~Hey, guys, special opportunity at the bottom! Enquire below.
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Chapter Twenty-Five
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The interesting thing was . . . I could graduate. If I took the next exam, I'd be a genin before Naruto's class would be. I could slip in between Team Gai and the rest of them and take the summer exam. Maybe I'd join a team. Maybe I'd fail.
The more I thought about it, the more it struck me that I could probably use this to do some good. I could protect them. Help reinforce some critical situation.
But with my luck, I'd fail the exam, and then what? Would I take it again with Naruto's class and fail on purpose? Would those annoying teachers somehow pass me anyway and kick someone important off a future team?
That was how I was when Daddy dropped in later that evening. "Hey," I said.
"Hey yourself. What are you reading?"
I put the Hokage's scroll down to get a better look at him. He looked innocent. Not in the cute, comical, over-the-top way supported by this world's culture. No, he was his usual lethal self.
"Nothing," I said. "Just like you're not hiding anything."
He smiled at that. "Like father, like daughter," he replied, and vanished into his bedroom. I rolled my eyes and waited, listening to the suspicious sound of absolutely nothing suspicious.
It was a nice assumption that I could sense many types of genjutsu and notice when something was smuggled past me. Daddy always managed to prove me wrong when he was motivated, regardless. "Can I talk to you?" I asked.
"Again?" he quipped. But he finished whatever he was up to and walked back into the living room. My homework and the new scroll lay scattered beside me on the couch, and instead of reminding me that sloppiness was a vice, he dropped to the floor and began doing push-ups.
I had a suspicion he was hinting I should get off the couch. Eh, too bad. Kato and I had already gone through our regimen this morning. It was my birthday, too. Good old spring birthdays, designed to fall right between the Academy terms.
"The Academy wants me to graduate this summer."
Daddy didn't pause, but he did take time to choose some unhelpful words. "Do you want to?"
Well. To be honest, I did want to want to get out of school. School was annoying enough the first time around, and adding chakra didn't do much to relieve the boredom. The curriculum was at its best meant for twelve-year-old kids. Sure, some parts were tricky, but the majority of it was nothing I hadn't done before.
Besides which, chakra was fun. Tedious and slow, yes. Most good things are. The deeper we get into those things, the more details we see. Details that will never be addressed in a classroom setting.
"I don't know," I answered my father. "What do you think?"
He switched to one-handed push-ups. "Do they want you to move up to the next class?"
"Not that I've heard." And considering one of the classes above mine contained Daddy's future team, that was one choice I wouldn't consider. Skip past them? Maybe. Join them? No way.
"Do you have any reasons against graduating?"
It's funny how little separated me from telling the people I knew what I remembered of my past. All it would take would be a few simple words. And yet the simplicity was almost what deterred me the most. Those few words would sound preposterous. They would make one half of my life seem imagined (Which half? Could one person be two sides of the same coin? Yes, of course. Coins have two sides).
"For instance," he continued, "your seals. If you're going to continue with Isami, you'll need to train someone to produce the current supply. You won't have time when you're on a team."
Even with two lives to back me up, Kakashi was still the more practical of the two of us. "I think Isami could get some names from her seal master. I could make step-by-step guides of most of the seals. It wouldn't be hard."
He nodded. "Why would you want to graduate?"
"I guess stability," I said. "I don't like switching classes and watching students drop out. It would be nice to get out of a classroom."
"It's also dangerous. Are you afraid of losing your life?"
I was more afraid of losing him or Kato. "I know the risks. I've lived with them for a while."
He nodded, but he didn't seem to agree. "Worrying for a friend's life is not the same as fighting for your own. You won't know who you are until you've faced death." I think I had a better shot than most people, though. I wasn't precisely an untested child.
"And beyond that," Daddy said, pausing his exercise to look me in the eye. "You need to know how important you are to other people." His voice grew quiet. "You need to protect your life for them."
He turned back to the floor. I tried my best not to gape.
