oturan nwo t'nod I - eton s'rohtuA
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Chapter Sixteen – Assembling For The Test
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"Hey, let me go, you bully!"
Naruto turned towards the small child's cry, as did Kaze. Concentrating briefly, Naruto used his newly-mastered Shunshin to move to the rooftops, then a second one to where the black-clad ninja with the odd face-paint was holding the boy who he recognised as the Hokage's grandson.
A surge of chakra informed him that Kaze had followed him.
"What the hell?" The face-painted one gasped, pointing at Kaze. "What is that thing? Where did it come from?"
"His name is Kaze, and he is my companion." Naruto said, stepping forwards and placing his hand gently on the ninja's arm. "Please put Konohamaru down."
"The brat ran into me." The ninja snarled.
"I said sorry!" Konohamaru yelled and Naruto paused as he processed the odd scents, then flexed his spare hand.
"Come."
The Kitsune's Claw materialised in his hand, the blade just shy of touching the wrapped bundle on the back of the ninja. The ninja froze and Naruto looked across at the blond female ninja staring at him in shock.
"From your headbands, I see you are from Suna." He said calmly. "Your fan shows you to be a wind user, while the one whose head I am holding my sword above is a puppet user, one using his puppet to try and intimidate the Hokage's grandson, even though that is a stupid thing to do. As you are unescorted, I assume you are here for the Chunin exams, yes?"
For several seconds, no-one moved, then Konohamaru was dropped onto the ground.
"How did you know that? Who are you?" the girl asked.
"My name is Kagetora Naruto and my companion is Kaze." Naruto said as he replaced his sword, letting it adhere to his back. "May I know your names?"
"I'm Temari no Subaku, this is my brother, Kankuro."
Naruto inhaled deeply. "And the other who smells of your lineage? The one in the tree who smells of blood, death, sand and, for some reason, Tanukis?"
Kankuro and Temari both spun round to see a figure appear.
"G… Gaara…" Kankuro stuttered.
'Kid, that boy holds the Shikaku, the one-tail who controls sand. From the way his Youkai's leaking, his seal must be pretty bad.'
"So you're Gaara, the one who is the First of the Nine." Naruto said slowly, hiding a smirk as Gaara's eyes widened. "I am honoured to meet you. I am Kagetora Naruto, the one who is Ninth of the Nine. Perhaps we can speak about fuuinjutsu and the effects if missapplied sometime."
Gaara stared at him and then sand-shinshin'd to stand beside his siblings.
"Kankuro, Temari, we are leaving. Now."
The other two swallowed and moved away, occasionally glancing behind them as they did so.
"How did you do that with your sword?" Konohamaru asked, eyes wide. Naruto looked down at him.
"A special seal in the metal lets me summon it. Are you alright?"
"I'm fine." Konohamaru said, eyes fixed on Naruto's sword then jumping to Kaze, who was looking at him with an amused expression. "Wow, gramps said the Great Tigers were big, but… Can I ride him, please?"
Kaze looked at him, then nodded and lay down. Naruto sighed.
"Hop on, then we'll talk."
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"…and when I defeat gramps and become Hokage, no-one will call me 'Honorable Grandson' again, I hate being called that." Konohamaru finished. Naruto managed not to smile at the kid's overly-simplistic outlook.
"You realise that there's more to be Hokage than just being the strongest?"
"What do you mean?"
Naruto looked ahead, seeing the academy approaching. "I talked about this a lot, not only with your grandfather, but with several others, Hatake Kakashi, Maito Gai, Mitarashi Anko, Yuhi Kurenai… I got a good idea of the burdens of being Hokage. No, listen.
"To be a Hokage, you must not only be strong, you must be willing to make sacrifices for the village. You must be willing to send others, those you command and even members of your family, on suicide missions if required for the good of the village. You must be ready to deal with liars, charlatans, traitors and murderers and do so as if they were your most trusted aides while still remembering what they have done, all for the good of the village. You must be ready to place the village above what is good for any specific individual, you must balance the rules of the village and the demands of the council, balance the clans to prevent any of them getting too much power and remove those that threaten Konoha.
