Disclaimer. I don't own Naruto.
Chapter 1: The Test
At the Ninja Academy of Konoha Village, in the head office, Iruka-sensei saluted the 3rd Hokage after a brief conversation.
"Sorry about this," the 3rd Hokage said.
"Not at all," Iruka-sensei replied, placing his hand back to his side. "I just wish it didn't have to come to this."
"Mm," the 3rd Hokage said while looking down at the papers in front of him.
"But, I understand the need," Iruka-sensei said.
"Very well then," the 3rd Hokage said.
Iruka-sensei saluted again and left the office of the academy's head.
In another place in the Ninja Academy, specifically in one of the classrooms, a bunch of students were gathered at the back and a various other students were scattered around the rest of the room. Anyone else might have noticed it as any other class on break. However, it was a break that was starting to gather closer and closer to the back of the room.
From the side of the classroom, the door opened, and Iruka-sensei, the homeroom teacher, walked in.
"Alright class, today is a special day, " Iruka-sensei said after walking to the front of the class, placing his papers down, and looking up to address the class. In his line of sight, where he normally looked due to his height was a growing ball of students who were... fighting.
"Get back here," Naruto screamed and dragged another kid back down.
"Make me! Like I'm afraid of you!" said one of the students Naruto was landing a punch on.
"What was that?!" Naruto said.
"I said-"
"Like I care what you say, you as-kicking little squirm," Naruto replied.
"Go for it, Naruto!" a student on the side-lines said.
"Fight, fight, fight," another student, and soon enough more students, on the side-lines chanted.
All the while, the ball of students at the back of the class grew bigger and bigger as the students either jumped into the fight or came over to edge the fight on.
There was a pause as Iruka-sensei took in the scene. And then panicking and screaming, Iruka-sensei said, "NARUTO!"
Outside, birds flew off the branches of the trees at the sudden disturbance.
A moment later, a line of battered students were seen outside in front of Iruka-sensei as he held a ruler in his ahnds, more to restrain himself than the students. In the middle of the line of students with a patch on his cheek and blond hair rattled up from his fight was the center of Iruka-sensei's attention.
"Naruto..." Iruka-sensei said, ready to pulverize any decent sense into the boy.
"Can't be helped," Naruto said before Iruka-sensei could start. "It's not like it's my fault. Besides, if he hadn't said anything, we'd be all find."
"Naruto..." Iruka-sensei said, still trembling and doing his best to still set an example. The best, Iruka-sensei thought. He would give these students the best sense he could find.
"Students," Iruka-sensei said and pointed to the whiteboard next to him with the village's hierachry sketched for the students. "As you all know, you are all here to learn and progress yourself to be ninjas of the village. You are here to exemplify yourself to the best you can be so that by the time you reach your role in the village, you will be doing the best you can to work for and possibly lead the Village to a better age than it is now. To do that, you will start from genin, to Chuunim, to Jonin ranking. And some of you, though not all, may be candidates to be the next Hokage-"
"Hokage and beyond," the class chimed in and finished for Iruka-sensei.
"Exactly," Iruka-sensei said. "Hokage and beyond and-" Iruka-sensei paused after that when he realized the students were just repeating what he said rather than understanding at the core. There was a pregnant silence as Iruka continued to restrain himself before breathing in and then breathing out. "Anyway, today you will be taking the retries for the Genin selection."
A loud groan sounded from the class. "Not again!" they chimed in unison and continued to moan and groan.
"Now," Iruka-sensei said, ready to give them instructions.
"Why can't you just pass the others already and fail us for the next year!" a student said.
"Yeah," another agreed.
Iruka-sensi sighed for the umpteenth time regarding this topic, and then pointed back to the drawing board.
"In words we can understand!" another student said.
Iruka-sensei's eyebrow twitched and then did his best to steady himself before turning to the class.
"As you all know, the number of students who passed in this class is-" Iruka-sensei said.
"Sasuke passed!" one of the students interjected.
"Exactly," Iruka-sensei said. "Out of all of you here, Sasuke passed. So, dividing by the number of students here, which is thirty, that means only one out of thirty passed, which is extremely low."
"So?! Then let him pass and move on," a student said.
"Yeah!" the class interjected in union.
"That," Iruka-sensei said. "Is not acceptable."
"Why not!" a group of students said.
"Yeah, that's what happened last year!" a student added.
"And you held Sasuke back, too. If you can do it one year, why can't you do it another year?" another student said, followed by a crowd of agreement.
"B-because, that's not right," Iruka-sensei said.
"Then let Sasuke pass!" a student said, exasperated. The solution was so simple.
"That's no the point," Iruka-sensei said. "This class must show at least seventy-five percent pass before we can move to the Genin selection."
"Oh come on, why does only our class have to deal with this?" was the complaint.
"Because," Iruka-sensei said, about ready to cry. "All the other classes passed with an average of ninety-five percent.