Years ago, a child's life had been shattered when Hatake Sakumo, my paternal grandfather, had killed himself. Hatake Kakashi had resolved to never let anyone into his heart again (a plan foiled by his wonderful team, all of whom he'd watched die). And now, a lifetime later, he told me how much I mattered.
Silly man. If my life meant that much to him, maybe he should accept that I cared for his just as much. Hmph.
"Okay," I acknowledged. "I think I want to try it. I'll take the exam this summer."
I half expected him to add clapping to his exercise routine, but he just nodded and transitioned to squats. My eyes narrowed. "Did you plan that?" I asked.
"No. You did."
"I wasn't aware I'd made a decision before today. In fact, I don't think it's even been a minute."
Daddy smiled. "If you want to delude yourself that you aren't already frustrated with the Academy's limitations, go right ahead. I know whose daughter you are."
I wasn't frustrated with the Academy. I was frustrated that no one there specialized in genjutsu, or seemed to see past my ruses. Like he said, I was frustrated.
I blinked. "Out of curiosity, what score did you graduate with?"
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"I'm training to rejoin the active service," I told Isami a few weeks into my new regimen. "They think I can get my stamina back with a diet they're experimenting on."
I expected her to ask what kind of diet, because her family loved those types of tidbits, but she put her brush down and looked me right in the eye. "Akatsuki Suzume, don't you dare."
I squirmed. "I'm not really your sister. Don't just call me that."
She ignored my discomfort. "You are not leaving this village for him, Suzu. He's a murderer."
I raised an eyebrow. "This has nothing to do with him."
"And what if he still has feelings for you?"
"Isami—"
My living, breathing friend had an interesting view on the Uchiha clan killer. She thought that his not killing me meant that he liked me enough to spare me. She wasn't the only one—some of the shopkeepers that Itachi and I used to walk by told me they were glad I was safe. Other people wondered if I were still in contact with him. Thus far the latter comments had been very discrete, but the reality existed.
Retiring Suzume seemed to be a good idea.
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At Iruka's suggestion, I took a summer class after the Academy let me out for the summer. The class was mind-numbingly boring. The teacher in charge felt that weapons skills were the only way students could graduate early. Hogwash. Just because the rest of the kids trying to graduate early had the tactical skills of my pet goldfish didn't make us all failures.
Even so, our class focused on weapons skills. Most of the other kids were decent enough at weapons that honing those skills really was their best bet. The rest of us muddled through with a minority status.
To be frank, I hated the extracurricular work. The summer class was designed to help students graduate early, but since it was acknowledged that most of the summer students would not pass the exam, someone cynical had geared the class toward busywork and general reinforcement. The focus wasn't helping students graduate early so much as solidifying what was already there. No one wanted genin that weren't prepared.
The summer class was actually pretty clever. Since students were allowed to try taking the exam once they reached the age of ten, it was aimed at a wide variety of levels. Anyone on break could choose to take it, which meant it was also offered during the winter. Graduations were in January and in July. I was on track for a January graduation, but the summer students had solid classes until their school year ended at the end of summer. My break would end just after their graduation exam, and the same schedule would happen in the winter. School breaks were timed to help with early graduations.
Daddy's sensei had come up with the double schedule on his own (I think he was preparing Konoha for his wished-for family). It was a well-thought-out system. Homework and review were exactly what we needed, tedious as they tended to be. There was hope for all of us.
Unfortunately, I was still a complete failure at thrown weapons. It was a fact that statistically speaking doomed me to failure. Practically speaking, the written exam would be pretty simple and I knew I'd do well enough in the other areas. Thrown weapons would drag me down, but I knew I could bob right up again. All it would take was some work in the meantime.
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You idiot, my brain muttered bitterly. We haven't seen this kind of test since college.
I shifted in my chair to subtly check the clock. And ten minutes left. A promising start to your future career.
The current problem—a matching section of the alkali content of the soil in several obscure border towns—stared back at me. Mark all that apply. Answers may be used more than once or not at all.
