Code SIN - IV. Academy Days - Genin Exam

"Hurry up, Whiskers!"

Naruto grinned at the nickname. "Aw, nicknames already Ino-chan? We're not even at the 'hand holding' stage yet!"

"Sorry to bust your pride, but I'll still choose Sasuke-kun over you, Whiskers!" The blond girl informed him.

Naruto shrugged. "Hey, no harm, no foul. I like being your friend, Ino-chan."

Ino mock pouted. "Does that mean you don't think I'm pretty?"

Naruto laughed. Ino just never changed. She's still the same brash, Sasuke fan girl that had somehow befriended the Academy anti-socialite. The same brave and fearless girl that defied the wishes of the other children and their parents, just for the fun of it.

However, today, said brave and fearless girl was nervous. Because today was the day that all the Academy students have been studying for in the last three years. Today, was the Genin Exam.

The Genin Exam was basically an evaluation of their skills, used to decide whether someone has the skills to be a genin. Of course, Naruto knew that there was more to the assessment of being a genin. Ibiki and Anko had briefed him on the subsequent test that their future Jounin-sensei would give them, to determine whether or not they have the necessary qualities or mindsets to become a shinobi of the Leaf.

"The Genin Exam in the Academy was used to assess your skills as a ninja - to weed out the failures, so to speak- , and your Jounin-sensei's trial was to see if you have the virtues or heart of a ninja," Ibiki had explained to Naruto.

But apparently, Academy students weren't supposed to know that, so Ibiki had lectured Naruto to not reveal his true skills during the Genin Exams. The point was driven home by Anko, who gave him a much more… painful… example to 'educate' him on what would happen should he not follow through. It goes without saying that Naruto was certain to follow his instructions to a 'T'.

With plans in his head on how to not excel, but still pass the Exam, Naruto looked like he was very anxious about whether he'll pass. But passing was not Ino's concern. She knows she will. No, she was worried about whether or not her friends (or Sasuke) are going to be in her team. Of course, there was a high chance of her teammates being Chouji and Shikamaru, because of their fathers' reputation as the famous - or infamous, depending on who you are - Ino-Shika-Chou trio. She didn't mind if they were put onto a team. After all, the three were childhood friends. What she did mind though, was that Naruto (and Sasuke) wasn't on her team. She just hoped that the pink-haired, 'wide-forehead'ed banshee won't be on her team.

Sakura.

She used to be Ino's best friend, but that all changed when they became rivals for the last 'loyal' Uchiha's affections. Gone was the shy, friendly, kind girl that was picked on for her looks, in its place an obsessive, annoying fan girl that cared about nothing other than her 'Sasuke-kun' and impressing the Uchiha.

Naruto had laughed when she had told him her concerns the week prior to the Exam, which resulted in a seven minute long chase, very tiring on Ino's part, but barely a warm-up for Naruto. Naruto had then explained that each three-man squad will usually consist of two boys and one girl. A fact that was probably true as there were far more boys than girls in the Academy, but could be false as some students in the Academy will undoubtedly fail and as such, not be promoted to genin and be assigned to a team.

Ino had then proceeded to grill Naruto on where and how he got his information. Naruto had pulled out a lame excuse as he artfully made his escape, which involved a lot of leaves, paint, and smoke. Yamanaka Inoichi and Yamanaka Hikaru had to deal with an irate Ino for the following three days.

The two blonds had become close friends after their… Naruto liked to call it, 'date', but Ino refered to it as their 'first encounter'. Whatever it was, the two blonds immediately hit it off, and they quickly became attached to the hip. It wasn't hard for them to be friends. They were very similar, whether it be hobbies or personality. Gardening, hanging out with friends and family, training to become a stronger shinobi/kunoichi, fearless attitude, outgoing personality, pride and attention on their beautiful hair…

But anyways, back to the dreaded Genin Exam. It only twenty minutes away, and the two blonds made it into the classroom ten minutes early. Naruto quickly spotted Shikamaru, Chouji, and Shino sitting in the back row and hurriedly rushed up the steps. Ino walked behind him at a slower pace. As they reached the middle of the way up the stairs, a sudden, well-timed foot from the desks caused Naruto to trip and fall flat on his face. Sasuke smirked. "What's the matter dobe? Can't walk straight?"

He picked himself up with an annoyed look in his face. "Shut up, bastard. What the hell was that for, dog-breath!"