"As Hokage, you have no-one to look up to, to direct you and tell you that you are doing the right thing. It is a lonely job, one where you must always be suspicious of those who agree with you since you cannot know whether they do so for the sake of the village, or because they wish to manipulate you.
"Being Hokage is a job that only those strong in body, mind and spirit can hope to do. Any shred of doubt can destroy you once you reach that position, yet you need to constantly ask yourself if you are doing the right thing. Just because you are Hokage, that doesn't mean yu can do whatever you want
"If you doubt me, talk to your grandfather about it. And ask him to tell you about the son of the Yondaime who never existed, and why the rulepreventing him from existing remains. Now, it's time for you to go."
Naruto dropped down and carefully lifted Konohamaru down. Smiling at the now-thoughtful and slightly-confused child, Naruto moved towards the entrance and paused, looking at the crowd.
"I can just push through, but… Kaze, let's go up!"
Moving to the side of the Academy, Naruto simply walked up the wall towards the roof, years of practice letting him do it reflexively. Reaching the top, he swung over the ledge, onto the flat roof, Kaze at his heels.
"Naruto-kun! Wait!"
Naruto leaned over the edge and offered his hand first to Hinata, then to Kiba and Shino. Kyouka flowed over the edge and headbutted Kaze playfully.
"Your decision to circumnavigate the adversarial congregation and select a alternate route to the required destination was a move which I had not anticipated, but which upon reflection seemed to be the most efficient way to proceed." Shino said.
Kiba looked at him.
"… avoiding the crowd was very clever and we decided to join you." Shino said. Kiba nodded in understanding.
"My eternal friend and rival, I saw you climb the wall and decided to follow your youthful example!" a voice said and Naruto turned to grin at Lee and his two team-mates.
"It was a drag getting up here, but it saves time and effort overall." Another voice sighed and Naruto turned to see Shikamaru and his team pull themselves up. "Team 7 decided to go the troublesome way through the crowd."
Naruto shrugged. "Then let's head down. I think it was room 301, yes?"
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"So, ten of the rookie thirteen are here." A voice said. Naruto turned round to see a young silver-haired man approaching them, a smile on his face and a Konoha Hitai-ate on his head. "And here come the final three."
A grunt announced Sasuke's arrival and Ino tried to pounce him, only to find herself suspended by Naruto's grip on her belt.
"Hey, what are you doing?"
"You need to get your act together, Ino." Naruto said quietly. "We're representing Konoha here, we need to be professional."
"He's absolutely right," the newcomer said as he pulled out a deck of cards and flicked through them. "Oh, I haven't intoduced myself yet. My name is Yakushi Kabuto. This is my seventh attempt at the exams, so I've been around a bit and picked up quite a bit of info. For instance, we have 52 teams in this exam, or 154 genin here total since Naruto here counts as a team by himself, most of them from Konoha since we're the ones hosting it, but we also have a fair number of genin from Suna and Ame as well. Grass, Waterfall, and we even have a team from the newly created Sound village as well, though I'm not quite sure how they will stand up since their village was just made last year and all. Since these teams are from other countries, you can expect them all to be among the top of their ranks in their villages. Now, these cards hold the information I've been able to gather on the participants. Anyone have someone they'd like to know about?"
For a few seconds, the genin looked at each other, then Naruto spoke. "I encountered someone interesting earlier who smelt of blood, sand and death. Gaara no Sabuka. What can you tell me about him?"
Kabuto pulled out one of his blank cards and channeled chakra into it, causing writing and a picture of Gaara to appear on it. "Gaara of the Sand… I don't have much info on him since this is his first exam, but it says that he's done 8 C ranked missions and a B ranked mission… without getting a scratch? Damn… His team-mates are his older siblings Kankuro and Temar and his Jonin-sensei is named Baku. Sorry that I don't have more."
