A month flew by in no time at all. Training had gone well. It had worked wonders for everyone in the squad. Both Sasuke and Naruto had grown very comfortable with their respective Sharingans. Hinata's taijutsu skills became more refined and now weren't just limited to the gentle fist. In their individual training Sasuke got more refined chakra control and added to his fire jutsu repertoire, and Naruto became very proficient with chakra forcing, the efficient use of his shadow clones, and with Kakashi's help he had even developed an ice jutsu that would suit his fighting style. Kakashi was proud of his students. He truly believed they had a chance. The day finally came and all three of them seemed to be fully intent on taking the exam. They gathered as a group and head to where they were assigned to meet the rest of the candidates. They were set to meet in room 301 at the shinobi academy. Once they seemingly got to the correct part of the building they saw huge crowd around the room marked 301. For some reason there were two leaf shinobi acting as bouncers to the room. They were pushing around a young guy in green tracksuit and a kunoichi with double buns in her hair. Sasuke looked to Naruto and Hinata as if asking if he should intervene, or if they would do it. Naruto simply nodded to him.
Sasuke turned to the bouncers with a look of disgust.
"Don't tell me the tests have begun already. Room 301 is on the third floor, were on the second, get rid of the genjutsu."
Everyone around him was surprised. The bouncers looked at him and simply nodded. Their charade was up. The genjutsu was dispelled and they simply disappeared. The guy in the green turned to look at Sasuke.
"You saw through it as well."
"Yea and you're also not a good actor. Why were you letting them shove you around like that?"
"I simply do not wish to disclose the limits of my abilities so early."
"That's smart I guess."
Just then a third shinobi walked up to join the guy in the jumpsuit and the kunoichi with the buns. He had the eyes of a Hyuga.
"Hey you. Who are you?"
"I'm not inclined to answer."
Sasuke turned back to Naruto and Hinata and motioned to them that it was time to go. Naruto noticed the look and ill will the Hyuga shot to Sasuke, but what surprised him was the that he also directed it at Hinata. As he was about to say something Hinata pulled on him. She did not want anything to start up there with her cousin.
On their way up to the room they were stopped by the same shinobi in the green as before.
"Sasuke Uchiha! My name is Rock Lee and I am here to challenge you to a spar. I believe I am the strongest genin here and would like to see if the powers of the Uchiha can compare."
Naruto looked at Sasuke with a look of encouragement.
'There's no way Sasuke could lose to him.'
"Go for it Sasuke!"
Sasuke charged at Lee. It quickly became apparent that Lee was fast and very skilled in taijutsu. Sasuke couldn't keep up and was quickly kicked back.
"You're fast. I've been looking for an excuse to use these. I'll see through whatever jutsu you're using now."
Both Naruto and Sasuke activated their Sharingan. The confidence Sasuke had was quickly broken down. Lee simply moved faster than Sasuke could react. Sasuke was fast, but not fast enough.
"I know of the Sharingan. It allows you to read my movements almost before I'm ready to make them myself, but what good is that if you're too slow to react."
He kicked Sasuke in the air and began to perform a taijutsu. Both Naruto and Sasuke analyzed it.
"Dancing leaf Shadow."
"Now to end this."
As Lee was about to execute he was knocked out of the air by a green blur. Naruto quickly moved to catch Sasuke.
'How could Sasuke lose.'
Once Sasuke and Naruto looked over to Lee they saw what appeared to be a mirror image of him but only older. Lee's sensei was scolding him on his behavior. Their interactions were odd and unorthodox. They expressed great emotion and even tears.
"I apologise for how my student behaved. Am I right in assuming you're all from Kakashi's squad."
Sasuke and Naruto were still shocked at how odd the two green shinobi were, and how Sasuke lost to one of them. Hinata seemed to be the only one who could speak.
"Hai."
"Well I'll have you know that I've been called Kakashi's eternal rival so I'll be watching out for you guys. Good luck and Lee you should accompany them to the exam."
In a flash he was gone. There was no doubt he was an elite jonin, but he was a very odd jonin. Lee walked up to the stunned trio.
"I am sorry for attacking you, and for lying to you. When I said was the best genin at the exams I did not mean it. The person I believe to be the strongest genin at the exams is the other guy on my team. I merely wanted to test my skills on someone I knew would be a strong challenge. I'll see you guys up there."
"How could I lose to him."
"I don't know Sasuke. Did you get a good look at him. He seemed like a very hard worker. He probably works a lot harder than we do."
"I… I think Naruto is right Sasuke. We just need to work harder."
"Yea… What he said bugs me. I need to be faster."
"A little late now. Let's hurry up and get to the exam."
