Chapter 6

Long Awaited

Kanohagakure's Shinobi Academy is a surprisingly simple place. It looks about the same as any other schoolhouse, save for the nature of the installations in the yard. Occasionally, civilians can be found loitering by the schoolyard to watch their up-and-coming guardians in action, and to get just a glimpse into the life of a shinobi that's otherwise unattainable for the untrained masses. On graduation day, this is especially true. The potential of this class had drawn out an entire crowd, to the point that some of them had started climbing trees to watch from the branches, until two green-clad walking eyesores offered to carry out a set of collapsible bleachers for them.

Before their festivities could begin though, the students inside were being briefed on the changes to the upcoming exams. Iruka, Ebisu, and the Hokage himself had painstakingly designed the new exam and selected the judges. The time had finally come to test the test.

Iruka stands before his class with pride etched into a grin that could put Naruto's to shame. In the past few months, his students had become more lively and attentive than ever, and even on a day as serious as this, it showed. Naruto kept Yoko deep in his jacket, with her head poking out beneath his chin and half asleep. When he raised an eyebrow at the lazy fox putting Akamaru and Shikamaru to shame, she stuck her tongue out at him and left it there. He couldn't help but wonder how she could sleep so peacefully with Naruto in the middle of frantically scrawling another seal while attempting to explain it to two surrounding students watching with varying degrees of fascination. Shino was his usual stoic self, but as a seasoned teacher, he could tell by Shino's repeated adjustment of his glasses that he was enrapt by the impromptu lecture. Sakura on the other hand appeared to occasionally stop Naruto and ask a few questions regarding the applications of certain radicals in the seal structure. At the moment, he seemed to be in the middle of an anecdote regarding some accidents he had with sealing various liquids without containers when using a simple water seal. Considering what he had heard through the grapevine of Sakura's training, he had no doubt she was asking for the sake of mediums and shortcuts to her new jutsu.

Nearby, Sasuke seemed to be repeatedly charging a leaf he's pinned to the table with one finger full of lightning chakra, causing it to twitch and crinkle. In his right hand, he holds a textbook on neurology. Ino appears to be stealing glances at it occasionally, seeming wary of Sasuke's two choices of study, but not disapproving. Surprisingly, Ino happened to have several leaves stuck to various parts of her body, attached purely by chakra. Hinata provides a few pointers in regards to channeling chakra to places besides the hands, mouth, and feet, something many shinobi are very unfamiliar with. Although, Iruka isn't so sure Hinata should be familiar with this so soon either. As best he recalls, he's never seen a Hyuga use Kaiten before reaching Chuunin.

Kiba in the meantime was leaning back in his seat with his feet up on the desk, bragging away to Chouji about some hunting tactics he's developed, which the portly young man appraised, while Shikamaru just behind Kiba would criticize and evaluate, much to Kiba's chagrin. As he listened, Chouji was digging into a hot, steaming bowl of miso soup, but… how did it get so hot in the middle of a classroom without a microwave or oven anywhere nearby? Shikamaru of course was just as disinterested as usual, but his hands were bandaged, and a few burns were still visible on his fingertips every time he raised his arms.

Iruka already knew they would all pass with flying colors. He was certain of it. This generation of shinobi would be the most promising and capable since the Shodaime's era.

But today is the first step. It's his job to make sure they can take the leap into active duty.

"Alright!" Iruka calls out, silencing the room. "There's a change of plans for today's exam. Recently, the entire exam was rebuilt from the ground up. Rather than requiring a certain proficiency in each area, we will be grading your skills in all areas based on level of proficiency compared to active duty shinobi. Those collective skill grades will then be combined to see your official skill rating compared to active genin and records of prior students. So…." He stomps on a particular floorboard and triggers the opening of a door to the schoolyard. "We'll be starting with a new obstacle course meant to test your agility, reflexes, speed, and observational skills all in one go. Step out and line up in alphabetical order at the start of the course."

Naruto chuckles and rolls his scroll back up, then jostles Yoko awake as he stands. Nobody's surprised to see him leading the way out, but Shino is close behind to take his spot at the front of the line. Outside the door, they all see a wall erected between them and the course, with a single curtained doorway on the far side. "Hmm.." Shino muses aloud with a smirk hidden beneath his collar. "Keeping us blind to the course. We must improvise rather than strategize. Not quite my forte, but certainly a boon to any shinobi worth their meddle. Color me impressed, Iruka-sensei." He rushes through the curtain, and all students back in the line can hear the cheers of the audience among the whirring, swinging, and snapping of various traps and machines.

