CHAPTER NINE – Present Day, Human World, Village of Konohagakure

(This page is held to the previous one by tape, as the upper half of the page has slipped out of the spine)

Two shinobi sat adjacent to each other in a brightly-lit office-type setting. Two chairs positioned immediately across from and parallel to a large table built into the floor, behind which four high-ranking Konoha officials sat with Jiraiya and the Director of Staffing and Coordinating in the middle. Several file folders with official records in them were in the possession of all four members of the judging committee. Each had a glass of water, and Jiraiya drank his and began to speak; "Umino Iruka, the issue at hand is the deciding whether or not to promote you in rank. According to the proctors who examined you in the training period, you performed below average in the first group of tests, and excelled in the latter ones. Based on what the ANBU protecting your group during the field mission, I'd say it went rather smoothly and your teaching styles were effective. Please stand." Iruka complied. "Umino Iruka, this council hereby raises you in rank to Class 2 Specialist-Type Jounin, and awards you a field commission of level 3."

Iruka bowed. "Thank you, very much sir!" When the nod came, he left the room his head lifted in pride. What he had become very few accomplished; you could train fifty years in the most vicious ways imaginable and never exceed level 2 for a field commission, which signified what type of work you were expected to do in the midst of battle. Level ones always had the misfortune of being grunts, doing the labor of weakening the enemies numbers while in groups of other jounin, and often got implemented as human shields. Level two's often got the henchmen of the main targets and rarely, the targets themselves, and were most often used only as backup or policing. But the highly-respected and idolized level threes got the leadership positions in groups and assassinated main targets. They also were paid higher than any other rank. To go higher than level three you had to be higher than a class two jounin.

Jiraiya turned to Yondaime's adopted child. "Uzumaki Naruto, Honorable Son of the Fourth Hokage, the issue at hand is the same as with Iruka, deciding your rank." he cleared his throat as a way of stalling. "You...have an interesting report. You have displayed nothing short of exceptional talent, unprecedented skill, and most of all, wisdom and a keenness of sense. Your proctors gave you nothing short of the best reports imaginable, and you were recommended with unequaled regard. The...incident...involving you and your team would normally be grounds for suspension from the ninja ranks, but your quick thinking, and proper answer to a situation that would confuse others makes up for it in a way. Your genin vouch for you, saying you were a wonderful sensei they wish to continue training under. Please stand." Naruto complied.

"Uzumaki Naruto, taking into account the negative outcome of your team being kidnapped, and the positive response, as well as the extenuating circumstances reported by the ANBU, this council hereby raises you in rank to a Class 1 Sensei-Type Jounin, and awards you a field commission of level 2."

Naruto clenched a fist in pride. "I thank you, Jiraiya-sama!" He exited the chamber, dancing as he walked. Due to the cock-up that was his team being abducted, he didn't honestly expect to be passed. However, to be awarded the rank of Jounin (of any classification) and a field commission as high as two was amazing to him.

Starting off down the halls he met a short time after the office with the Chief Examination Officer, who had the unique task of supervising the chuunin and jounin exams. Naruto had met with him before, but this time he looked significantly more focused. The blonde jounin made eye contact and smiled, waving. "Akira-san! You ready for this year's chuunin exam?" He expected and received the typical answer from the Class 3 Officer-Type Jounin.

"Yeah, Naruto-san," he admitted, "but I've been slacking off lately. I guess I just am not as driven this year as I should be."

Naruto squinted. "Akira-san? That isn't like you!"

The older jounin chuckled and patted his younger comrade on the shoulder. "Ah, I'm just fucking with you. Of course, I'm fully prepared. And I can't wait to see how this year's cream of the crop perform against the other villages!"

Naruto playfully tapped his older jounin in the chest. "I remember meeting with you exactly one week before the first chuunin exam I took. What is it you told me? Oh, 'Watch out. At your age you're one of the youngest here. You'll likely get bullied.' Well, I think that's what drove me so hard to pass. So maybe you're getting a bit old to keep doing this."