Sakura screeched about Naruto calling her 'Sasuke-kun' a bastard. Shikamaru sighed as her piercing shrieks woke him up. "Troublesome girl. Quiet down. Some people are trying to sleep here." He droned lazily to the girl sitting in the row right in front of him.

Kiba snickered from the seat behind Sasuke. "Nothing. Just like to see you pissed. After all, this will be the last time we'll ever be playing pranks, seeing as my genin duties will take up a lot of my time. You'll probably be bored, being forced to go back to the Academy because you suck too much to pass the Exam, but there's nothing we can do about it."

Naruto huffed in exasperation at Kiba's overdramatic tone, then continued on to the back row with Ino following close behind him.

"Hey Shika, Shino, Chouji! How're you guys feeling today?" Naruto called out cheerfully as he dropped himself onto a chair.

Ino rolled her eyes as she took the seat next to him. "Oh, I don't know, Naruto," she said sarcastically. "I mean, it is the Genin Exam today. How else are we feeling?" Ino put on a brave front, but the fact that she addressed Naruto by his actual name instead of one of his many stupid nicknames betrayed Ino's nervousness.

"Yeah, Naruto-baka!" Sakura cut in, interrupting their conversation. "It might be okay for you to fail, no one cares about you. But unlike you, our parents have extremely high expectations-"

She was cut off as a large amount of killer intent started radiating from Naruto. "What did you say?" He bit out forcefully, his voice a deep growl. Sakura gulped in fear as she felt as if the air was pressing down on her, forcing her to take deep breaths to calm herself down. Alas, that didn't seem to be working, and she was shaking in terror as the killer intent poured over her. Silence hung over the rest of the class as they, too, felt the heavy presence looming over the class.

"Hello, class! Are you ready for the Exam today?" A jovial Iruka entered the classroom, breaking the heavy tension in the room.

"Of course Iruka-sensei!" Naruto broke out of his funk and cheered enthusiastically.

Ino sweatdropped. 'I swear, he must be bi-polar.'

The Genin Exams began without a hitch, starting with a paper test, eliciting complaints from Naruto and Kiba. A menacing glare on Iruka's part silenced the two.

Naruto forced back a yawn as he handed in his test. The questions were easy, but he had to feign idiocy, so had answered only the required amount to pass. Exactly twenty-eight questions. He was sure Shikamaru had done the same as well, albeit for less significant purposes.

"Jeez, I'm just saying, that knowing when and where the Niidaime eats his lunch won't really help us in battle," Naruto grumbled to Ino as Iruka announced that it was accuracy testing next while ushering everyone outside into the school training grounds.

The students were given ten kunais, ten throws in total, and required six, fairly accurate shots to pass. Red bullseyes were painted on ten logs about six feet away as targets. Shino and Ino had gotten eight; Chouji and Sakura, seven; Shikamaru and Kiba, six; Sasuke got a nine; and Hinata got a perfect score. No one was surprised. Everyone knew that the Hyuuga's family techniques and taijutsu style requires extreme precision. The rest of the students got a score somewhere around three to six. However, all throws, barring Shino, Hinata, and Sasuke, were pretty far off the bullseye. The last to go was Naruto.

'Six to pass, huh? I guess it's okay to flaunt a little. Okay, let's do this!'

Naruto threw the first kunai. It didn't even come close to the log. Kiba laughed as Naruto's first four shots missed the mark completely. "Give up, Naruto! Stop embarrassing yourself!" He managed to wheeze out.

Naruto turned towards the Inuzuka and shot him an innocent smile. "When you're done, Kiba. Care to observe my last six throws? I promise, you won't be laughing then."

With his back to the target, the blond threw the six remaining kunais all at once with amazing speed, and with deadly precision and accuracy, they all hit the bullseyes, spot on the mark, buried two inches deep in the wood. The rest of the class, including Iruka and Mizuki, the co-instructor and the other examiner, gaped at the blond.

'How did he do that?! He totally missed the first four shots, though!' Thoughts and whispers circulated among the students.

'That was amazing, Naruto! How much of your skills have you hidden from us?' Iruka mused, in awe and satisfaction from Naruto's performance, though slightly put off by the horrible – and obviously faked – previous first four tries.

'How did the supposed dead-last gotten so much better?!' Sasuke thought angrily. 'I need power to defeat Itachi! How come he is advancing so quickly? No matter. I will train harder and get the power to avenge my clan!'