"He's a sand-user." Naruto said, causing Kabuto to stare at him. "Uses it as defense and offence. Huge chakra reserves, Kage-level plus. I'd advise not going up against him if you can avoid it. He is… bloodthirsty and from how his sand smelled, he's killed before. Quite a few times."
Kabuto raised one eyebrow and pulled out another card. "You've intrigued me, Let's see, Kagetora Naruto, sole genin member of Team 11 under Jonin Mitarashi Anko, formerly the student of Hatake Kakashi and Maito Gai. Your missions are 15 D ranked, 5 C ranked… 3 B ranked AND an A rank?!"
"Does it have my parentage?" Naruto deadpanned and Kabuto shook his head.
"No, but it says you are have medium to high kenjitsu skills, good taijitsu abilities, low genjitsu… and your strength is off the scale, probably because of your Kekkei Genkai. You have a Great Tiger that you are partnered with in the much same way that the Inuzuka use their dogs and your ninjitsu skills are ranked high. Overall, you've got better skills than most Chunin and even some special Jonin. Impressive."
"What have you got on Hyuuga Hinata." Came a voice and everyone turned to see Neji looking at his cousin. "Tell me about my cousin."
Kabuto pulled out and activated another card. "Hyuuga Hinata. Part of team 8 underneath Yuhi Kurenai with Inuzuka Kiba and Aburame Shino as team-mates. The runner up for Kunoichi of the year, her missions are 12 D ranked and 3 C ranked. A Byakugan wielder and Jyuuken user, but also trained in snake-style under Mitarashi Anko. Chakra levels are higher than normal for a Hyuuga, taijitsu is about average but she also has a partnership bond with a Great Tiger. Hmmmm, it also says you are the Naruto's fiancee."
Hinata blushed and hid her face in her jacket collar while Neji frowned thoughtfully.
"Since this is your first exam, the amount of information I have on you is limited." Kabuto shrugged. "Naruto-san, thank you for that additional information about Gaara. I shall have to make certain that I avoid him."
"Alright everyone, it's time for the exams to start." A man shouted from the front of the hall. "The proctors will show you to your assigned seats, once there, sit down and shut up."
Naruto glanced round, suddenly wishing that Kaze (and Kyouka) hadn't decided to wait on the roof for them.
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"Grandpa?"
Hiruzen looked up from the ever=growing paperwork to see his son standing in the doorway.
"Grandpa, can I talk to you?"
"Of course." Hiruzen said with a smile, "Come in. What is it?"
Konohamaru walked round the desk and climbed into his grandfather's lap.
"I met that boy you kept talking about, Kagetora Naruto today. He got me out of some trouble I was in and talked to me about being Hokage. I hadn't realised it was so… so…"
"Such a burden?" Hiruzen suggested and Konohamaru nodded.
"If it's a burden, why do you do it?"
"Because I can't trust anyone else to do it properly." Hiruzen said quietly. "There are many who want the position of Hokage, but most of them want it for all the wrong reasons. They don't truly care about Konoha, they aren't willing to make the sacrifices that Konoha needs, they simply see the power of the position and want it for themselves, and to hell with anyone else. I cannot let someone like that become Hokage."
Konohamaru frowned in thought.
"So… what makes a good Hokage?"
"Hard to say." Hiruzen mused. "A good Hokage must be willing to sacrifice himself for the good of the village if needed. He must learn the abilities of those who report to him so that he can deploy them for the greatest effect, and he must learn their weaknesses so that he can prevent them from putting the village in danger. He must be able to bot lie and tell the truth with equal skill, must be able to negotite from weakness and dictate from strength. A Hokage must be implacable in was, defiant in defeat, magnanimous in victory and gentle in peacetime.
"And a Hokage must be willing to face every day the greatest enemy that a Kage can have, an enemy that is soul-destroying and always returns."
Konohamaru stared at him.
"Paperwork."