Naruto peeks down to Yoko and whispers something to her, but the Inuzaka ahead of him hears the exchange well enough to decide to one-up him. The moment Kiba's called to the door, Akamaru jumps down from atop his head and stands beside him. "Ready, partner? Let's show them what a real shinobi can do…" The pup beside him yips and shifts into a sprinting stance. The moment Iruka says 'hajime', he's off.

The first thing he sees on the other side of the door is a tarpit trap. He and Akamaru leap clean over it with ease, not even needing the rafters placed above to clear it. He could tell at a glance that one of them was false and would fall right into the tar once he put his weight on it anyway. Once across the tarpit, the floor was apparently dusted with something quite slippery, possibly a lot of chalk dust, forcing him to slide towards a series of spinning posts and swinging bars of various lengths at him. He ducks low and under the first, then jumps into a low aerial roll parallel to the ground to slip between the next two. He thrusts his right foot into the ground to push himself over the last set of them, flipping over it and landing on his hands on the other side. He then kicks Akamaru up and over the wall ahead of them, before pushing off the ground and vaulting over it himself. On the other side of the wall, he finds himself falling towards another much smaller tarpit trap. He and Akamaru kick off the wall they just leapt over to propel themselves over it, then roll under a door closing on the other side. As it closes, he can see that there was another route over the now closed door that would have taken him another five seconds to get through a series of hanging platforms and branches. He scoff and walks across the finish line with a grin. "Best time yet, right?"

The three judges off to the side of the track nod, one very eager Nara Yoshino raising a card with a 10 on it. The violette kunoichi beside her levels an unenthused stare at her before giving Kiba a thumbs-up, while choosing to ignore the young man's attention being drawn to her less than decent attire. Ebisu adjusts his shades and makes a few notes on his grading sheet, remaining silent and professional.

The various other attempts are mostly impressive, but none quite compared to Kiba's. His combination of reflex, instinct, speed, and strength, is the perfect setup for a gauntlet of that nature. Shino took it almost leisurely, but with fine control of his actions, struggling most with the second tar pit past the wall and having to hang from the top of it for a moment. Chouji was the second slowest, but he managed to prove his strength by getting clean over both the pits without having to use the climbing mechanisms and lacking Kiba's aerial expertise. Ino ended up being third slowest, but her acrobatics through the rafters were clearly showing off a bit. Hinata on the other hand didn't need to show off, those motions were natural and faster to her. Sakura was a bit faster than Ino, but was nearly hit during the second stage. Naruto, Sasuke, and Hinata were the only ones besides Kiba fast to get through the gate before it closed and not have to take the overhead route, although ironically, Naruto took the overhead route instead of the gate, with Yoko taking the low path through the gate as it closed. Shikamaru of course took it easy and completed it at as casually as possible, and managed to show off his chakra control by already getting over the wall with the wall walking technique, although the judges had noticed a few others using it more subtly in the midst of faster and more practical traversal.

As soon as Ino steps across the finish line, panting softly and glaring at the sadist in the judge's box, Iruka directs them all to the series of targets set up ahead of them. There's twenty targets in total, some at odd angles, and a few on tracks to keep the in motion. "Alright, students. I'm sure you're all astute enough to get the gist of this one. So, everyone line up to throw!"

Hinata smirks as she takes up her tools. Ever since taking up her wind and water chakra training, she's found it far easier to use these tools, and only getting easier. She peeks ahead to the front of the line and finds Shino getting sneaky with applying a few kikaichu to each kunai and using them to course correct mid-flight, earning himself far better scores than earlier in the year. His bugs weren't perfect, but they narrowed his margin of error considerably enough. Chouji had some of the worst aim there, but his kunai were buried a bit deeper. No performances really stood out until Hinata began to fling her kunai and shuriken in rapid succession, her aim near flawless, only managing to miss the bullseye on two of the moving targets. Kiba and Shikamaru haven't improved much in this field, although Shika's aim was never bad to begin with. Naruto's improved a bit, Sasuke excels as always, but oddly enough, Ino gets marks that almost catch up to the doujutsu heirs.

With the last few results jotted down, Iruka nods and waves everyone back inside. "Ok, time for the written test, then a surprise final round of the exam. So far, I'm expecting most of you will have no problems passing."

Naruto smirks as he leads the way back in, knowing everyone's watching his back. He had always excelled more in the physical aspects of being a shinobi, so they knew he'd do well enough in this part, but none of them knew what to expect of his intellectual grade. Of course, none of them knew of a little binge-reading trick he learned. Clones make learning so much fun.

