as hard as I could to keep from laughing.
"Defiantly ... not ... " She told him.
"Why?"
"Because you're a weird-o!"
"Hey you, what's your name?" Someone asked. I turned around and saw a guy with long black hair and the girl standing behind me.
"It's common courtesy to say your own name before you ask someone else's theirs."
" ... How old are you?" He asked.
"Twelve, what difference does it make?"
"Hey, come on guys. Let's go!" Sakura informed the other three of us.
We climbed the flight of stairs leading up to the third floor and room 301, we down the hall and turned. Kakashi sensei was standing in front of the door. "Hey Kakashi sensei!" I said.
"Hello everyone!" He replied. We all stood in front of him waiting to be let in. "I'm glad you came Sakura, for your sake and the others. Now you all can all formally register for the Chuunin exam."
"Why? What do you mean?" Sakura asked confused.
"You see only the full teams are aloud to apply for and take the exam. That is the way it has always been."
"But sensei, you said the decision to enter was up to the individuals."
"You are right, I did."
"Was that a lie?"
"Sort of. It is an individual decision but it affects the entire team. I didn't tell you before because I didn't want the other guys pressuring you. At the same time I didn't want you to feel you had to participate because of any feelings you might have for Sasuke or Naruto. I wanted you to come to a decision of your own free will."
"Wait a minute, you mean to say if the others had shown up but I didn't want to come with them-"
"It would have been the end of the line; if you didn't come along I wouldn't be able to let the others in. But it's a mood point; you're all here and for all the right reasons. Sakura, Naruto, Sasuke, and Chi I'm proud of you, I couldn't ask for a better team." He moved aside so we go in, Sasuke and Sakura opened the doors and walked in.
"Thanks for everything Kakashi sensei." I said and went in. The doors shut behind the four of us.
"What- what's this?" Naruto asked looking shocked, I don't think anyone could blame him.
"Gee," I said. "I guess ... were not alone ... " There were hundreds of other ninja's there right in front of us. Most of them were from other villages according to their headbands and they were all ages. "Oh man, I never knew there would be so much competition."
If being scary is one of the competitions, they all got me beat ...
"SASUKE! Where have you been!" God no ... I looked over at the Uchiha, I saw Ino behind him with her arms around his neck. I barely resisted the urge to punch her in the face. "You have no idea how much I was hoping you would be here! I've missed those good looks of yours!"
"Hey you poker, back off! He mine!" Sakura shouted pointing an angry finger at Ino. She got off Sasuke's back but still had an arm around his shoulder.
Only if they knew ...
"Miss Forehead, they let you in? So you still have those frown marks on your billboard brow I see."
"Hey, leave my forehead out of this!"
Ino stuck her tongue out at her and smiled.
"Oh, it's you guys ... " Shikamaru complained in a bored voice, he was followed by Choji. (A/N: Is that how you spell his name? And yeah, if you need to know what they look like, look it up yourself.) "I knew this was gonna be a drag but I didn't think it was gonna be this lame."
"So all the three stooges are here?" Naruto said.
"You know what pipsqueak! –Ah, forget it, it's just a waste of time ... "
"Well, well what do you know? The whole gangs back together again." Kiba said. He was followed by Hinata and Shino.
"You guys to? Geez, everyone's here for this stupid thing ... "
"Yep, here we all are the ten rookies! Heh, this is gonna be fun, well at least for those good enough to make the cut. Right Sasuke?"
"Kiba, be careful you don't want to get over confident." He told Kiba.
"Just you wait, we're gonna blow you guys away. We've been training like crazy!"
"What do you think we've been doing?" Naruto asked. "Sittin' around picking daises? You don't know what training means!"
"Hey you guys might want to try keeping it down a little." A guy walked up to the ten of us, he whore glasses and must've been a few years older then us. "No offence or anything but you're the ten rookies straight out of the academy? I wouldn't want to start making a spectacle of your selves, just cool it."
"Well who asked you? Who are you?" Ino asked sounding annoyed with him.
"I'm Yakushi Kabuto, but really look around you; you've made quite an impression." I looked around, everyone in the entire room had their eyes on us. "See those guys? Their from the rain village." He pointed to a scary looking group of men over near the corner of the wall. "Their very touchy, they all are. This exam makes everyone tense, and you don't want to rub them the wrong way right now. But what would you know? You're just new, you remind me of myself awhile back."
"This isn't the first time you've taken the exam?" I asked surprised.
"No, it's my seventh." He said almost quietly and sounding ashamed. "Well there held twice a year so this'll be my fourth year."
"Wow! You must really be an expert by now!" Sakura exclaimed.
"Yeah, sort of."
"Cool! You can give us all the inside tips!" Naruto said.
"Yeah, right. Some expert he's never passed." I pointed out.
"Well, seventh times the charm that's what they say." Kabuto said sounding not to sure of what he said.
"So all the rumors of the exam being real though are true?"
"Hang on, don't give up hope just yet. Maybe I can help you kids out a little." He pulled out a stack out orange cards from one of his pockets.