"Old?" Akira laughed. "If I'm getting old for my job then Jiraiya should have retired twenty years ago!" A question he'd been meaning to pose came to mind. "How's your mother doing since the abduction?"

Naruto initially wondered which abduction, but realized the obvious answer. "Since she got back, it's really been water under the bridge. The only complaint she had was that Orochimaru wasn't among the Akatsuki present."

Akira recalled the personal lessons he received from Kyuubi. "That sounds like your mother. Well, I have matches to plan and questions to think up. I'll be seeing you! I was thinking of having you be one of the proctors of the first exam. You know, point out and signify the failures?"

The blonde shinobi nodded. "Be glad to, Akira-san!" He strolled off.

"Hey, Naruto-sensei!" he turned around. Standing behind him were his three genin. This time, unlike the last time they met, Otowano assumed the mantle of leading the other two. Satoshi seemed somewhat angst-ridden (like always), but less so than previously. Yomiko looked quite less peeved than before and happier as well. Each one had a drive to learn that Naruto had previously only seen in one of them. "Did you pass?"

"I did, Satoshi," he reminded his skinny team member, "I did." In response they each did something Naruto would never forget.

Otowano raised his fist. The others would immediately after. "Hoohaaa!"

"Kick ass!" Yomiko made sure her presence was known.

"Big time!"

Naruto grinned and gave them the two thumbs up. "Everybody needs a catch phrase! Yeah!"

Otowano seemed confused. "What happened to 'Believe it!'?"

Naruto winked. "I don't have to tell them to believe, they'll know as soon as they see what I can do. So it's just 'yeah!'"

The high-spirited genin shrugged his shoulders and raised his fist yet again. "Naruto has a new catchphrase! Hoohaaa!"

Yomiko rolled her eyes. "You are damn impossible."

The three stepped in front of their sensei and as a group proceeded to the ramen stand to celebrate. Even though Naruto had to end up paying, the group still had a good time.

The date of the chuunin exam came much quicker than expected for Naruto. Standing in the room in which the written, first part of the long exam had been scheduled to take place, the blonde jounin stared out the windows at the scores of would-be journeyman ninjas. He spotted, amongst the crowd, Sakura, Sasuke and the third member, a dark haired young boy he had never met before. He found it amusing that the last time they met, he had been a chuunin going for a jounin exam, and this time he was the jounin and they were going for their chuunin exam.

"Naruto-san!" the blonde shinobi looked behind him at Ibiki, who had spoken up. "You got your observation skills up?" He raised a questioning eyebrow at the Special Jounin.

"Have I ever been unobservant?"

"Not at all. Just make sure you catch as many as possible," Ibiki instructed. "We can only have so many chuunin out of each exam."

Naruto nodded. "I understand completely." How the roles change, he thought; he had been on the other side the last time he sat in this room.

The crowd entered the exam room, and each individual exam applicant sat down and were handed a piece of paper. Ibiki provided a long, detailed explanation. None were pleased to hear the complicated instructions. The scores of each three man team were graded collectively, and if any one of the three on a team failed, they all failed. Furthermore, ten points started out each genin, losing one for each wrong answer and two automatically for any instances of cheating discovered. Nonetheless, each one began at the scheduled time. Naruto and the other proctors kept their eyes trained on the crowd, marking down the number of times cheating next to the names of the cheaters. The tension in the room hovered above the group of genin, and seemed thicker than the air around it. The blonde jounin smiled as he thought of the irony. When he had sat in the place of many of the genin, he prayed that his styles of observation caught as many answers from other genin as possible without being caught, and now he prayed his styles of observation caught as many genin cheating as possible. The proctors for this time around were some of the best the village had to offer.

When the final ten minutes came around, Ibiki pulled the same trick he pulled every year. "Okay," he began, "before I give out the final question, I must ask which of you want to take it. And the reason I ask that is because of the following." The facial expressions of many genin betrayed their confusion. "If you don't take the question, you and your teammates automatically fail."

Sure enough, as always would happen, one genin chimed in with, "Then why would any of us not take the question?" Ibiki grinned his sadistic way.

