It seemed tomorrow had come too soon for Naruto, as much as Rin could tell, the blonde was obviously nervous. He had been the first to wake, not even bothering to take to time to before he left the apartment. On top of that he was fidgeting in his seat and talking loudly with Kiba who was a slightly annoying but kind idiot.

Honestly Rin was starting to get nervous too, despite his friend, Hinata's, usually calming voice in his ear. He was trying to pay attention to whatever she was saying, something about plums?, but it was no use. His thoughts kept coming back to the fact that today was THE day.

Hinata, bless her, realized he wasn't listening and left him to his musings. When Iruka sensei walked through the door to address the class, she nudged his arm. He gave her grateful smile.

"Alright everyone listen up!"

Instantly the room became so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Naruto even stopped moving, which was good because he was sitting rather close to Kiba and despite the two both being similar in personalities (read: airheads) nobody needed them to start creaming each other because Naruto smacked something important.

"Today is the day of the graduation exam. To pass the exam is quite simple, you need to create three prefect clones. Each clone must be identical to your person and hold their form."

Hearing this you could now practically feel the class as a whole relax when the tension dropped. This was going to be easy.

"When you hear your name called, come to the room next door."

With that Iruka sensei left and the class resumed their conversations.

Naruto was fidgeting again.

Great.

When Rin is called into the room he is surprised to see that it wasn't built like a normal classroom. Instead the room was void of anything besides a chalkboard and a table hold rows of head protectors. Standing behind it stood Iruka and another man. Rin didn't know him very well but recognized him as another academy teacher and chunin, Mizuki.

Iruka gave a sight nod to the middle of the room. "You may begin when ready.

Taking his stance, Rin took a deep breath, forming the correct hand movements. He didn't even need to finish them to know he would pass. While normally jutsu were difficult to perform, he'd been practicing this particular one since he was taught. Clones were after all very useful.

There was a soft 'poof' and when he turned, there stood a trio perfectly identical red heads. The clones flickered their own blue eyes to the two men and raised their eyebrows as if to say well? Rin mirrored the expression.

With a snort Iruka handed him a head protector.

"Congratulations," they both said.

Accepting the protector, he banished the clones with a hard poke to the ribs. "What about Naruto?"

Rin what the answer was to that was Iruka sighed and Mizuki looked down. "He did not pass."

"Then I can't accept this." Was his response, it was the same as the last three times.

Immediately Iruka looked sharply at the boy. "You will not do this again Rin. You already earned the right to wear the protector of the Leaf and I will not allow you to be held back because of your brother."

"What do you mean 'you will not allow me'!? I can't become a ninja without Naruto! I-"

"You will," Iruka interrupted. "I understand your situation is...different, but your responsibility is first to Kohona and her people. You became a ninja for a reason, remember this."

Rin held his mouth shut, punching down the urge to start yelling some more. It obviously wouldn't solve anything.

Giving the two a stiff bow, he turned on his toes and marched to the door, slamming it shut behind him.

How dare he! Who did Iruka sensei think he was!? He worked hard to get this useless thing, he should have the right to give it back! Besides... Rin definitely didn't deserve it. Not really anyway. He didn't become a ninja for Kohona or her ungrateful people! He did it for Naruto, to protect his brother and help him on his quest to become Hokage.

Naruto...

Reaching the doors to go outside he felt his annoyance drain out of him. What the hell were they going to do now? Becoming a ninja was Naruto's dream and with this being his last chance...he literally had nothing left going for him. Unless Teuchi took pity and hired the blonde to be a taste tester.

Walking outside he didn't bother looking for Naruto in the crowd, instead he started walking towards their normal meeting spot. Very rarely did anyone besides the occasional underclassmen come near the old tree swing and as they didn't bother with the older students problems, the twins didn't mind sharing the space.

"Yo," he muttered to the blonde, nudging his shoulder affectionately.

Naruto barely looked up from the dirt covered ground. "You pass?" he asked quietly.

