Disclaimer: Naruto is the work of mangaka Masashi Kishimoto, Harry Potter is the work of author J.K. Rowling. The author makes no claim to ownership of the aforementioned works and no profit from this fanfiction.
Uchiha Fukurou
Of Darkness, Red Clovers and Chunin Exams
Shimura Danzo stood within the bunker that served as an AnBu base. Its exact location was secret, but the air seemed humid and carried the scent of the ocean. Before him knelt a masked shinobi who had just finished handing him a scroll. He carefully studied it before glancing at the young man before him, "Nobody noticed?" He asked calmly.
A voice slightly altered by the bull-themed mask answered. "No one that remembers…"
The man nodded neutrally, internally marveling at what had been accomplished, "Rise and remove your mask Uchiha Shisui."
Having watched the boy follow the order Danzo spoke with a hint of what might have been regret. "Such superb mastery of an ocular ninjutsu, it's such a shame that your posting with us was only temporary."
Shisui replied calmly, "My work with the intelligence unit was enlightening. I am grateful for the opportunity but I have certain obligations to my clan that make accepting your offer impossible at the moment unfortunately."
Danzo said nothing; both men were canny enough to know what he thought about clan obligations versus village interests.
Instead of taking the implied dismissal Shisui continued on, "There are two with eyes that have even more potential than my own. I'll be working on developing their skills which is why I can't accept." He said much to Danzo's interest.
"Itachi-kun..." Shisui stated.
"And someone with an ocular ninjutsu that may be even greater than my own." Danzo showed true surprise at Shisui's claim.
"Who?" The elder asked him.
The younger man smiled, "Uchiha Fukurou."
Time passed for Team Chun Chu, weeks turned into months, until nearly two years had passed them by. In the intervening period, the members of the shinobi squad flourished under Chun Chu's tutelage. Fukurou inevitably grew closer to his fellows as a team, eventually inviting them into his home although the way he did so still kept the actual location a closely-held secret. Team Fukurou completed many more D-rank missions before moving to regular C-ranks and later a B-rank mission as well.
The tensions that necessitated Leaf's wartime footing began to gradually fade. When Fukurou was eight, the Shinobi Academy returned to a six-year peacetime curriculum with a three- year minimum attendance requirement for early graduation. For shinobi that had graduated during the wartime period, certification of supplementary studies became a mandatory requirement for those who wished to become chunin.
There were many things that the wartime curriculum simply didn't have the time to impart aspiring shinobi, that their sensei were expected to teach as needed in the field. Hiko complained bitterly at being forced to do homework even after having graduated. Fukurou took a more pragmatic approach and took the certification exams for the basic topics that he had already covered in his own efforts to understand the differences between this world and Harry Potter's. That allowed him to test out of the majority of the lessons and take advanced courses like cryptography, field investigations and forensics.
There were mixed feelings from Fukurou's clan on the change. On one hand nobody wanted their children running around on the battlefield unprepared and in the eyes of most parents, having the genin receive further training was a good thing. However both Chun Chu and Itachi's sensei had waited on nominating them for the Chunin Exams. The less informed members of their clan whispered about the two prodigies being held back out of jealousy and other such ridiculous things.
Even Fugaku who Fukurou knew to be secretly relieved this was happening, sounded like a broken record when talking to him and Itachi, "I expect you two to show the world the strength of the Uchiha Clan," was what he'd say, "Itachi, Fukurou, the Clan has high expectations of you both!"
"The Clan, the Clan, the Uchiha Clan…" It was wearying to be told such things repeatedly. Chun Chu told them that only a utter retard would volunteer a rookie team for the Chunin Exams, even one held in their own home, much less a foreign village like the Hidden Mist that had a bad reputation for dead and missing examinees. By treaty, the successive exams were held In Iwa and Kumo which was even worse for those teams with valuable bloodlines on their roster.
The next village in the line-up was Konoha and the ones after were picked by lots. Fukurou believed that his sensei was waiting until then to nominate her team. He hardly minded though only chunin rank shinobi or higher were eligible to join the police forces. The way he saw things, there was no way that the old Team Chun Chu could have survived an exam in Mist or Hidden Rock.