"Ten minutes remaining," the teacher at the front commented, looking over her own class of youngsters and the few additional exam takers. Her eyes narrowed slightly as we made eye contact. I glanced down. Tests in the ninja world had a startling tendency of being tricky. It was possible that some of these questions weren't actually supposed to be answered. But still. Some of the towns mentioned were in agricultural regions. Guessing wouldn't hurt.
Next question: draw a realistic portrait of each of the five Kages. Simple.
"If an opponent starts his jutsu with Hare, Ox, Snake, what are the seven most common resulting jutsus, including subsequent hand seals and respective elements?"
What kind of test was this monster?
After your teammates have used up their chakra, your three opponents attack you with a combined earth dragon jutsu. You have just enough chakra to provide a full counter, but not enough to shield both of your teammates as well. Describe your next move.
"Time is up," the teacher announced just as I finished the last question. "Flip your tests over and exit the room quietly. You may not discuss the written exam with anyone until your grades have been announced. Wait in the hallway until an instructor calls you into a classroom for a demonstration of practical techniques."
We filed out, subdued for the most part. A few of the other students whispered about various questions. There were at least three versions of the test, a fact they thought was unfair. From what I could tell, however, the content covered was exactly the same.
"Yo," one of the boys said, swaggering up to me with all the confidence of a popular thirteen-year-old. "How did you do, Kana-chan?"
All eyes shot to me, since the student in question tended to attract the females in his year pretty consistently. Like many boys his age, Toru seemed to think that some of the Hatake family genius would rub off every time he tried to talk to me. People like him made certain that my friendships with girls were few and far between. "That depends on the next two tests," I said.
He made a face, but the proctors chose the moment to start calling students in for the chakra test. The attitude in the hallway dropped a few notches as the grades-conscientious began practicing their hand seals. I mean, wow. We had to do two whole repetitions of the twelve basic hand seals during the test. What a joke!
One of the proctors called my name, so I filed into the appropriate room. There were a total of three teachers, just like I'd already known. Not much was a secret to my trump card of hearing. I said hi to Iruka, who I hadn't seen since he'd suggested I try for an early graduation. He smiled and greeted me back.
"You'll be performing the clone jutsu, substitution jutsu, and two sets of the basic hand seals," one of the other teachers said, glancing down his nose at the score sheet, which was probably exactly the same as the last twenty-odd such papers he'd looked at.
"Whenever you're ready," Iruka added encouragingly.
I switched places with the appropriate log, not bothering to waste chakra on the usual masking smoke. Special effects were nice, but I wasn't good enough to form the village's signature cloud of leaves yet. No point being flashy until then.
The clone wasn't fancy or masterful or anything short of utilitarian, really. It rolled its eyes and waited for me to run through the hand seals, then cocked its head and prepared to dismiss itself as programmed.
The teacher in charge cleared his throat. My clone and I exchanged a glance, which was strange. The idea that a clone is self-aware, actually me, and yet just an extension of the actual me—odd. There was a time when I wondered if ninjas ever developed multiple personality disorder because of clones, but there are smarter questions to ask.
My chakra clone wasn't much more than an illusory lump of chakra. A jutsu meant to be simplistic wasn't supposed to have a personality. The clone wrinkled its nose anyway.
"You've been given the option to choose a skill to present," the teacher said, perusing his sheet of paper. "If you choose to participate, the weight of your chakra test will increase. However, if your chosen skill is not adequate, your entire score to this point will be dropped."
Dropped, I thought, okay—except Iruka looked taken aback. So not dropped as in lowered. Dropped as in gone. Well, I doubted the written test had earned me much of a start.
"What kind of skill?" I asked. With my special brand of projectile weapons talent, I wasn't going to pass the weapons test with flying colors. It was possible I'd already failed the written test. And here I'd thought that graduating would be a breeze.
My clone shot me a sympathetic look. I narrowed my eyes at it. Its gaze dropped uncomfortably.
The third proctor, the man who had called me into the room, held a sort of facial discussion with the other teachers and turned to me. "Dismiss the clone," he said. "That's all."
My wariness jumped a few notches. "I'll take my grade as is, thanks."
The proctor shrugged. "Then you can go home."