"Yeah," Rin said just as soft. "You want to go get ramen?," he asked in hope of cheering is bother up with his favorite food.

"Nah, I'm gonna take a walk."

With that Naruto slide off the swing and out of the school grounds, not even noticing when a pair of mothers both shot him a glare then smirked.

Just great.

As day slowly fell to night Rin found himself beginning worry. Whatever anger he had earlier had been eaten up by a dark, deep monster pit in his stomach and left no room for anything else.

Naruto hadn't come home from his walk and he probably hadn't eaten too. On top of that it was completely useless to go searching for him. When Naruto really didn't want to be found, he wasn't.

Any other time Rin was secretly proud.

Now though? Rin just wanted him to come home so he could hug him then smack him silly for making him feel this way. It was horrible.

Eventually he tried to get some sleep only to be woken up barely an hour later by frantic knocking on the door. He rushed to open it.

"Iruka sensei?"

The man was out of breath and sweaty, with deep lines of worry etched into his face. He looked old.

"Where's Naruto?" He said breathlessly, searching what he could see of the small apartment through the doorway.

"Wha? He's..." Quickly he went back to when he first woke. The room had been empty. "Not here."

Iruka cursed and suddenly Rin felt sick.

"Why?"

"Naruto stole an important scroll from the Hokage's home tonight. He's wanted for questioning. Do you know where he might be?"

What?

Rin stared at the man in shock. Naruto stole something something so important that he had ninja running after him? Sure he was hurting but he wasn't stupid!

Remembering Iruka's he quickly shook his head, "No! He hasn't been home all day."

Iruka cursed again and guilt flooded his eyes.

"I'm going to look for him. Stay here." He said it seriously enough that had Rin nodding.

Accepting his confirmation that he'll stay put, Iruka left as quickly as he came, leaving Rin crumbled to the floor once the door closed.

This was ridiculous! Why would Naruto do something that would more than likely label him as a traitor? He loved this village more than anything despite it's flaws.

He wouldn't just leave him alone here

Yes he would, whispered a nasty little voice in the back of his head. He was certainly angry enough. Why would he want to stay with you when you stole his dream?

Shut up, Rin growled back. You don't know what you're talking about.

The voice said nothing to that.

The next two painstakingly slow hours were spent pacing around the house. His fingers were tingling from the constant wringing he was doing, and he was about to rip his hair out.

He was about to say screw it, and go searching for Naruto himself, when low and behold the blonde walked through the door with Iruka at his side.

They were absolutely filthy. They were both covered in dirt and leaves, blood oozing from small cuts and scraps, and bruises were slowly forming from what skin Rin could see.

And...well they were smiling.

You couldn't blame him for the white blinding rage he felt and whatever they saw on his face quickly wiped the grins off theirs.

"You IDIOT!," he shrieked, knocking Naruto to the ground, smacking whatever he could hit before crushing him into a hug.

"What the hell!?," he then screamed at Iruka who had the decency to look scared. Honestly what the fuck!? Here he was about to be sick with worry and then they come in laughing as if nothing was wrong?

Saving Iruka's skin, Naruto immediately started to tell the story of what happened. Of how Mizuki told him of a secret scroll, that if he learned a jutsu from it he would become a ninja. How he spent hours in the forest learning the shadow clone jutsu, and how after he finished Iruka and Mizuki found him.

Here Iruka cut him off to tell Rin of their battle, skipping over the not quite discovery of the Nine Tails, which was still a village secret and if Naruto was going to tell him, he wanted it to happen when he wasn't there.

Their tale ended with Naruto getting Iruka's head protector and Mizuki getting passed on to a interrogator to be questioned. No matter how angry Rin had felt, it didn't stop how proud he was. This was nothing compared to he felt about Mizuki though. He'll pay.

At least they didn't need to worry about Naruto being a civilian. That would be hell.

A/N Well I don't know what the heck happened but thanks ya'll!