"Because of the second rule," he explained. "Any who take the question and miss it, are barred from EVER taking the chuunin exam again." A wave of fear blew over the young crowd like the tide eroding the beach away. Jaws dropped, eyes bugged out, and many of the genin right away knew they were not going to take the risk. "You don't take the question? That means you get to try again next year. But take it and get it wrong you'll never be a chuunin. Those leaving, raise your hand!" Of those not sent away by the proctors for cheating, many of the remaining made what they considered to be the rational choice and left without taking the question. The enormous group had significantly whittled down by the time Ibiki made the final call for any who were willing to leave. The final tally ranked somewhere around twenty-five teams.

"Alright, for any of those who decided to stick around, please prepare," the scarred elite jounin remarked, turning his back to the group. Naruto covered his mouth—pretending to wipe dust off his face—in order to mask his grin at how mean it was to pull this trick at the end of part one of the chunin exam. With sweat dripping off some of the genin, Ibiki turned back to the group and smiled. "You all pass!" The blonde jounin bowed his head with a smirk as he saw the confusion overcome the group almost in the manner of a wave.

"What the..." one genin burst out with. "What about the tenth question?"

Ibiki shook his head, still grinning at the humor of the situation he had created. "There is none, beyond the whole 'take the question or not' thing."

Sakura shook her head. "Then...what's with the trickery?"

At this point Naruto stood up. "It's a way of weeding out the weak willed and gutless," he fired back. He waited for the confused look he knew he'd get from his former teammate. "I mean, think about it. Could any chuunin, of any background story, be truly worthy of the position of journeyman ninja without taking on the missions where, much like this tenth question, the premise is not only impossible, but undesirable?" He then spread his focus on each member. "Let's say you all become chuunin. You can't just take the safe missions in this line of work. Life won't allow it, and neither will most kage's you might serve under. Here you were focused with two options. Neither seemed very pleasant. You take the question and fail, you could never be a chuunin again. You don't take the question, you fail automatically but still can try out. We were hoping to eliminate more of you, but I'm pleased with the results."

Ibiki folded his arms. "Excellent explanation, Naruto-san." The former Chief Interrogator of the village looked at the applicants and motioned to Naruto. "This is the Honorable Son of our Yondaime Hokage, one of the most skilled—not to mention youngest—jounin we've had in a long time. He took the test you're taking now and passed ahead of 117 possible applicants."

It happened to be at this point that the back window shattered instantly. A feminine figure in a cannonball position flying through the air launched two kunai in seemingly opposing directions which attached a flag to a hanging position from the ceiling. She, a fishnet-covered jounin in her own right, with a bloodlust-filled look on her face, stood erect with the words "Mitarashi Anko, Second Stage Chuunin Exam Proctor" emblazoned on the dark green flag behind her. In a loud, overbearing voice she cried, "Hi there. I'm Mitarashi Anko, and for stage two, you get the honor of being with ME!" She looked around at a room full of exasperated faces. She then gazed at Ibiki. "Ibiki! How could you pass twenty-six teams?"

"We had an exceptionally good crew this year."

Anko shook her head. "Bullshit! I'll drop half of you by the time I'm through!" Many of the remaining genin shivered at the prospect of being reduced in number by half. The group, although several seemed reluctant to continue, moved forward through the village to stage two, the forest of death. The large group of genin gathered in front of the entrance to the large forest. "Alright, everyone! Here is the deal. There is a tower at the center of the forest. You must make it there as a team, alive, with both of these. Oh, and one more thing: you have five days." She lifted two scrolls for them all to see. "I am giving one to each team. This will automatically make it so that at most, only half can pass." Naruto, standing to the left of Anko, quickly scanned through the field of genin. His eyes passed a gray-haired figure with glasses.

Hmm, he thought. Yakushi Kabuto. Now where in the fuck does his name come in? I know that face is familiar. Naruto tried to place where he'd seen that face before.

"Let me give you a piece of advice," Anko said before sending the genin on their way. "Just don't die!" She then motioned for them all to pass through a tent where they were handed their scrolls so the others couldn't see. Then the teams went on their way.