Mizuki narrowed his eyes. 'This might complicate things.'

After the accuracy test, it was time for the taijutsu spars. The two chuunin instructors will randomly pick out pairs to spar against each other, and grade them on their performance. Naruto figured that with his display earlier, he should just tone it down for this round. With numerous thoughts in his heads as he waited for his turn, Naruto completely tuned out the spars going on.

"Okay, final match: Uchiha Sasuke against Uzumaki Naruto," Mizuki called out.

Naruto snapped out of his daze to stare incredulously at Mizuki. 'Is he insane?! Pairing the class dead-last with the best student? He must be out of his mind!'

Nonetheless, Naruto walked towards the center where Sasuke was already standing, an arrogant smirk on his face. "This will be a breeze. I don't even know why you try. A dead-last like you will never become strong," Sasuke scoffed.

"You don't even know what being strong means," Naruto muttered, which went unheard by Sasuke.

"Okay you two, take your stances. Now… BEGIN!"

Sasuke shot off with a kick to Naruto's chest. Naruto decided to block or evade anything the Uchiha will throw at him, and refrain from retaliating. It seemed to be working, except that Sasuke was starting to get tired, and Naruto was still as fresh as a daisy. Sasuke started to get angry.

"What's the matter, Sasuke-teme? Can't keep up? I'm barely winded," Naruto taunted.

Sasuke heard the voice of his brother. 'Foolish little brother... What's the matter? Can't keep up with me?' His vision flashed red, and started forming handseals. Everyone stared in shock. The Academy hadn't taught them how to use ninjutsu, other than the kawarimi, henge, and bunshin. An Academy student shouldn't even have enough chakra to do anything more than those three basic skills.

Sasuke's hands stopped at the tiger seal. "Katon: Gokakyu no Jutsu!" He yelled out. A ball of fire shot out from his mouth.

Naruto's eyes widened. If that fireball came any closer everyone in the training ground will be hurt. He didn't think as he started to form handseals, his hands a blur to the eyes. He slapped his hands to the ground. "Doton: Doryuheki." He whispered. A great wall of earth rose up in front of everyone. The fireball made a large hiss as it impacted the earth and dissipated. Naruto sighed and let go of the earth barrier. It took a few seconds for his brain to catch up, but the boy suddenly started swearing. 'Shit, Ibiki and Anko are gonna be soo mad when they find out…' He turned a sheepish grin towards the shocked audience, mentally freaking out and crying in terror at the inevitable punishment he was going to get.

"Any chance you didn't see that?"

'Crap, crap, crap! I shouldn't have lost control like that! I hope Iruka and Mizuki aren't going to add that in my evaluation… I hope Ibiki and Anko don't mind… Kami who am I kidding I am so screwed!' Naruto mentally berated himself. 'Okay, what's my excuse? 'I'm sorry, Anko-nee-chan. My fellow classmates were in trouble and I had to use a Doton jutsu to save their lives.' No, that won't work! She doesn't even care about them! What to do… What to do!'

The fourth and final assessment has already started, and the two teachers had already started to call students up one by one into the room, unaware of Naruto's mini-crisis.

"I got it!!" Naruto suddenly screamed, scaring the other students. 'If I fail the next part, I probably won't be able to pass. And if I don't pass, then my Exam results won't be recorded! But if I don't pass, I won't become genin… Wait. If I barely scrape past, then I might still be able to pass. They might just think that it was a fluke that I managed to make that Doryuheki. I mean, it is quite common for parents to teach their children their jutsus, right? And plus, I get to find out what the deal is with Mizuki.' Naruto had noticed the strange glances and occasional glares the chuunin co-instructor had given him. Nothing too bad. Mizuki had always hated him for reasons unknown to Naruto. Mizuki's actions gave an impression of a moderately powerful shinobi. His footsteps were controlled and stealthy, and he always seemed to check his surrounding environment. Naruto had once caught the man outside the room where Iruka was conversing with the Hokage about the students' performances in school, hidden behind an elaborate genjutsu. Very suspicious behaviour. Thankfully, Naruto was taught by Anko how to notice and disable such techniques. Was Mizuki a spy in their midst?

Students leaving the room either had shinobi headbands clutched in their hands indicating they had passed, or they came out empty handed, meaning they failed. All of his friends have passed so far. No surprise there. Soon, it was Naruto's turn.