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"So… what do you think of them now?" At the back of the civilian crowd that had been watching the students through this phase of the exam, now beginning to split up, two henged shinobi discuss the results in the shade of a tree. One's voice is aged and stern, and the other, smooth and casual.

"Well…" The casual one chuckles to himself. "The trend of setting the rookie and the dead last on the same team will have to be broken. There are no dead-lasts here. I still intend to have the previous suspected team under my wing, though. Considering how quickly Naruto is growing… I say we should be a bit more honest with him. He knows about the fox already, and he's stayed silent on the matter and taken it in stride. He already has his father's book. It's only a matter of time before he starts piecing it together himself at this rate."

The elder nods and lights a cigarette with fire chakra from his thumb. "Maybe… I have plans to have him meet Jiraiya as soon as he can receive a C rank mission outside the village. If you are indeed his sensei, you will be present for it. The sensei, the student, and the son all together. I wish I could be there to witness it."

"You could always send a clone."

"… Why the hell didn't I think of that?"

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Shikamaru had been asleep at his desk less than a third of the way into their allotted time for the written test. Of course, nobody was surprised by this in the slightest. Soon after followed Sakura, Shino, and Ino. Hinata and Sasuke completed it just past the halfway mark, and Naruto happened to finish about ten minutes before Kiba, and almost at the same time as Chouji. The moment it was completed, and ahead of schedule to Iruka's surprise, he gathered them and stood beside the door to the hallway. "Excellent work, everyone! Now, while these are graded, we'll move on to the final portion of the exam. This time, rather than testing the basic three academy jutsu, we'll be performing mock battles. You all will be challenged by assigned chuunin to test your combat capabilities and rate you accordingly. These battles will be in enclosed, uniform spaces prepared in a training ground nearby. You'll report to your assigned room, and the battle will begin. You may all bring whatever tools you wish, and you have one hour to gather your supplies and report back to training ground 24 for the final exam. Dismissed!"

"Hai!" A few students break off from their seats and split up to prepare. Naruto lounges back in his seat and peeks over to Shikamaru, who has… gone back to sleep already. Hinata on the other hand appears to be fidgeting slightly in her seat. Even for someone as oblivious as Naruto, her anxiety is as clear as day. He has no hesitation in getting up and climbing the stairs to her seat. "What's got you so worried, Hinata?"

"Eep!" The shyest of Hyugas buries herself deeper into her jacket, attempting to disappear into fur-lined hood. "… I… I-I just… don't know if I can c-c-cut it in a real f-fight…"

".. Bullshit."

Hinata blanches and stammers for a moment. "W-W-what?.."

Naruto crosses his arms and glares at nobody in particular. "You're just… yeah, you're really kind, and kinda quiet, but you have some of the best grades in the class, you're the best fighter among any of the girls, you have great aim, and you have awesome elements! I'm sure you'll be great in a real fight! You just gotta find something to drive you to give it your all, ya know? Something that gets you fired up!"

Hinata stares in slack-jawed awe through his entire rant, then blushes down to her shoulders as she looks away. "W-Well, um.. m-maybe! I-I guess I just need to t-think about w-what that is…"

Naruto flashes his signature ear to ear grin. "I'm sure you'll figure it out! You probably already know, ya just gotta let it hit you at the right time."

Off to the side, Shika groans quietly and twitches. Really, Naruto? How are you so damn oblivious?

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The time had finally come. Naruto wandered along the walls of a wooden structure erected in the middle of training ground 24. The wood was unpainted and plain, but somehow seemed to still be alive, despite its unnatural shape. Eventually, he stops at door 9, finding that a bit ironic. Maybe it's on purpose. Either way, he knew his final roadblack between the academy and his headband stood just beyond it. As directed, he pushed the door open and wandered into a very dimly lit room. Inside, he finds the silhouette of a single man standing across from him. He cracks his knuckles and scoffs. "So, you ready to get your ass beat?"

A shockingly familiar voice muses back to him. "Beat my ass, huh? Yeah… if hadn't trained so much for this, maybe you could have." The lights flicker on overhead, and the smiling face of his favorite sensei greets him. "But I've been working on polishing my skills for this day, Naruto. You deserve no less than my best."

Naruto gapes and stumbles. "I-Iruka-sensei? You're really my opponent?" At first, Iruka raises a brow and tilts his head at his student's reaction, worried about his willingness to risk harm to someone to precious to him. That is, until Naruto's face is consumed in an almost sadistic, confident grin. "… I didn't know I wanted to fight you so bad until it hit me just now. I wanna see just what you've got, sensei! And how I measure up!"