"What the hell are those?" Shikamaru asked.
"It's hard to explain but these cards been coated with everything I've learned over the past four years." He bent down and set the deck on the floor in front of him. "There's more then two hundred of them, so you see I haven't been completely wasting my time here. They might not look like much to the naked eye because they are blank, I don't want just anyone looking at this stuff." He took the top card off the deck and placed it facing up. He placed his finger on to the middle of the blank card, there was a small 'poof' and it revealed a map of all the participates villages.
"Awesome a map! Of what?" Sakura asked confused.
"It shows the geographical distribution of all the candidates from each village who've come to take the exam. Where they come from, and how many came from each village. Why do you guys think they all come here to take the exam at the same time?" He asked glancing up at the ten of us as if one of would say the answer, no one spoke. "It's the foster friendship between nations of course, international brother hood and it's true as far it goes."
"But there's another reason." Sasuke suddenly spoke out.
"Yeah, you see the important thing is that this way they can regulate each amount of Shinobi in each village there by maintaining the balance of power. If the balance of power is not achieved then one village might end up with more Shinobi then the other and they might be tempted to attack them, so they try to maintain the stats. I guess it makes sense, I suppose."
"Do those cards of your have any information on the other candidates?"
"They might, do you have anyone particular in mind?"
"Possibly."
"Well I can't say my information is correct and complete but I got something on just about everyone of them." He stacked the deck but still left it on the floor. "I even have something on each of you guys. So who is it? Tell me where their from, a description on them, whatever."
"There's Gaara of The Desert and Rock Lee of the leaf village while you're at it."
"Oh, you even know their names? That makes it easy." He pulled out two cards and we all kept watching him. "Here they are."
"Show them to me."
Kabuto revealed both the information cards to Sasuke and the rest of us. The first one he showed was Rock Lee's then Gaara's, he also told us Gaara had done one B-ranked mission and completed it with out a scratch on him. Everyone was extremely surprised, even me.
He stood up and put the cards away.
There was a huge cloud of smoke that appeared at the head of the class room then it faded. "Alright, pipe down you baby-faced degenerates!" A man's voice shouted. He had a few scars on his face and he had a large group of more men behind him. "It's time to begin, I am Morino Ibiki your proctor but from this moment on your worst enemy. I will say this only once and no more, there will be no combat between candidates, no attacking each other without the permission of your proctor. And even then attacking with fatal force is prohibited; if anyone thinks of messing with me they will be disqualified. Now if we are already to begin the first stage of the Chuunin exam everyone hand in your paperwork and in exchange you will receive a number that will determine where you sit. We will start the written test once all of you are seated."
We handed in our registration forms and got our numbers. I received number fifty two, I was seated near the middle of the room at least half a dozen roes ahead of Sasuke and about the same amount behind Naruto and Sakura. The tested were placed in front of us face down and we got pencils to write with, everybody in the room waited for instructions.
"Everyone eyes up front to the board." Ibiki announced. "There are a few rules you must be aware of and I'm not answering any questions so you better pay attention the first time around. Okay, the first rule id the test is based on a point reduction system; similar to what some of you might be used to. You start the test with ten points if you answer one question correctly you can keep that point, if you miss one question you will lose a point. Rule number two, each team will pass or fail based on the total score of all the three members. Rule number three, the centennials you see positioned around the room are there to make sure you don't cheat and every person they find cheating they will deduct two points from the culprits score. Be warned their eyes are very sharp, if they catch you five times you and your team will be disqualified before the tests are finished and scored. Anyone caught by any one of the centennials does not deserve to be here. If you want to become a Shinobi show us how much of an exceptional Shinobi you can be. One more thing, if any candidate should get a zero on their written test then the entire team fails. The last question won't be given out until the last fifteen minutes of the testing period, you'll have an hour to finish the test. Begin!"
Everyone flipped over their papers and started to write.
Okay Chi, focus ... Who am I kidding! Naruto should be the one focusing! Just don't blow it Naruto, let him alt least get one question right! This doesn't look good at all he's just sitting there, he's gonna choke.
I returned half my focus to my test and wrote my name at the top. Alright, first question ... So I have to decipher a code, easy enough. I scribbled down the answer. Let's just hope they can read my writing ...
Okay, next one. I read over it and tried to concentrate. Okay skip that one, next ... Eh, skip that one to ... CRAP THEY JUST GET HARDER!
I glanced over at one of the centennials and he wrote down whoever he just caught cheating onto his clip board. Someone just got nailed ... It's odd that there making such a fuss over cheating and it's almost like they don't care about the test. Normally if you even cheat once it's over and they only take twp points off if you do ...
I suddenly remembered what Ibiki had said 'If anyone gets caught cheating by the centennials don't deserve to be here'. They want us to cheat! He never said we couldn't. I'm positive, but the next question is ... Who will I cheat off of?
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It's over .. Oh, yeah please review I spend hours in front of the T.V. writing down pretty much everything that every character says, and I would appreciate it. And it doesn't have to be really long or whatever it can just be something as small as 'Nice chapter!' I don't mind.
-kAI