Once they made it up to the assigned roomed they were greeted by Kakashi.
"Well the time has come. You have all come and for the right reasons. Sasuke, Naruto, and Hinata, I'm proud to call myself your sensei. I have seen you all grow so much in the time that I have supervised your training and believe you are all ready, even if it was only brief for Hinata. Once you step through those doors you will be on your own so best of luck."
A fresh wave of reassurance passed over the three genin. They thanked Kakashi and stepped through the door. Upon entering they were met with menacing glares from many of the genin already in the room. Naruto couldn't really distinguish any one feeling among the crowd. He did feel Hinata's nervousness beside him so he gave her a reassuring look. It only caused her nervousness to be replaced with embarrassment, as her face flushed.
"SASUKE! I was wondering when you would show up. I've really missed those brooding good looks of yours."
"HEY! Ino-pig back off Sasuke. He's mine!"
Naruto turned to Sasuke and he clearly felt his frustration and annoyance. Ino had jumped on him and was hanging on his neck while Sakura was shouting at her to get off him. Naruto couldn't help but grin. Behind them he saw the rest of both Sakura and Ino's teams. Kiba, Shino, Choji, and Shikamaru seemed to have already found each other and were simply chatting. Once they saw Naruto's team and the commotion with Ino and Sakura they decided to walk over, Kiba leading the way.
"Would you look at that. It's like a class reunion. All nine rookies together again. This should be fun, well, at least for all of us good enough to make the cut. Right, Sasuke?"
Sasuke had managed to free himself from Ino and had rejoined his team while she and Sakura continued to bicker.
"Careful you don't get over confident, Kiba. We've all been training hard."
Naruto gave Kiba and annoyed look.
"Yea that's right we've all gotten really strong, ya know. I'll just have to show you later."
They all seemed to be getting along well enough, but they weren't very quiet or discrete. A shinobi with grey hair and a Leaf headband walked up to the group. Naruto sensed something off about him. It was a negative emotion he couldn't quite describe. It felt malicious but was much more cunning.
'Probably just the spirit of competition.'
"Hey guys! You mind settling down. Look around you've made quite the impression."
The shinobi introduced himself as Kabuto Yakushi. He warned them to settle down because they were making the other candidates annoyed. He told them about his experience thus far in the exams. He had taken them seven times with little success. He had however managed to collect a lot of intel throughout his endeavors. He had information on everything from all shinobi villages, the exams, and even individual participants. Sasuke immediately took an interest, and inquired about Rock Lee and Gaara of the Desert. Kabuto had pretty detailed information on Lee. His sensei was Gai and his teammates were Tenten and Neji Hyuga. At the mention of Neji's name Hinata winced. Naruto was starting to get really good at noticing the subtle emotional changes in Hinata.
'Why does Neji make Hinata so nervous."
Naruto placed his hand on her shoulder to attempt to comfort her. He did all that and more while being completely unaware of what he was doing to her.
Next up was the information on Gaara. Kabuto didn't have much intel on him however. All he had was the name of his teammates and siblings, Kankuro and Temari, and his mission record. Gaara had apparently completed a B-rank mission without getting a single scratch. Everyone was surprised at the last bit of information. Naruto's team had barely completed an A rank mission and had almost been killed several times over, and here this sand shinobi was doing B-ranks with even getting hurt. Sasuke's determination only grew. Naruto on the other had was not getting more determined, he was plenty determined already. He began to shake with excitement . It looked like he was shaking nervously to Hinata who could hardly ever take her attention away from him. She felt like she had to comfort him like he had just done for her. As she began to stretch out her hand to him, Naruto jumped forward unable to contain himself any longer.
"YEA! I'm so psyched! I'm going to beat every single one of you!"
As Naruto yelled at the genins he only received nasty looks and emotions. Even his classmates behind him were a little startled and annoyed by his outburst. Ino in particular was triggered by Naruto's eruption.
"HEY! HINATA! What's your boyfriend doing! Is he trying to get us all killed."
'Boy… BOYFRIEND!'
Hinata's eyes grew wider than she ever knew possible. Her head was filled a mix of so many emotions that she experienced a quick faint spell and almost fell over.