Iruka matches his favorite student's smile and draws one of the blunted kunai. "Good! But before we start this… I have a request."

"Hm?" Naruto slowly shifts into a combat stance. "What would that be?"

"… Don't hold anything back… and whoever loses must accept an undeniable command, as long as it's not illegal or immoral."

"… Iruka-sensei… you're even cooler than I thought. You're on!" He rushes in to strike, taking his classic head-strong frontal approach from his earliest academy days. Iruka sighs and lowers his crossed arms, then swings a kick for Naruto's jaw as he closes in. Suddenly, Naruto's speed doubles and he rushes past the kick for a clean punch to Iruka's ribs. He cringes and ducks back, hand-standing and swinging both legs up into Naruto to force him off. In doing so, Yoko is thrown from his jacket, and lands on Iruka's left leg, clawing and gnawing at it.

"GAH!" Iruka quickly flips back and drives his captured shin into the floor, forcing a yelp out of the fox and loosening her grip, allowing him to roll aside and kick her off just as Naruto comes down to stomp at the same spot in his ribs where he'd taken that first punch. Once up, he backflips away and inspects his leg wounds. "That… was pretty good. I didn't expect you to be that fast. I-It was like you started with training weights on…. Gravity seals, right?"

Naruto chuckles and hops around a bit to test himself. "Yep! Took me a while to get em down. Figured you'd get it quickly, considering you saw me writing them in class… and failing. Upside is, I figured out how I screwed it up to dent the desk when I made it, then found a new use for them!"

Iruka blanches at that. "…. You've got to be shitting me." He groans and uprights himself. "Fine then. I'll have to use more than the basics." He ducks Yoko's attempt at leaping onto his head from behind, then grabs her as she passes and flings her towards Naruto as he approaches, forcing him to catch her. As she flies, he cycles through the ryuu, tora, and u handsigns. "Suiton: Mizureppa!" He unleashes a powerful water stream from his mouth, blasting them both and forcing them to skid back, with Yoko taking the brunt of the blast. As it ends, Naruto huffs, drops the fox- and it bursts into smoke. His eyes widen as the smoke fills the room. "A-A fox shaped smoke bomb?! What the hell? How did you even teach her the Kawarimi?"

"Oh, I didn't." He chuckles as the room is filled with the sound of various smoky explosions. Iruka's eyes narrow as he detects exactly what's waiting for him in the smoke. "Remember, I trained with the Inuzaka. I learned to walk like a fox, act like a fox, and think like a fox. That was never Yoko." As the smoke clears, Iruka finds himself surrounded by fifty clones, one of them towards the front wearing a shit-eating grin, as Yoko pokes her head out from the back of his jacket, over his shoulder. "You were always good at picking up on my henges, but ya never expected me to henge into myself with a passenger, did ya? All I had to do was make a clone behind me while Yoko had you distracted with your leg. When ya kicked her aside, I replaced her with a clone henged into her, and henged the two of us to hide the hunchback in my jacket!"

Iruka stares, bewildered, but sighs and closes his eyes. "Not bad, Naruto. I guess it's a good thing I learned this one, then." Just as the clones rush him, he begins to duck and weave between them, apparently not needing to see them to detect where they are. It's taxing, but he knows this won't be a drawn-out battle either way. Naruto's already proven himself, but this is personal now. He ducks the first few clones as their uncoordinated attacks run into each other and they disperse themselves. As his hands work on new handsigns, his left leg lunges out to catch two clones who attempt to attack low. A tenth of them are already down, and two more soon follow as he jumps into a scissor kick. Upon landing, he finishes a set of tora, u, inu, ushi, and uma. "Suiton…" He slams his hands into the floor. "Rajairu Mizureppa!" A blast of pressurized water shoots out in all directions, catching most of the clones, missing only four who were just far enough to leap out of range, and popping them all. Yoko had been stalking about among them to approach and took a hit as well, leaving her limping about at the edge of the jutsu's radius.

But Naruto is nowhere to be seen. Iruka hums and muses to himself as he wonders where the boy could be. "Hmmm… let me see…" He turns and lings shuriken into all the remaining clones, then throws a kunai into a nearby wall, forcing Naruto to leap out from behind the genjutsu-camouflaged tarp. He knew Naruto couldn't have learned the genjutsu for the professional version of that, or had prep time to mimic that specific wall, so… "You have seals on the other side of that one that make it blend in automatically, don't you?"