At least in terms of ability, Hiko was nearly unrecognizable from the flaky ten year-old that he'd been. Cheerful as ever, the Yamanaka had become an excellent budding ninja swordsman, he worked at creating a style that blended the Yamanaka technique Shinranshin with mild genjutsu and artful swordplay. With Chun Chu's expert guidance, it was gradually turning into something quite terrifying to deal with directly, one on one. Hiko was even able to single-handedly deal with a large group of bandits by freezing them in place and having them fight each other while blurry shadows cut them down.
Shigure was shaping up to be an ambush specialist developing a love for some of their sensei's more vicious traps. She had also expanded her hives, carrying the excess kikaichu in a boxy pack, like a medicine vender's, that was secured to her back. Adept at close to mid-range combat and developing a liking for poisonous kikaichu variants, she often served as a 'hidden surprise', in the most horrifically unpleasant meaning of the phrase.
Fukurou was nine and had yet to hit his growth spurt so there was little to be done to improve his taijutsu without compromising his health. He did pick up a lot about the use of a ninjatō from his sensei and was a great aid to Hiko in developing his sword style, given that as an Uchiha, he was the absolutely worst person to have a close-range one-on-one fight with.
With his bow, Fukurou was the worst person to fight at long-range as well. His study of fuinjutsu led to his 'invention' of several new types of seals that amazed his sensei and even got him extra tuition on the subject. For the most part Fukurou's progress in areas related to his old life and magic was kept a secret, his shinobi upbringing instilled the belief that a ninja's ultimate techniques were not to be carelessly displayed. Plus, Harry Potter had become a cagey bastard in his later years.
Thusly, team Chun Chu flourished and when the time came for the Chunin Exams to be held in Konoha, they entered.
The Chunin Exam, in a word, was the most brutal competition Fukurou had ever participated in. The Genin teams were taken to an underground complex outside the village and separated into three groups. Each group was told a different piece of information regarding the second stage of the exam. Team Chun Chu's group was told the message, "You must to retrieve a scroll from under the stone Buddha and present it to the proctor for the second exam at the specified time."
Fukurou speculated that the other teams would have a location of the stone Buddha the 'specified time' that their clue referred to. He was proven correct when the examiner for the first stage, Konoha's own Orochimaru, addressed them and in the process did a fine job of unnerving everyone.
"You're allowed to kill…" The man said without preamble, "Only the exits are supervised by exam proctors, the rest of this cave system is abandoned, so if you get in trouble then you're just out of luck." He smirked darkly at them the amusement in the jounin's golden eyes raised hairs on Fukurou's neck. "Unless you make it to an exit or manage to survive until this part of the exam is over." A burst of killing intent passed over the assembled genin making them tremble unconsciously. "You'll die, now's the chance if you want to quit," He said to some murmurs, "Take these waivers and sign them if you still want to go on, your lives will be in your own hands…"
The groups were taken in through different entrances that were then guarded. The complex was really a series of water carved caverns linked by tunnels. There was a small forest where the entrance Team Chun Chu was released at was actually a hole in the ceiling that had some game in it. There were fishes in some of the rivers, birds, bats and insects to eat and thirty-odd genin wanting to torture them for information.
They were to get the other parts of the message and report what it was to the proctor in order to proceed without disqualification. They also had to do so as a team with all members able to continue. Fukurou recognized the situation as a Prisoner's Dilemma. All they had to do to pass was talk to the other teams and cooperate. The situation the examiner had created didn't lend itself to such a peaceful solution, unfortunately. Orochimaru locked them in darkness and insinuated that the only way to survive was to fight.
Team Chun Chu hid while they scouted for other teams. Fukurou tamed some bats for Hiko to mind swap, while Shigure sent out her kikaichu. Fukurou's sharingan was the only reason why the Iwa team that attacked minutes later, didn't manage to kill them. They must have had a sensor in the group, because the attack came from well outside of visual range, in a gap in the forming kikaichu network. Fukurou's sharingan tracked the spread of the earth chakra toward his team's location and alerted them just in time.
The battle was vicious from the get go. The stalagmite formation that they'd been hiding in collapsed into a pit at the center with the outer edges turning inward and down, locking into place like a Venus-flytrap. The maneuver might not have killed them, but the echoing thud as the rocks closed together spoke of broken bones, ruptured organs and months spent in rehabilitation. Fukurou's vision cut through the dim light of the cavern and he spied two of the genin with their palms still pressed to the ground.