"Aw, come on!" came the cry of protest.
"So what?" a student said.
"Yeah!" a chorus sounded.
"Anyway," Iruka-sensei said, having lost the will eot say any more inspiring words from his momentary depression. "You will all report to the Eastern field for you test. The details will be given when you arrive in the morning."
"What?! Why can't you just pass Sasuke already!"
"Yeah, he's going to be the only one to pass again anyway!"
In front of the class, Iruka-sensei could only tear up having not reached the students' minds one bit. The students only continued to protest.
As the sun set, the students all went home in their normal pack and directions.
"Ah, I wonder what's for dinner tonight," Naruto said and he stretched his arms up and behind his head with a grin.
Shikamaru sighed beside him. "What a drag tomorrow is going to be."
"Forget it, forget it, there's morning breakfast tomorrow morning," Naruto said.
Shikamaru sighed behind him as they both headed home.
In another direction, a bunch of girls walked in a similar fashion.
"How annoying, why can't Iruka-sensei just treat us like the other students and fail us already."
"Apparently, it's because the other classes all passed with ninety-five percent."
"So what."
The girls sighed and then separated to go their own ways.
The next morning at the Eastern fields, Iruka-sensei smiled with tears after a head count showed that no head was missing. They're all here, he thought. They're all legitimately here.
"Ah, breakfast was good this morning!" Naruto said loudly. "Come to think of it, dinner was, too!"
"Hurry up with the test so we can all fail already," another student said.
"Yeah, what's the prompt already?"
"Class," Iruka-sensei said. " Today's test will be administered by the 3rd Hokage himself and his team." Iruka-sensei cleared his throat. "So, let's all give warm welcome to... the 3rd Hokage!" Iruka then pointed to the 3rd Hokage beside him.
Iruka-sensei was met with silence as the class stared at the man in white cloak whom until then they had not noticed.
The 3rd Hokage coughed and stepped forward. "Good morning kids," he said. Behind him, Iruka-sensei cried in tears of both joy from the task taken up by the 3rd Hokage himself and an unexplainable feeling of mixed joy and relief. "What a bunch of small faces I see," The 3rd Hokage said. He was met by silence.
The third Hokage chuckled. "Very well, since you're all excited about the test, let me go ahead and explain so we can all get going, shall we?" When he was met by silence, the third Hokage pointed to a map of the field. "As you all can see, the Eastern field is extremely big and wide. We have cornered off a section of the field so you may all take your exams. Now the task is quite simple. You will be given clues to an object that you will have to bring back in order to pass. You will be given three days to do this each time."
"Three days?" one of the students said. "Why do we need three days?"
The third Hokage chuckled. "You will be given three days," he corrected. "You can of course finish earlier. However, there are some extra rules. You will be teamed up, and the clues you get will be split among the three of you. The rule is simple. The weight of you clue must be that of your success. If you fail, you will retake the test with another team."
"Retake?" a student asked.
"That's it. Good luck," the third Hokage said and moved to the side as a bunch of ninjas carrying clipboards started calling names.
Two weeks and four tries later, on the same field in another morning, the third Hokage's team could be seen dropping slips of fail to the ground next to the little kids.
"Are you kidding me?!" a student freaked as one of the adult ninjas dropped a fail slip next to him. "How is that a fail? We found the freaking object! This is crazy! Is there no end to this?!" The adult ninja simply gave him a number and moved to do the same for the next group.
In field eight, Sasuke rubbed his head and sighed as he got his glue and the ninja assigned to him locked the gates. He opened the slip of paper containing his clue and immediately gave a tsk. "An herb" was the only clue he got. Just like the other four times, it wasn't enough to pin-point what was needed. There were plenty of herbs in the field and like the other times, a description was not given and hadn't been given, at least not to him. This was the fifth time, and there were only three types of clues. He was starting to think the test was hooked to never give him a description. He was starting to catch the pattern from the other times. One clue was generally the generic clue, the one that indicated the generic object needed, like "rock", or "leaf", or in this case "herb". The second clue generally contained the location of the clue. And the third clue tended to be the description of the exact object without telling what the object was. So far, he had only gotten the location type clue once, and none of the times had he gotten the description clue. If he had the description clue, he could infer the object and thereby infer the place. But out of the five times, he hadn't gotten the description even once. He figured if he could get the clue that'll tell him all he needed to know, he could satisfy the requirement of equating weight of clue to contribution once he found the item, but it looks like they were going to give him that.
Morever, Sasuke stared at the trees in front of him, he was going to have to find his teammates, which was the other thing. As simple as the task was, even the location of the three people on the same team started out as different. It was as if the test planners had thought of the simple take the papers from the other teammates in the beginning and find the object, making him have to not only do all the work but find the other teammates as well, further putting him behind on the clue weight equals success weight equation.
Sasuke stuffed his clue into his pocket and walked into the forest. Who was he going to have to pair up with this time?
Tell me what you think so far. :X