Before Naruto could be berated by the rest of the genin around him a huge explosion of smoke erupted in the front of the classroom. Their proctor had arrived. He was accompanied by a large group of Leaf shinobi with clipboards. Once the proctor gained the attention of the room he introduced himself as Ibiki Morino. He and the other supervisor began to disperse the genin around the classroom. The first exam was a written test. Once the genin were set they received their exams along with a few odd rules. Everyone starts with a perfect score and are subtract one point for every question answered incorrectly. Teams are scored together and if any one member should get a zero the whole team fails. The other shinobi that accompanied Ibiki were stationed around the room to watch for anyone attempting to cheat. If a person was caught cheating the sentinel shinobi were there to deduct two points from the culprits score. Finally, the last of ten questions would be given out forty-five minutes into the one hour testing period. Once the rules were explained Ibiki began his exam. Naruto quickly felt a sense of panic in the pit of his stomach. He wasn't very good at test, but this test in particular was harder than he could have ever imagined. He tried to sense around him for his team, and was met with the same feeling of panic he had except all around him. The exam seemed impossible, not just for him but for most of the people in the room. Only a handful of shinobi at the genin level would even have an idea as to how to answer any of the questions. Both Sasuke and Naruto realized at the same time that they had to cheat. There was no other choice. They both had the same idea. Luckily, they both had a way of doing cheating without getting caught. In a flash they both activated their Sharingan and looked around themselves subtly to try and find someone who knew what they were doing. They were both near the rear of the classroom on opposite sides of each other. At almost the same time they saw Hinata writing away. She was working out the answers. Naruto was surprised.
'I didn't know she was so smart.'
Both Naruto and Sasuke looked at her pen and analyzed its movements. They used their respective Sharingan they began to copy her pen strokes.. All around them the rest of the genin had come to the same conclusion. They all began to look for information in their own ways. Some of the genin were not very skilled at concealing their efforts and were promptly caught and asked to leave along with their teams. The herd was being cropped down slowly. In no time at all 45 minutes passed. The proctor looked out in excitement. This was his favorite part of the exam.
"Pencils down. It's time for the final question. There a couple individual rules to this question as well. First, you can simply choose not to take it. If you do, you will be asked to leave and your chunin exam will be over. But if you choose to stay you must answer the question correctly or else you and your team will be barred from taking the exam again, and will remain genin forever.
Quite the predicament. It's unfortunate for you guys that I was assigned to be in charge of the first exam this year. Now if you want to leave, now is the time to do so."
All around the room the genin were shocked. The rules were absurd and unreasonable. It was seemingly an impossible decision. Panic set in the hearts of most of the young genin. After a short pause more genin began to walk out of the room. The stakes were too high to risk one exam if there was a chance it would be different the next time around. Naruto and Sasuke were both confident. They were unsure of how hard the question would be, but seemed ready to meet it head on anyway. Naruto also felt very frustrated. He was unsure why there was so much pressure on one question. He looked to Sasuke and felt nothing from him, so assumed he must have been okay. Then he looked to Hinata and became worried. He could feel the uncertainty in her heart. She was scared at messing up Naruto's chance to progress closer to his goal. There was no way Naruto could know why she was so worried but he knew had to get to her someway. As soon as he saw her begin to move he jumped up faster than he thought he could.
"Just cut it out already! There is no way you can scare us! We are all here for a reason and we won't turn back just because you imposed some stupid rules on us!"
Naruto's words rang loud and true. His words and the look of determination erased the doubt in Hinata's mind just like he had hoped. What he didn't know was that his words reached more than just her. All around the other genin found their confidence after hearing Naruto's words. The looks on everyone's faces changed. Their minds had been made up and Ibiki could see it.
"Well then if you are all sure about this, it's time for the final question… You. All. Pass."
Everyone was stunned. All the build up for seemingly nothing.
"The life of a shinobi is full of tough decisions. Your decision to stay with your team and push through adversity is what passed you on to the next round. The first portion of this exam was meant to test your ability to attain information covertly. You were supposed to cheat, just not get caught. If you got caught you didn't deserve to be promoted to chunin. Congratulations! Good luck on the next exam."
Almost as if on queue a figure burst through the window of classroom and threw two kunai at the ceiling. From the kunai hung a banner, and in front of it stood a very skimpily dress kunoichi.
"All right boys and girls, I'm Anko Mitarashi and your second proctor! There is no time to celebrate! Are you ready for the second exam! Right! So let's go!"
"You're early… Again."
"Eh."
"Wow there sure are a lot of them left. You're test wasn't hard enough Ibiki. You're getting soft aren't you?"
"Maybe it's just a strong bunch of candidates this year."
"It sure doesn't look like it. When I'm done with them more than half of them will be gone. This is gonna be fun come morning. I'll let your squad leaders know where to go, but for now you're all dismissed."