Well, now. After a day like this, that was almost tempting. I probably shouldn't have tested his patience or asked questions at all. I should have just done a basic chakra henge, thanked the proctors, and joined my fellow students back in the hall. Good thing I was blessed with the gift of stupidity and wasn't capable of being boring. Too late now!
My clone should have dismissed itself a few seconds after its creation. My clone had not dismissed itself. Low-level clones weren't anything more than preprogrammed balls of chakra. So dismissing my clone myself should, in theory, be laughably easy.
But after the written exam of death beyond death, suspicion came easily. The chakra test was a breeze? Let's add something! Something fun, like a task that ought to be easier than forming a clone in the first place.
I looked at my clone seriously this time, ignoring the pushy teachers (minus Iruka, who was frowning). It seemed to be intelligent. It didn't appear to have mass, just as expected. Chakra clones were simply illusions. They didn't have substance or shadows.
I shaped my hands into the right seal and prepared to use the manual dismissal, a method I didn't really like to use. I mean, clones are made for specific purposes. They should be created with a time limit in mind. Considering the chakra that goes into a generic clone doesn't come back, every clone needs to have its end planned from the start. Children like me only have so much chakra. The less chakra one has, the more important control becomes.
The clone did not dismiss.
And to think people insist ninja teachers aren't out to get their students.
Right. Time to think critically instead of predicting things that didn't matter.
The clone had a bit of an unexpected personality, but otherwise it appeared exactly the same as when I'd first made it. Escapist red hair, the short purple skirt Kurenai always insisted I wear, opaque mesh leggings, no hint of a shadow . . . how boring. I usually made an effort to hint at shadows. It wasn't hard to make the places that ought to be shadowed a bit darker. In fact, I did that out of habit by now. Many of my classmates had seized onto the idea.
Clone Kana didn't have a hint of shadow. Clone Kana was also no longer under my control.
Now that I had something to go off of, I could start finding weaknesses in whatever this test was about. It was only a genin test, after all. Genin weren't expected to be at a Ph.D. level until they were well past the awkward teenage years. Just look at what over-expectancy had done to my father. He was barely a functioning adult.
One of the rare good things about "Itachi's breakdown" was that baby ninjas like me weren't given impossible tasks as often now. Just even more frustrating ones, because failing a test that actually has a loophole isn't as comforting as knowing there really wasn't a loophole in the first place.
I knew what the clone looked like. Now, how about sound? Illusions don't have lungs. I hadn't heard anything unusual from it, but then my attention had been split between my proctors and other students' tests going on in the background. Some of their tests were abnormal, too, but to each his own.
The clone's mouth moved in an approximation of breathing that I'd given it on purpose. I didn't hear anything. Anything. Whatsoever.
I should have been able to hear the air surrounded by the clone's insubstantial body.
Anomaly found, I stepped forward, listening to the air displacing around my body but muting when said air moved within a foot of the clone. There was a genjutsu—or something—barrier around the clone. A clone that probably had mass now (I don't think anyone can "take over" a clone without replacing it), and therefore was either a solid clone or no longer a clone at all. I couldn't be certain. The genjutsu was masking everything audible pretty well. I couldn't hear an insubstantial clone, and with the genjutsu, I couldn't hear anything.
I doubted my chances at breaking a genjutsu I hadn't noticed by anything more than logic, so it was time to move on again.
If the clone were actually a clone, I'd have to figure out how to dismiss it. Obviously, wounds get rid of clones, but this was the chakra part of my exam, not the weapons part.
However, if the clone were a living, breathing person who'd hidden himself within a decent genjutsu, then I'd have to find a different clone to dismiss. I could make another clone, I supposed. Technically, that would break both the letter and the spirit of the law, but credit has been given over less.
There were three proctors, the hijacked clone, and me in the room. At some point, my clone had been sabotaged. But hey, I've played hunt-the-clone before. It's not such a different game from memorize-the-chakra, and this time I wouldn't even have to go out of the room.
I stared at the clone, but I concentrated on the three proctors. Any of them could be a clone, and if not, one of them was almost certainly responsible for my clone's adaptations.