Sakura, Sasuke, and the third teammate Torijiro Kuzaku, who replaced Naruto, headed on into the forest. Sakura looked deliberately a few moments at the long-haired genin. Ever the calculating type, he approached every situation analytically. Even though he had nowhere near the skill Naruto had, he had a good deal of maturity. Ever analyzing, him and Sasuke visualized any possible attack point for an enemy to appear in. Over the period of a few hours, they fielded attacks from several different enemy teams.

Anko sat down on a log next to Naruto. She leaned her head to look him in the eye, which proved difficult considering he stared at the ground. "Naruto-san?" she broke the ice with, "is everything okay?"

He shook his head to affirm. "Yeah, I'm just thinking."

Resting after a while of moving on, team seven sat down by a self-made campfire to relax. Sasuke had a concern. "Look, if we're going to be able to keep track of who's us and who's an enemy, we have to come up with some form of password or something," the Uchiha explained. Torijiro nodded.

"Yeah, that's a good idea."

Sakura chimed in with, "I have a poem that we can memorize." A fist met with her face. Torijiro immediately had his kunai drawn and swung for Sasuke, who obviously had been a fake.

"Who the hell are you, you fake?" The newest team member strafed left and right, slowly and deliberately, while keeping his eyes on the phony. "I've known you were a fake for about the last twenty minutes, so why don't you tell me where Sasuke is?"

"Hmm. How about...no?" With a shout he dove for the scroll in Sakura's hip pouch. Faster than the phony could blink, Torijiro pounced on him and landed with two kunai in the fake Sasuke's chest. He stood up and replaced his knives, turning to check Sakura. She shook her head to calm down while she slowed her breathing.

"Torijiro? Where's Sasuke?"

A figure pounced up from behind some bushes. It was—or at least appeared to be—Sasuke. "Wait!" Torijiro had his kunai pointed in the direction of who he believed to be his teammate. "How can I trust it's you?"

Sasuke grinned. "Didn't I catch you masturbating once?"

Torijiro rolled his eyes. "Yeah, it's you." Only Sasuke would know that.

A figure approached from behind some bushes. Sasuke, Sakura, and their new teammate all looked at him suspiciously. "Naruto? What're you doing here?"

At the rest area, Anko began to stand up when Naruto jerked straight up, with a frightened look on his face. "Oh SHIT!" he screamed. Anko became alert.

"What is it?"

"I just figured something out! Yakushi Kabuto!"

Anko lowered her eyebrows in confusion. "Who?"

He faced her. "I saw Yakushi Kabuto among the genin and I knew I'd seen his face somewhere before! His face was on a piece of paper which listed people with potential ties to Akatsuki! If Yakushi Kabuto IS tied to Akatsuki..."

When she caught on, her eyes widened. "OROCHIMARU!" She shook her head. "Oh shit! We have to get help!"

Naruto turned to her. "YOU go get the ANBU. Orochimaru, if he's here I know where he'll be."

Anko looked at him like he was nuts. "How could you possibly know where the fuck he'd be?"

"He'd be going after team seven."

"Why?"

"They're friends of mine. For some reason, Orochimaru and Akatsuki are gathering demons. That's why they kidnapped my mother a while back. If he wants me he'll go searching for them. Plus, this gives him a chance to scope out potential prey."

Anko prepared to leave, but turned to the young jounin at the last minute. "How are you going to take Orochimaru!" She watched in horror as a reddish aura overcame Naruto. His bones twisted and bent as his flesh expanded disgustingly like rising dough. The expanding body ripped his clothing to shreds and blonde hair became fur all over his body. The space directly above his anus spouted nine distinct tails. In a matter of less than a minute, a nine tailed youko standing no less than eleven feet tall towered above her.

In a voice at least seven octaves deeper, he boomed, "I'm going all out on him."

She stood terrified at the sight of the young yet mighty fox demon. "Ho...ly...sh...shi...shit..." she stammered. In a flash, he bounded into the forest and was gone. So THIS is the horrifying power of a fox demon, she thought. And fuck! He's only twelve! I can only imagine what Lady Kyuubi must be like!