"A combination technique then… Or perhaps one that takes up too much chakra to perform alone." He thought, their chakra pools seemed to have taken a hit and it was likely that the Iwa shinobi had been banking on taking his team out of the fight in one move. Hidden behind a stalactite Fukurou quickly noticed that the third Iwa shinobi standing behind the other two was making hand-seals.
His sharingan recorded the hand seals, elemental recomposition and chakra flow. Tiger-Rat-Snake... Fukurou made his move as earth chakra began to loosen the material connecting several stalactites to the ceiling of the cavern in preparation for a low powered, Doton: Iwayado Kuzushi. Several of his tamed bats swooped down and latched on to the genin's face, biting and scratching her in a far less amusing rendition of the Bat Bogey Hex. Disturbed by the fight Fukurou was able to rapidly hypnotize and command even more bats to dive bomb the genin below him.
Using the cover he provided, Shigure and Hiko attacked the distracted team with a swarm of kikaichu and a flurry of punches respectively. Hiko knocked out one of the genin by bashing him in the head with the back of his sword. Shigures practically drowned the other two in chakra-draining insects, unpleasant but far less damaging in the long term than what the Iwa shinobi had tried to do to them.
At the end of the fight, Hiko and Shigure watched on as Fukurou hypnotized the beaten genin into revealing their clue. With Shigure and Hiko scouting out teams, they were able to get the third part of the clue on the second day of the exam from the fourth team they tracked down and ambushed. Team Chun Chu was finally able to carefully make their way to an exit and exam proctor waiting there.
Their mission for the second stage of the exam: They were to proceed directly to the Akagahara training ground under escort. Once there they were to retrieve a scroll from under the Buddha in the field of red clovers and present it to the proctor waiting outside the gates for one hour at midday until the first four teams had passed. They were not to leave the training ground unless the scroll had been found and presented, they forfeited, or the exam was concluded.
It was the little tidbit that had been left out until Orochimaru explained it to them as each team passed the first exam that made what should have been a straightforward race to the finish line into a free-for-all, royal rumble. There were only four scroll sealed under the statue of Buddha, to be released by the proctor one at a time as the others were handed in.
Team Chun Chu was the seventh team to arrive at Akagahara, they were warned of the folly of just rushing in by the remains of the first team, a group of Kumo shinobi, who'd been killed by an exploding pit trap. Still Fukurou and his teammates made their way quickly if cautiously and their effort was repaid for their effort when Shigure managed to detect another team headed out, perhaps with the scroll they needed to pass.
Forewarned, the genin quickly fell into their most effective formation for ambushes. Backtracking, Shigure laid traps along their opponent's expected path as Hiko used shintenshin to get a look at them through the eyes of a possessed tree squirrel while Fukurou guarded his teammate's body. According to Hiko the Mist team looked too exhausted to put up much of a fight. This was proven a few minutes later when Shigure managed to drop a swarm of leaches and kikaichu on the trailing genin without the boy's teammates noticing anything amiss.
As Fukurou stood ready in the wings with paralytic-tipped arrows, Hiko stepped to the fore. Far from his undependable self of old, the Yamanaka threw down a flash bang and jumped in with his sword drawn. The lead genin cursed, blinking tears out of his eyes and drew his sword in answer to the katana that Hiko held before him. He was promptly rendered unconscious by a sharp blow to the temple, delivered by his protesting teammate under the influence of Hiko's Shinranshin no jutsu. A blow from Fukurou seconds later allowed Hiko to release the seal he'd been holding around the katana in his arms.
Shigure walked up to the fallen ninja, rummaged through their clothing and packs before retrieving a scroll.
"…Pwn'd…" She calmly stated.
They'd spent the rest of the day and following night, avoiding a growing group of genin after the scroll much in the same way they'd gained it. Luckily Fukurou was able to raise a barrier that let them pass unnoticed for long enough that they actually got some rest. Between Shigure's kikaichu and his own sharingan their team was able to evade a genjutsu and defeat its users in order to hand the first scroll of the exam to the proctor, Nara Skikaku.
AN: Next up, Chunin Exam Finals. Yamanaka Hiko vs. Mist Shinobi sword versus sword. Aburame Shigure ambush predator. Uchiha Itachi, Sharingan Warrior. Uchiha Fukurou, dual elementalist. Darkness looms, Orochimaru lurks, Shigure pwns...