Author's Note:
I am still not in the position of owning Naruto, although if I did, the good characters wouldn't be the ones to die off. Secondly, I'm sorry for not updating as quickly as I had been. Hopefully that will go back to normal, but no promises.
Chapter 17
Ikibi, which was how the man who presided over them had introduced himself. He told them that the first part of the exam would be written and that they would have exactly an hour to complete the first nine questions. It had seemed pretty easy at that point, until he passed out the papers. The papers filled with nine questions that Hinata didn't know the answers to. But she had to get the answers somehow; they passed as a team after all. If one person failed, then they all failed. She promised that she wouldn't be the one to hold them back. Silently, she fed chakra into her eyes, awakening the power of her family, Byakugan. She looked discreetly around the room, searching for someone who would have the answers she needed with her new eyes. She didn't like it, but it was the only way: to cheat. Quickly finding answers that looked acceptable, she wrote them on her paper.
As she glanced around again to verify her answers, she discovered that both Kitsumi and Naruto hadn't come up with the appropriate answers either. They didn't have her eyes, so they would need another method to get the answers. But time was running out for them all, she had to somehow give them her answers. Thinking back through what she knew, she found one technique that would work. Now she just had to pull it off long enough to write the answers. Concentrating as much as she could, she focused her chakra on the open bottle of ink she held under her desk. Slowly, it began to snake out of the container, and move towards the underside of Naruto's desk. Upon seeing the ink, Naruto adopted a look of concentration that matched her own. Although he probably wasn't doing it to go along with the plan, it helped regardless. Eventually, she pulled the snake onto his desk, and began to use it to fill in the answers on his paper. Ikibi and the other proctors just saw it as Naruto showing off, and didn't really pay attention to it. He had been loud and obnoxious for the entire exam after all. She finished writing as quickly as possible, controlling the snake to leave a small section of itself behind when it touched the paper. When it finished, she hastily (for the slothful snake) returned it to the vial. Unfortunately, she didn't have enough chakra to help Kitsumi as well, but she seemed to have suddenly found some answers, which she hastily wrote down. Seeing that they would pass, Hinata carefully laid her head on the desk, and began to recover.
She thought back to the week before when Kakashi had taught her the technique. Once the others had left for their training, Kakashi had pulled out a water bottle.
"Now, the technique I will teach you is one that my sensei invented. Well, it's not finished or named yet, but it's complete enough to teach you." Kakashi's lazy expression was momentarily replaced by a softer lonely look, which faded seconds later.
"Now, this technique requires a large amount of chakra control, so we'll see if you can do it." Kakashi slowly snaked water out of the bottle, until a two meter long strand had appeared. It began to sway to the sides, dancing in mid air. Kakashi flicked his finger slightly, and the rope looped down around to one of the bridges supports, easily cutting through it.
"Um… What do I do..?" Hinata looked at the graceful water, her eyes twinkling at the graceful technique.
"First, you get some water." Kakashi motioned to the lake under the river.
"Ok…" Hinata stooped down, and picked up water, which rested slightly above her hands in a hemisphere.
"Now you focus chakra from your other hand, and thin and elongate the water between them." Kakashi smiled, he knew excellent chakra control was necessary for the Hyuuga forms, but Hinata's control surpassed even those expectations.
He mused softly, 'She might even master the technique before the final battles.' When he looked back, she had a very thick rope about 5 centimeters long. "Very good Hinata, now just keep practicing, and when you can make it at least a meter long, then I'll show you the second part."
That memory led to another, less pleasant memory. She was in the training ground with her father, practicing the Jyuuken. Whenever this happened, the two would conflict, but this time seemed worse than the others.
"Hinata, you need to practice your stance more." A disappointed Hiashi told her after a particularly bad spar.
"I do practice father." Hinata mumbled, not daring to stutter at this point.
"You practice, but never the stances. How do you expect to carry on the Hyuuga legacy, if you can't even perform the basic Jyuuken?" Hiashi would not give up easily this time, and Hinata almost let out a sigh.
"But if I have enough control, the stances aren't necessary father. I just need to be able to control better." Hinata looked pleadingly at her father, but he didn't give in.
"You can tell me that after you defeat your cousin Neji, or even your sister." Hiashi frowned at the last part. Hinata didn't respond, and simply took up her stance again, knowing that someday, she would defeat Neji and Hanabi, but in her own way, not theirs.
"Now, before I give you all the final question, there is something I must tell you. If you should answer the last question incorrectly, you will never be able to become a chuunin. If you should leave now, you can take the test again next year, but once I ask the question, anyone who doesn't pass will have to take the exam again." Ikibi finished with an evil smile that only a professional could.
Hinata was shaken by his words, 'what if she failed?' She looked over quickly to Naruto, knowing that he would never give up. Even still, she couldn't pull of that technique again, so if he didn't know the answers, there was nothing she could do to help.
A few others quietly left, followed by their teammates (some more willingly than others). This did nothing to calm her nerves. Almost as if in response to her fears, Naruto stood up suddenly.
"Before any of you even think about leaving, even if you do leave and come back next year, wouldn't you just leave again? You'll face the same problem each year, and just walk out. If you walk out now, then you'll never be a chuunin." Naruto emphasized the word then, in direct confrontation to Ikibi's earlier speech.
"Thank you Naruto-kun."She silently mouthed as he sat back down beside her. The speech appeared to affect many others as well, for no one else left the room. Ikibi glared softly at Naruto, knowing this would be the most students he'd ever passed in a single test.
"Alright, it looks like no one else is going to leave, but I'll give you one last chance before I ask the question. Any takers?" No one got up, so Ikibi continued without much pause, "Well, then you all pass. The last question was whether or not you had enough confidence in your—"
"Hello, I'm Mitarashi Anko and I'll be taking you maggots to your next test" The crash of a window signified the entrance of their next proctor, dressed in just enough clothing to avoid arrest. With a grin that rivaled Naruto's in size, she quickly ordered the students, "Follow me maggots." And completely ignoring Ikibi's protests about her earliness, she bounded off to the forest of death.