This System makes No Sense
"Congratulations, Naruto! I knew you could-holy hell what happened to you?"
"Do we pass or not?" Growled Naruto, throwing the two scrolls to the ground in disgust.
"Because if the answer is 'not', then the Uchiha clan just might be launching a coup sometime in the future." Sasuke grouched.
"And if murdering that snake-whore Anko is an optional victory condition, we would love to take it." Hinata grumbled.
Umino Iruka looked at the genin trio in mute horror. Naruto's clothing was torn to shreds, and while he had no visible wounds he looked completely exhausted. Both Hinata and Sasuke had strange black marks on their necks and were cut up and bruised, and both winced on occasion as through they were in incredible pain. All three were red in the face and panting.
"What were you all up to in there?" Iruka finally found his voice. "You were ten minutes from failing!"
"What were we up to? Oh, I don't know." Said a slightly hysterical Naruto. "Is this after we got attacked by the snake sannin? After Sasuke and Hinata got cursed and ended up in a coma for most of the exam? After I had to fight the Sound team, solo, then stop my crazy teammates from killing said Sound team? After we, in our mad dash for the central tower, had to dodge past the ridiculous melee of all the teams who hadn't gotten all their scrolls yet? YoU're GonnA HavE to be MOrE sPEcIfiC IRUKA!"
Naruto stood there panting for a bit.
"...what?" Iruka accurately surmised.
"I'm sorry Iruka but this is probably above your clearance, and if you keep them talking much longer they're gonna miss the preliminaries." Kakashi appeared next to Iruka, grabbed his students, and all three promptly vanished in a leaf flurry.
The four ended up in an abandoned room of the tower. Bursting in five seconds later was Uchiha Itachi, similarly red in the face and looking genuinely unsettled.
"You saw Orochi-fucking-Maru?" Asked the genius. "Extrapolate. Now."
They spent a few minutes going over a brief account of what had happened in the forest, and then Kakashi went over the seals on their necks mumbling worriedly to himself.
"Fuck." Itachi growled. "Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck."
"He's who you got it from, huh?" Naruto side-eyed Sasuke.
"Uh-huh." The younger Uchiha nodded.
"This is bad. I asked to be on team seven's overwatch, I asked, but they told me I was 'too attached', dense shits."
"Overwatch?" Hinata asked.
"Each genin team had a jonin or chunin watching over them. They were supposed to bail them out if they were going to die, and incapacitate them if they opened their scrolls early." Kakashi explained.
"Then we found four jonin-Jonin!-hadn't called in and by the time we found them both dead nobody knew where you were and they wouldn't let me go look for you because 'test conditions'. Whole damn exam should have been called off." Itachi was still complaining.
"Thirty seconds until roll is called in the centre arena." Kakashi pointed out.
"Right." Itachi growled. "Kakashi, see what you can do about the seals. Naruto-"
He grabbed his arm. There was a blink and a flash and a fluttering of crows wings and Naruto was hurled out onto some hard concrete. He got his bearing and looked left. A long line of genin looked across at him.
"Uhhh." He blinked.
"This is so like you." Ino sighed.
"Alright, looks like Uzumaki's here too." Sighed the jonin across from the line. "That makes thirteen."
Naruto found himself in the middle of a massive arena. Along the long line he spotted mostly familiar faces. He waved brightly at Gaara, who smiled back perfectly innocently, traded thumbs-ups with Rock Lee, and then gave Choji a nod of respect (from one food enthusiast to another). That made three teams beside him, the sand siblings, team Gai, the Ino-Shika-Cho combo and-
He blinked. "The hell are they doing here?"
Dosu looked back at him. "Oh, hello there."
The sound trio looked remarkably worse for wear. Dosu's leg was broken, Zaku couldn't walk without a limp and Kin was just...shooketh.
"We passed. Duh." Zaku smirked at him triumphantly.
"No you didn't!" Naruto pointed, outraged. "Those three are working with Orochimaru! They said so!"
Dosu's eyes widened for a moment before calming. "Oh yeah? Sounds ridiculous. Prove it."
"We can though!" Naruto exclaimed. "The Yamanaka clan can literally read your minds!"
"We can." Ino confirmed.
"Oh, right, my bad." Itachi was suddenly there again. "Yeah, these three are coming with me."
He grabbed the Sound trio, and with an incredibly aesthetic crow variant body flicker, they were gone.
"I hate my job sometimes." The jonin murmured to himself, before coughing. "Alright, my name's Gekko Hayate and I'm going to be proctoring the third stage of the exams. There are now...ten of you. Great."
"Twelve." Naruto pointed out. "Both my teammates also passed."
"Your teammates aren't here." Gekko replied, boredly. "So by my reckoning that means they're both disqualified."
"Kakashi said you might say that." Naruto remembered. "He also said that he knows exactly when the ANBU member Possum gets off shift and three topics she finds interesting."
"Your teammates are both undisqualified." Gekko hurriedly corrected. "So that leaves us with twelve. Not a power of two, so not an ideal tournament bracket, but we can work with it. So, the third round of the chunin exams is a tournament. You fight each other to show off your skills to see how chunin-worthy you are."