The oldest teacher, the one who had read off the usual instructions, was someone I recognized. One of his daughters had just graduated with Tenten and Neji's class. He was a strict man, but fair, and he'd often ended up teaching a few doors down from the kunoichi class lecture room. His heartbeat and all of the other patterns that living people have seemed to match up. I couldn't sense a genjutsu around him or any unusual airflow. Of course, if there were a clone in here, it was probably a shadow clone, and shadow clones live and breathe identically to real people. Basically.
Since I knew Iruka, I decided to focus on him last. The annoying proctor who'd assigned me this task was a lot higher on my suspicions list.
"Hurry up," the annoying proctor said, eyes narrowing as I watched my clone pointlessly. As he spoke, the genjutsu on my clone changed, and the air that had been muted suddenly started giving feedback. It was a legitimate sound. But anyone who's ever watched an animated GIF wouldn't take long to recognize it as a loop. I put my hands back into the dismissive seal and waited for a few seconds. The air didn't change with my movement, but when I stopped, it played a new pattern. An accurate pattern, but still a loop. Cool. That didn't help me at all.
Unfortunately, while I didn't recognize the third proctor, he checked out. I could have been wrong, but ten years is a long time to have sensitive hearing without learning a thing or two in a ninja village.
Iruka wasn't the one I'd imagined, hoped, or even considered to be a fake. That stung. The one teacher I felt I could trust blindly, and as I listened critically, little details about him began to fall apart. Oh, who was I kidding? His breathing, as well, was using a looping genjutsu. So he was a clone. In theory, I'd be able to dismiss "him" without much trouble. Read: in theory, the genin test was supposed to be possible.
I'd already tried dismissing "my" clone, and my hands were still shaped in the proper seal. "Kai," I said, focusing on the odd heartbeat that was Iruka, who at least still sounded like he was solid. Nothing happened.
Instead of taking it in stride and instantly finding a new angle, I'm afraid I turned away from my clone and glared at Iruka. Poor man. He was sweet, really, and Naruto wasn't the only neglected child who'd benefited from Iruka's kindness. Iruka wouldn't pull tricks on me. I'd thought.
I was less respectful now. The teachers were out to get me? Well, two could play at that game.
The gist of the problem was that my clone was no longer under my control (and might be a real person) and while it seemed that "Iruka" was a clone, I hadn't made him, so I couldn't just control his chakra. I could go stab him, but people here don't exactly let themselves get injured. Silly people.
Ugh, couldn't they just let my finding the real clone be enough? There had to be a way for them to let me release it using just my own hand seal. I didn't know any higher techniques!
Except one. I knew how to mimic chakra. But would mimicking Iruka's chakra actually mean my chakra would sync with his enough to dismiss his own clone? There had to be an easier solution.
Eh, I'm doing it anyway. The mimicry will come out one day, so may as well use it before I'm stuck in a battle.
All three of the teachers gave me odd looks, but I no longer cared what they thought. I was winning this thing.
The chakra Iruka was made of was pretty normal as the ninja spectrum goes. It still took me a while before I was properly mimicking, but hey, small victories. The jutsu went well, and soon I was ready to try to release a clone again. I didn't pause for ceremonial effect this time.
Poof!
Iruka's friendly face disappeared. The clone was gone, and a few moments later, its air genjutsu vanished, too. I eyed the remaining proctors as blandly as possible.
"You're dismissed," the older one said. "Go to your next exam."
I left the room without so much as a backwards glance at the remaining clone. As I walked outside, I was too far away to hear breathing, but it was only a minute before "my clone" changed into a very real Iruka. "She did well," Iruka said.
"According to her last physical assessment, she can probably hear you," one of the other men replied.
I couldn't hear Iruka smile, but I imagine he might have. He was a sweet young man.
Because my chakra exam had taken longer than the usual allotment of time, I'd been bumped to the end of the roster for the physical exam. I supposed it was probably better to wait now versus later. Since I was the last one, the full exam results wouldn't take long to be compiled.