After the exam wrapped up, the remaining candidates found their teams and began to celebrate. The first exam had cut down several teams from the mix, but like Anko had said, not as many as planned. The rookies all got together once again to celebrate. Even though they were technically rivals at that moment they all enjoyed eachothers company. Since there would be another exam the next day they kept the interaction brief, much to Naruto's dismay. He was really starting to feel like he was making some real friends. Sasuke was not very fond of the celebration but he was slowly starting to open up to his peers. Soon Naruto's team was left alone as they began to leave the academy building. Naruto wanted to spend more time with his team outside of training and missions, but he was unsure as to how to go about making it happen. As Sasuke began to break off to leave Naruto extended his arm to him, but didn't know what to say. Sasuke took it as wave good-bye and left. Naruto was now left with just Hinata. They really didn't talk too much if Sasuke wasn't present, so the walk was quite. When they got closer to Hinata's home Naruto felt a feeling of desperation rise in him. He just wanted a friend he could talk to outside of ninja business. Iruka was usually his go to friend, but he wanted someone his own age to converse with.
"Hey Hinata…"
"Yes Naruto-kun?"
" Do you want to get some ramen with me and talk, you know like friends and stuff?"
Hinata was stunned. She wasn't sure what to say. She knew he didn't see her in a romantic way. well at least not yet. It was an innocent request, but to her it meant so much more than Naruto could even was speechless for a moment. Naruto felt her hesitation and nervousness and thought she was opposed to the idea.
"Oh. You must be busy. Sorry for bothering you."
As Naruto turned to walk away he felt a sharp feeling of desperation come from Hinata. She was having a hard time thinking and the intense blush on her face wasn't helping.
"N… Naruto-kun wait! I do want to go."
"Really? Are you sure?"
"Hai!"
"Ok, I know this great ramen shop where they serve the best ramen you'll ever have. Follow me."
Hinata watched as Naruto took off in his excitement. She was still trying to process the events, She quickly took off after him. The smile on her face was the sign of the growing sense of excitement. Once Hinata reached Ichiraku she took a seat next to Naruto who had beat her there. He turned to look at her and saw the smile on her face.
'Wow. I don't think I've ever actually seen Hinata smile.'
"Hinata why don't you smile more often it looks good on you."
Hinata could only look away in embarrassment. Her face turned so red that it invented a couple new shades of it. Naruto had no idea the kind of effect his words had on her. He could only feel the emotions they caused.
"Man, Hinata you're face is getting red. Are you sick or something?"
"No. I… I'm ok."
As they began to talk about the exam a young women walked out of the kitchen to greet them. When she saw Hinata, but more importantly the look on Hinata's face she couldn't help but smile.
"Well hello Naruto. Its nice to see you."
"Hello Ayame-chan. Where's old man Teuchi."
"He stayed home today. He wasn't feeling well. Who's your friend Naruto. You haven't introduced her to me yet."
"Oh yea, this is Hinata Hyuga."
"Oh so she's the girl they put on your team temporarily. You should know he talks a lot about you every time he's here. He kinda lives here. You should hear the way he talks about you. though. I think he kinda likes you."
"A… Ayame-chan!"
Both Naruto and Hinata were blushing. Ayame couldn't tell who had the deeper shade.
"Calm down Naruto, I'm just teasing you guys. So did I hear you say you guys passed the first exam?"
"Hell yea we did."
"Well congratulations. Order whatever you want. It's my treat."
"Oh wow thanks Ayame-chan."
"Arigato."
Once Ayame received their orders she went back to the kitchen to make the food. Naruto and Hinata began to talk about the exam again. They were in high spirits for a while until Naruto remembered that Hinata almost resigned from the exam.
"Hey Hinata, can I ask you something?"
"Sure what is it."
"During the final question I noticed that you almost chose to leave. Why? We've been working so hard. It was tough to see you having second thoughts."
Hinata looked down. She didn't exactly know how to answer him. Naruto felt the remorse build inside of her.
"I… I didn't want to cost you your chance to be Hokage. If i failed we would have all been disqualified and we wouldn't even be able to be chunin let alone Hokage."
Naruto was shocked. He was sure she was afraid for her own sake. To hear anybody say they were looking out for him was completely foreign to him.
" Man you're so weird, ya know."
Those words were like a kunai in her heart.
"But I like people like you. I've never had anybody look after me like that. Thank you Hinata, but you need to be more confident. You're so strong and way smarter than me. There's no way you would have failed the final question even if it had been a question. If we keep working hard there's no way we won't meet our dreams. I'll be Hokage and you'll prove yourself to the special person no doubt."
"Hai. Arigato Naruto-kun."
As Hinata thanked Naruto she felt a wave of confidence flush over her. Ayame walked in with their food in time to catch the last exchange.
"Awww, you two are just so cute together."
This caused them both to blush again.
"Ayame-chan!"
"Oh just settle down Naruto. Here's your food."
They ate in silence simply content with each other's company. Once they finished they said their farewells and headed home. There was a long set of days ahead of them and they would need as much rest as possible.