"What?" Naruto gasped.
"What now?" Gekko turned back to him.
"That makes no sense!" Naruto exclaimed. "Why would you judge our skills competitively? Wouldn't there be a control level where you say 'yes, now they're chunin'? Why the hell would you make it so that our success is based off how well we compare to other people?"
"You don't have to win to be promoted." Gekko explained. "It's theoretically possible to lose once and be promoted, or win the whole thing and not get through. Also the village makes thousands on the gambling."
"Fine, but it's still bad." Naruto sighed.
"Unfortunately." Gekko continued, bracing himself. "As twelve is, quite frankly, way too many possible chunin, we have decided to do a preliminary round, reducing the number to six. Failing this round will prevent you from being promoted."
"WHAT?" Naruto exploded. "THAT MAKES EVEN LESS SENSE! Why would only an arbitrary number of genin be allowed to pass? What happens if the second best fights the best in the preliminaries and you lose out on someone totally capable of becoming chunin? What if-"
Gekko glared at him him. "Look, if we pass too many chunin people assume the standards have been lowered, the randomiser is probably rigged anyway, and if you don't stop whining then possum or no possum, I am disqualifying you and your whole team right now!"
Naruto fell into a begrudging silence.
"Why do you care so much?" Whispered Tenten from next to him.
"I have a lot of experience with unfair tests." Naruto explained, sullenly. "Rules like this screwed me over all the time back at the academy."
"First round." Gekko reviewed a device in his hand. "Is...Yamanaka Ino vs Sabaku no Kankuro. That's your second name? 'Of the sands'? Alright, whatever, get into position."
Naruto made his way up into the stands, and was somewhat surprised to see Kakashi sat there, reading another one of his books.
"Sensei?" He called out, running over.
"Oh hey, Naruto." The jonin remarked, not looking up.
"Where are my teammates?" Naruto begged.
"Jiraiya came over to look at them, so my minimal expertise wasn't needed." Replied his Sensei.
"So you ditched them?"
"Yeah."
Naruto gaped at him. "Why are you not worried?"
"I Am." Kakashi let some killing intent bleed out for a moment. "But in this case it's better for me not to get involved. That's some advice you might want to pay attention to, Naruto. Doing nothing can be the best choice."
In the arena, Kankuro squared off against Ino. She looked determined, he seemed perfectly casual.
"Jiraiya said that he knew a sealing ritual that could stop what he's calling a 'curse mark', the thing on your teammates' necks." Kakashi continued. "But it will take a while. We need to hope this next fight takes its sweet time so he can do his thing before they have to fight."
"Begin!" Called out Gekko.
Without waiting, Ino sprinted forwards and pulled a kunai, spearing it into Kankuro's throat. Kankuro's head tilted. Ino backed up slowly, gulping. Kankuro, knife still stuck in his throat, began walking jankily forwards, arms outstretched towards her. She screamed.
"Well, so much for long and drawn out." Sighed Kakashi, after two minutes of Kankuro chasing a horrified Ino around the arena.
"Wasn't a very impressive fight." Naruto huffed, still angry about the injustices of the system.
"These are prelims, he isn't being judged yet." Kakashi explained. "He's managed to look intimidating all while revealing nothing about his fighting style. Most of the other genin won't even have realised he was a puppet."
"He was a what?"
Kankuro finally pinned Ino to the floor, causing repeated screams of "I forfeit! I forfeit! Please don't let Kankuro-kun do any horrible unseemly things to my young innocent body-"
"Dude, what have you been reading?" Came a muffled voice from within the bandages on Kankuro's back.
"Okay, we're still good." Naruto thought aloud. "We just need neither of them to be called up for another few rounds, right?"
"Next match." Said Gekko. "Sasuke vs Tenten."
"Or, I could open my big mouth, and everything could go wrong." Naruto sighed.
"I'll get him." Kakashi vanished.
"So what did the old pervert say?" Naruto asked, eyes roaming over his friend. Not in a weird way, he was visibly worried.
"I'm in constant pain and exhausted, but otherwise I'm perfectly fit for duty." Sasuke grimaced as another bolt of agony flashed through him. "Problem is, this thing activates when I put chakra into it, and since I have no control over it it just turns on when I use any chakra over a base level, period."
"So no great fireball?" Naruto understood.
"Nope."
Naruto gasped. "But Sasuke, what will you do without your only technique?"
"Ha fucking ha."
"But seriously, you have to fight the best kenjutsu genin in Konoha without any ninjutsu or genjutsu?"
"Basically."
Naruto let that get him down for about two seconds before his boundless optimism came back.
"Well, I'm sure you'll manage it. It's you!"
Sasuke shook his head, laughing. "Your madness is infectious. Alright, lets do this." He walked out onto the arena floor. Tenten stood across from him.
"Do you want to forfeit now?" She called across to him, sympathetically. "You look dead on your feet."
"Sorry, but no." Sasuke said back. "I've kinda gotta win the whole tournament. There are two people allowed to knock me out, and they aren't you."
"Suit yourself." Tenten shrugged. Reaching behind herself, she pulled the large scroll from her back and held it in in her arms.