After all the thought that went into the first two parts of the exam, the weapons test was pretty drab. I aimed shuriken. I missed all but one. I aimed senbon as a make-up grade. They missed, too.
The various endurance areas had already been tested over the week, so I knew where I stood with those. Not good enough to satisfy Daddy, of course. I'd have to beat him in single combat to accomplish that, and even then it would have to be best two out of three. Still, I'd done all right in the spars and other boring things.
When the kind proctor let me stop throwing kunai, I was finally allowed to try to hitting him without letting go of said weapon. I'd say that I came closer to hitting the proctor now, but one of the senbon had nearly stuck him in the eye, so I couldn't really do better than that. He probably thought I was trying to kill him, so he defeated me more quickly than was fair.
For my chosen weapon, I grabbed my tantō. He couldn't defeat me as quickly against that. If I could keep up with Kato's lightning-fast attacks, I could certainly manage a defense against an adult-sized opponent. A longer reach works great . . . until it gets hard to reach a short opponent and you have reach down to guard your ankles. He could swing at my head, and while I was too short to swing at his, I didn't have to lean over to do any good attacks.
I guess traps and jutsus weren't in this semester's test—or at least not mine—because after the massacre that was my last portion of the test, the proctor sent me to a classroom to stew with the rest of the victims.
It turns out that the moments after trauma are the best time to collect blackmail material. Wow, if two of these kids were going to be my future team, I wasn't sure whether this would be good or bad to listen to.
Fortunately, someone gave the list of test scores to the supervising teacher. It was my summer class teacher, and he waited for the nervous laughter to fade into subdued fear. "Come to the front when I call your name," he said. "I'll hand you your scores. If you have a passing score, you may return to your seat. If you failed, leave your paper on the desk closest to the door as you leave. Most of you failed, so review your weakest scores carefully if you plan to take the exam again. If this was your third failure, you're done."
A brief flash of pity shone in his eyes, but it was gone in a split second. Kids who had spent most of their lives trying to be ninjas would be devastated by failing for good, but this man knew they would die if they still hadn't gotten to the most basic level. He began calling names with his usual abruptness.
A shockwave of despair hit me. I'd failed. I knew I had. I might have failed the chakra test by doing something they hadn't expected. Even if I hadn't, my weapons grade and that written test had finished me off. I'd have to stand up and look at a percentage I'd never, ever gotten before. And this time, I truly deserved it. Most of my Academy life had been choosing which questions to miss on purpose. Today, I'd really tried, and today I expected some sort of percentage in the teens. I'd failed. I'd have to go home and tell Daddy my grade.
I'd have to tell Kato and some of my friends about my failure, too, but they weren't as intimidating. They weren't one of the most famous ninjas to ever live, and they hadn't graduated without much trouble at the age of five, and they weren't the parent I really, truly loved.
Maybe I could visit Isami and spend the night with her to work on some seals. Maybe someone could come and assassinate me in my sleep.
"Hatake," my teacher called. The eyes of the seated students glued to my back. They were curious—of course they were. If Naruto hadn't pulled a prank the moment he'd entered this classroom (he'd taken the test with the other half of the students in the opposite order of mine. He must have gotten stir-crazy during the written part), he'd literally be cheering for me. Probably. He was an odd child, and I think he suspected that there were only so many genin spots available, and I was vaguely competition.
Whoever was talking to him in a different room was still shouting.
I stood, and I found myself at the front desk, accepting the fateful sheet of paper. I floated to one of the empty corners, looked up to accidently return the curious gazes of a good fifteen students, and steeled myself. My peers weren't important. My grades weren't life-threateningly important—I could always re-take the exam, and I could wait another year if I chose. Even if I couldn't be a ninja, I could learn quite a few things without having a high security clearance. The Hokage might even let Suzume go on some missions. My seal work, certainly, could become invaluable. It just wasn't what I wanted to do with my life.
Hand-to-hand weapons: 5/5.
Applied logic: 6.5/7.
I skimmed down the page, not really seeing more than one or two words.
Cumulative score: 81%.
Oh.
Not my grade of choice, but it was passing.