"Yep." Naruto chuckles, seeming a bit winded. "That'd be right. That took me over a month to figure out once I got the idea."

Iruka pants and smirks. "You never cease to amaze, Naruto. Alright… one last round. This is where it ends!" He takes the offensive this time, charging Naruto far faster than he had expected, exceeding his own speed once the seals were turned off. He feigns running to Naruto's left for a moment, but follows it up with a leap and a spin kick to the back of Naruto's head. When he manages to barely block in time, he kicks off Naruto's forearm and backflips, forcing the student to the ground with the force of his kick. Once in the air, he fires another Mizureppa at Yoko as she attempts to approach. Back on his feet, he charges Naruto as he scrambles to his feet, but Iruka releases a second water jutsu at Naruto's feet. "Suiton: TsuruTsuru Hedoro!" He'd have to thank Izumo for the pointers on this one. The slime slipped Naruto up and kept him off his feet, allowing Iruka to close the gap and hold his kunai to his student's throat. "Heh… good work, Naruto. But as usual, you bit off a bit more than you can chew."

Naruto's slack-jawed stare maintains silence between them for a few moments, until he can manage to gather his thoughts and smile. "I always knew you were awesome, sensei. I may have lost, but I'm glad I finally got to see just how awesome you really are away from that desk."

Iruka smiles and stashes his kunai, then offers Naruto a hand and helps him to his feet. He slips for a few moments until he's pulled out of the slime patch. "You did incredibly yourself, Naruto. You didn't have to win this fight to pass, ya know. You just had to prove your skills, and you did that in spades. You may have lost the battle… but you earned your headband."

Naruto's eyes widen, his gaped mouth soon arching into the widest smile of his life. "I-I passed?! I'm a ninja?!"

Iruka crouches to his level and nods. "You did it, Naruto." He reaches to the back of his head and unties his headband, offering it to him. "And honestly, I want you to have this one."

Naruto's emotional rollercoaster drops to another awe-induced low. "W-What?... But…" He laughs softly. "… I was gonna ask for that as my reward for the bet if I won."

"I know." Iruka grins. "And for my reward for the bet… I want you to move in with me."

Naruto stumbles back in shock for a moment, nearly dropping the headband. "W-Wait... you… y-you really want me to do that?"

He nods somberly, his smile fading into one far gentler, but genuine. "… I should have asked a long time ago… but you were my student. I couldn't. Too much favoritism. But now… as a graduate… we've waited too long as it is, Naruto. If you want… I can even have Hokage-sama prepare some adoption papers." Silence falls as Naruto struggles with that concept. He'd never had a family before. He'd never known anyone to truly love him. Now, he doesn't know how to react…. But he knows he needs it more than he could ever say. Without a word, he rushes into Iruka's arms holds onto him for dear life, fighting back tears of joy. Iruka gently rubs his back and gives him time to calm down. "… When you're ready, we'll collect your things and head home… son."

Naruto nods eagerly, pulling back just enough to rub the tears off his face and look up to him. "L-Let's go h-home…"

Iruka sighs in relief as he stands, mentally praising himself for thinking ahead and talking to the Hokage about this ahead of time. As a result, the old man handled some of the first payment on the new two-bedroom apartment, and started forwarding Naruto's living expenses he'd managed for his prior apartment to Iruka's account. They both knew Naruto would leap at this opportunity. It wasn't even a slight gamble.

As they leave, Anko watches through the one-way glass on the far end of the arena with a smile plastered on her face as well. "Huh… a better fighter than I thought, a looker, and a family man…"

Ebisu looks to her and stares blankly. "… You better not make him too twisted. We need him."

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A.N.: Everyone like this fic's first fight scene? I tend to put a lot of care into combat when I write. If you'd check out my published work, CONTROL: Ubiquity of Chaos, you'd find even higher quality fight scenes, although not quite as tricky. But, I hope you all enjoy this for what I could bring to the table for Naruto's sleight-of-hand style combat. As for the adoption, after Naruto selected Iruka to act as his father for his wedding in the anime, I figured I just had to run with that. It's a good role for Iruka, and I feel they both deserve it. Now to add a mother figure… I'm sure you can see where that's going.

But for now, keep on reading, expect quicker updates now that I have my computer and Microsoft Office back in working order, and review each chapter, get this up on some recommendation pages, etc. I'll try and make the contents of the fic big, and you guys help to give it the presence to match.