"Ready..." Called Gekko. "Begin!"
Sasuke moved.
This was the first time in a while he was going all out against a fellow genin, and not a ninja several times his own power. The effects of the training seal, especially now it was turned off, became immediately apparent. He was halfway towards Tenten before she could move. The weaponsmaster unfurled her sealing scroll and flung it, and out the front in a plume of smoke came a flurry of shuriken. Sasuke had been worried he wouldn't be able to dodge without his Sharingan active, but dodge he did, sliding and jumping around the projectiles. Appearing beside her he launched a kick, aiming his heel towards her abdomen. It me a sturdy shaft of wood. Tenten twisted the bo staff to turn away his foot and brought one end down on the back of his knee, making him lurch away. He punched, and she blocked, and all he got was smarting knuckles. Much to his chagrin, Tenten actually had a height advantage over him, and she knew how to leverage it, so grappling for control of the staff was pointless. The status quo was against Sasuke so he changed it, pulling a kunai and swinging it to bisect the staff with a neat motion.
Tenten, smiling victoriously, shifted her grip.
Now wielding two smaller sticks, she attacked in a vicious flurry that made Sasuke desperately wish he had bracers of some sort. He was able, after taking a few bruises, to cut the sticks into small enough pieces as to be useless. Tenten threw the remnants at him and drew nunchucks.
"Seriously?" Sasuke exclaimed, moving back onto the defensive. "Aren't you worried the competitors will learn to counter all your weapons?"
"You've seen four." She grinned, swinging them rapidly. "I'm expert in twenty five, and proficient in forty more."
"Why?" He caught up the nunchucks in his kunai, and she seamlessly switched to a morningstar (Morningstar!)
"The most basic level of combat is the same for all weapons." She answered, swinging the ball and chain. "Gai-Sensei claimed it, and I proved it. Also, when I'm practicing with a new weapon I don't have to spar with Lee."
"Touche."
He caught the morningstar by the chain and wrenched it from her, only to catch a brass knuckled strike to the face. He swung the spiked ball at her himself, but it clanked against the shield-(shield! What self respecting ninja uses a shield?)- on her free arm. She had made a mistake though: brass knuckles were taijutsu. He parried a few punches and was able to land a strike to her face in return, then grabbed onto her shield and cartwheeled. The manoeuvre would have broken her arm had she not relinquished the shield to his hands, but as it was she fell backwards and summoned another weapon pair from her scroll. The hook swords glinted.
"Those things are vicious." Sasuke nodded appreciatively, equipping the shield to his own arm after checking it for traps. "But you've checkmated yourself."
"How." Her eyes narrowed.
"By checking me." He grinned at her. "Now I have to do something insane."
Her eyebrows raised. "Oh no. They've corrupted you."
He sighed. "Afraid so. It's not so bad once you get used to it." He sprinted at her. The first two sword swings he caught on his shield, but the third he dodged, bringing the blunt edge of the metal plate down on her arm. She was too good to drop the weapon due to the pain, but it was enough for him to pull it off her with his free hand. The two blades locked between them. Sasuke marshalled his chakra.
"Now you're in checkmate." She grinned, pulling a (crossbow? Really?) from her back and aiming it at his stomach. In her moment of victory, her eyes met his. She blanched. His Sharingan flashed red.
She pulled the trigger on impulse, launching a bolt into his gut, and he winced and closed his eyes. It was enough for her to disentangle their weapons, hook his leg with hers, and drop him on his back, levelling the business end of the sword at his throat. "I win." She breathed.
"I forfeit." He grumbled.
"Victory to Tenten." Called out Gekko. She whooped, dropping her weapons and turning back to her team.
"Well done! Your youth was shining brightly!" Lee stuck his thumb up at her with a grin.
"Not really." Sighed Sai.
Tenten blinked at him. "What?"
"This isn't really happening." Sai explained. "You tried hard though. Good fight."
All that was what Tenten thought happened.
What actually happened was that after she met Sasuke's eyes she froze in place, Genjutsu taking hold, and then fell unconscious to the floor.
"Does that count?" Sasuke called.
"Victory goes to Sasuke." Called out Gekko.
"Nice going Sasuke!" Naruto yelled from the stands. "Wait; didn't you just use chakra? Won't that-"
"Yep." Sasuke winced, as the curse mark on his shoulder began glowing red. "Ow, okay, I'm going to Jiraiya now. Ow, Fuck, this was a terrible idea!"
I know Tenten gets a lot of hate, but she seems like she could be pretty interesting. Most of the ninja just use fists and kunai, so a chick who knows how to fling around ten billion weapons would be pretty fun to write. The only fic I've read that features her heavily is Black Cloaks, Red Clouds, but it just turns her into a pretty generic earth style user. Any alternatives?
Oh, and DONT GET ME FUCKING STARTED ON HOW STUPID THE FUCKING CHUNIN EXAMS ARE. I think I had Naruto explain how FUCKDUMB it is just now. Oh and yeah, round three has a lot of changed fights, so I'm not just writing 'like canon but naruto doesn't suck as much'. If the fight is the same, I'll probably just skip it. Pirate the episode, we all know you can.