I stayed in my little haze of shock as the teacher called us passing students back to get our forehead protectors and told us to sit quietly until team leaders were announced.
In the meantime, Naruto's lecturer told him his grades, and that he shouldn't come back to take the next graduation exam. "I'm going to be a ninja," Naruto fired back, "so that I can become Hokage and keep people like you from being bullies!" Phew, because Naruto and his future genin buddies were due to graduate at the next exam.
Meanwhile, the crowd of (kinda) new genin exchanged their grades and muttered about the kids who hadn't passed.
"I heard that this year there was only room for five teams, so they failed everyone but the highest scores."
"That's ridiculous. There's obviously more people than that in front of us."
"Yeah, I think my sister was pulling my leg. Just because she graduated early doesn't make her Hokage."
"Didn't your sister say she'd make everyone her miso ramen tonight?"
"I don't know why you think it's so good, Seiji. You don't even like ramen."
"Shut up."
As usual, the conversations were the only thing that made waiting bearable. Most of the kids had some form of jōnin idol, and Daddy ranked pretty highly on the scale of the ideal teacher. I wondered if he'd have a team foisted upon him again. Sometimes I think he didn't actually want to fail them. He definitely had a weakness for brat kids by this point.
Just so long as no one passed the bell test, and I wasn't assigned to my own father (on the other hand, surely he'd pass his own child), all would be well.
Every girl in the room had hopes of being placed with the overwhelmingly popular Toru. The boys in the room had a few girls they didn't hate, too. I was pretty amused when a few of the boys stuck their heads together and began whispering about me, since it was known that my hearing was a bit better than most people's. Cute!
I was suspected to have the best grade in the class, and were that the case, I'd end up on the same team as Toru, who had firmly won the boys' side of the competition. Toru's fanclub thought that that might be okay, since I never really talked to him. They had their reservations.
The chattering stopped when Iruka traded places with the summer class teacher. "Good afternoon, students," Iruka said, making eye contact with everyone but me. "I know you're all eager to get lunch, and I'm happy to tell you you'll get to eat soon. When I read off teams and respective jōnin leaders, I'll also give you a location. An hour from now, each of you must go to that location to meet your new jōnin leader. You're free to leave once you know your team and meeting spot."
His eyes traveled down the paper, skimming the various groups. He began. "Adachi Toru, Hatake Wakana, and Obata Omezo, your jōnin teacher is Morino Ibiki."
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~What is this, I have updated. Which of us is more shocked? Probably you, since I still have a backlog of reviews to go reply to. Hey, I managed to write and edit this, in the middle of the busiest semester of my life. An accomplishment by far.
Chronological thanks and replies to guests: Guest (Yes, it's a long road for sure), Guest (Define "soon"), and Fabulous (I don't think there are too many people who don't by this point. Yes, shipping costs are expensive, so think twice before you ship just anything. Shipping characters is fun, though.)
So, I mentioned it last time, but I'll repeat: the next chapter gets a Question and Answer thingy. FFN isn't a fan of "interactive" entries, so we'll make this tasteful. Ask any questions in a review, and I'll answer those questions as a public review reply. You can ask a character or me pretty much anything. I'll try to make it fun. I understand that most people won't ask a question (I've tried this before with another story . . . gigantic flop), but remember, this sort of thing is fun for everyone. So please, ask questions! Or suggest things, or anything, really. Your call! (:
While I'm here, I kinda spent a good bit of the summer slaving over a fic I posted pretty recently. If you're reading KK, you probably like self-insert stuff. So, if you don't outright hate Lord of the Rings, you could try reading the one-shot I wrote. It's called Ever a Sweeter Road and I love it. I think it's one of my best pieces. The nightmare-fuel scene in Handling Hatake, and this. Although this one isn't nightmare fuel. It's even got romance that kids probably won't choke on and yet adults will still like. Go try it. Worth a shot, right?
I don't know what the review incentive for this chapter is yet, but I'll figure something out. Please consider reviewing! Communicating with you guys is what makes this whole story fun. (:
Oh, yeah, and about that cliffhanger. . .