He strode to the room and stood in front of the two chuunin. "Okay, Naruto. All we need you to do is perform the henge, kawarimi, and bunshin to pass," Iruka explained.

'Bunshin? Well, I could fail on that. It's not like I do regular bunshin anyways.'

"For the kawarimi, just switch yourself with anything here, and henge into anything you like. You got that?" Iruka questioned.

"Yeah, yeah… Kawarimi! Henge!" A large poof of smoke surrounded the room. When the smoke settled, a perfect copy of Mizuki was standing where Naruto was.

Iruka examined Naruto. "The henge is perfect, right down to the little details…"

The Mizuki standing in the circle appeared baffled and irritated.

"Thank you, Iruka-sensei," the Mizuki sitting next to him smiled cheekily.

'Wait, what? 'Iruka-sensei'…' Iruka thought, confused. His eyes widened in realization. "Of course that henge looks so good. That is Mizuki. Naruto, you performed a kawarimi with Mizuki and then henged yourself into looking like Mizuki! That was brilliant!" Mizuki hid his displeasure with an encouraging smile, which did not go unnoticed by Naruto. He dropped his henge and walked back to the middle of the room.

Iruka cleared his throat. "Okay, and the last test is the bunshin. All you have to do is to create three healthy bunshin of yourself. Simple enough?"

Naruto didn't answer, and concentrated on 'molding chakra'. And by 'molding chakra', I mean letting it go wild. Sort of similar to what he was doing before Anko had taught him how to control chakra. A few moments later, with a look of intense concentration on his face, Naruto called out, "Bunshin!"

Unlike before, not a lot of smoke was produced from the techinique. What the smoke revealed was a desperate Naruto and three sick and weak clones.

Iruka sighed in disappointment. "Naruto… I'm sorry, but I cannot pass you. You met the bare requirements for the written test, the spars, and accuracy. In fact, you exceeded my expectations when you actually put your mind to it. However, the jutsu portion… passing called for all three techniques to be done well. Failure to produce three acceptable bunshin results in failure. I'm sorry, Naruto. You won't be becoming a genin this year."

'Oh crap, I failed. Nee-chan and Ibiki are going to be disappointed.' Naruto winced and put on a face of despair, silently and discreetly observing Mizuki. A flash of insane glee flashed across the chuunin's face, before he quickly composed himself, giving off a disappointed air.

"Come on, Iruka. Surely we can pass him? He did try very hard. Besides, he passed all his other tests." Why the kindness all of a sudden? Definitely suspicious.

Iruka protested. "If I passed Naruto, what if he goes on a mission and those skills were needed? What if he got his whole team and himself killed because he didn't have the necessary knowledge to protect himself? I can't pass him, Mizuki."

Naruto walked out of the room with his head down, the image of dejection. His friends, who were the only ones still waiting in the classroom for him to finish, called out to him in worry. He ignored them and left the classroom. Iruka trailed out after him, shaking his head. His friends stared in disbelief.

Ino narrowed her eyes. 'Something's up with Naruto, and I'm going to find out what!'

"Ibiki-san, the results for the Genin Exams are out. You are free to choose the other two members of your squad."

The scarred jounin picked up the list from the man and was surprised to see that Naruto had failed. 'What the hell? I told him to do badly, not fail! I'll have a talk with him about this tomorrow…' He cleared his throat. "Sorry, but I don't believe I have sufficient data on my candidates. I'll give you my selections by tomorrow. That should leave you with four days to rearrange the other teams however way you want."

Many members of the Council had confused looks on their faces, but they did not question him.

"Tonight, Ibiki," the Hokage said firmly

Ibiki nodded. "Hai, Hokage-sama."

Jutsus Used/Mentioned

Katon: Gokakyu no Jutsu – Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique

Doton: Doryuheki - Earth Release: Earth Style Wall

And... if you don't already know...

Kawarimi – Replacement

Henge – Transformation

Bunshin – Clone

A/N: sorry for the late update. But it's longer XD. Better than the two thousand maximum I usually do… Sorry, Genin Exams is terrible… What is Ino up to? What happens with Naruto? Find out in the next chapter!

Sorry, school is catching up on me, so updates will probably be reduced to somewhere around once every week. Blehh, procrastination sucks when it all comes back to bite you in the ass…

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