The Pathless Sage
A/R: Guess what? I was excited to get writing again, so you guys get your chapter 2 days early. And what's more? It's a mega large edition!
Okay, not bad. I haven't lost as many readers as I thought, got a really good review about everything wrong with this fic (thank you, I truly do appreciate the advice and I do plan on acting on them. It will just take a little while to fix the mistakes) and retained my favourite reviewers, so yay. Actually, I might be freaking out, or there might be something wrong with the graphs, but I think I got 9k+ hits in 2 days, which beats the previous record by an entire 4k ... this chapter might confirm my suspicions.
I got a couple reviews saying that it ended right when they thought it began ... well stop complaining, because you got your update!
Oh yeah, if you see more and more mistakes pop up, it's because I am no longer running a program with a built in spell checker, so the writing is much more raw.
"Speaking in Morse Code."
On with the story!
Naruto walked through the doors. The first thing that struck him, surprisingly, wasn't the bucket load of killing intent that washed over him, but the general lack of noise in the room. If his calculations were correct, there should have been at least a few hundred Gennin, young and old alike, packed into one lecture room that was built to barely accomodate one hundred. It was like a graveyard inside the room.
The second thing that struck him was that he was late. Everyone was already there, excluding a few of the Rookie Nine, and already seated with their peers from their villages. When the blonde walked in, every single eye in the room rolled over to him. He wouldn't admit it to anyone, but having that many people stare at him at once even creeped him out a little.
He ignored the looks he got, and went to sit down on the floor a little ways away. He preferred the corner, it was the best place to sit in a room full of hostiles. You could keep everyone in your field of view, and nobody could possibly get behind you. He loved his corner.
He watched quietly, as two of the other Rookie teams entered the room. They didn't speak to each other, only nodding to greet their former classmates. Hinata shared a little look with Naruto, but said nothing.
It was Sasuke's team that made the greatest commotion. Zaraki walked in front and center, with Sakura on his left and Sasuke on his right. The tall boy looked almost the same as he had the first time he walked into the Academy classroom on graduation day. The only difference to his appearance was that he was sporting a black eye patch on his right eye.
When he walked into the room, and felt the intense bloodlust directed his way, the spiky haired swordsman couldn't help but unleash some bloodlust of his own. It wasn't the full brunt of his demonic Chakra, and it felt somehow dulled to Naruto, but it was enough to warn some people. Others licked their lips in anticipation. Naruto only rolled his eyes at the display and stood up. He knew that if Sasuke walked into the room, it wouldn't be staying peaceful and quiet for much longer.
He was correct in assuming that. As soon as he walked through the door, he was fiercely glomped [1] by Ino Yamanaka, heir to the Yamanaka clan and a member of Team 10. Naruto walked up to them, but said nothing.
"Sasuke-kun, I missed you!" Ino squealed in that all too high voice of hers. She had her arms draped around his shoulders, her chest pressed against his back and her chin resting on his right shoulder. All in all, the blonde and the ravenette looked quite like a couple. If only Sasuke wasn't narrowing his eyes in obvious annoyance.
"Get off my Sasuke-kun, Ino-pig!" Sakura, also in a too high voice (far higher than Ino's, unfortunately), said, pointing quite aggressively at the other girl. It was no secret to anyone that these were the two biggest fangirls vying for Sasuke's interest, but it was also quite obvious that the boy in question had no interest (currently) in either.
"So troublesome ... so you guys are taking the test too?" Shikamaru Nara stood a little behind Ino, and Chouji Akimichi stood a little to his left. He was a pretty lazy guy, but don't let that demeanour fool you. The guy was a genius, pure and simple. Not the kind that learned things quickly, or became monstrously strong. No, he was the intelligent kind of genius.
"Yeah, we are," the one to respond wasn't anyone from Team 7, but from Kiba Inuzuka from Team 8. His team, like Team 7 with Zaraki, were flanking him from behind. Hinata shared a look with Naruto, who was currently standing behind the Nara, and that shifted everyone's attention towards him. "Great, so everyone from our graduating class is here?"
Naruto nodded and stepped forward a little. "Looks like it, and everyone seems to have gotten a lot stronger." To the others, bar Team 7, it was a surprise to see Naruto talk normally. There was no shouting of Hokage, no 'Believe it!' after every sentence and no squeaky high voice.
"Yeah, everyone but you," Kiba said in a mocking tone, despite the changed atmosphere around the Jinchuriki. Naruto intentionally kept a steady rein on his Chakra, as to not allow it to run amok or give away how strong he had really become. The room walls may not remain standing if he let go of the reins completely. "You still look like a pipsqueak that can't fight."
Naruto's old habits returned. "Oh yeah? Well you still need your pet to fight your battles!" It wasn't in his nature to boast, not anymore. As a ninja, he understood the need for secrecy, and secrecy was not something achieved through boasting. He had found out the hard way.
Shikamaru, like his father, didn't buy the facade of weakness. "Our Jounin-sensei told us some crazy things about you, Naruto. Apparently, your sensei was talking about how you could take on the Hokage now or something."
Hinata poked her fingers together, trying to keep up her end of the facade. Nobody knew that she was training with Kisame, at least nobody knew explicitly, and had no reason to suspect anything from her. Well, nobody normal had anything to suspect. "Naruto-kun is strong, but isn't it going a little too far to say that he could beat Hokage-sama?"
"We heard some things about you too, Hinata. Apparently, if Kisame-sensei is to be believed, you are pretty talented too." That was news to Kiba and Shino. Kurenai had told them of how Kisame had boasted, in front of all the Jounin-sensei, about his student, but she had made no mention of the shark-man making any comments about Hinata.
Hearing the name of one of their most notorious criminals, the Mizugakure Gennin perked up in their corner of the room. They whispered amongst themselves, but made no attempt to do anything.
Before the conversation could continue any further, they were rudely interrupted by a mild voice coming from behind Kiba.
"Keep it down you lot. You are attracting way too much attention, so I assume you're rookies?" It was a silver haired Gennin a few years older than them. He wore round spectacles and attire somewhat similar to Ino. He didn't look all that tough, with his skinny build and no visible muscles, but something about him radiated power.
"Yeah, so what?" Kiba was the brashest, and perhaps the rudest of them all. He replied with venom, despite the fact that the newcomer was wearing a Konoha forehead protector. They all turned to look at him.
"Well, attracting so much attention and making so much noise is a bad idea. You might get hurt," the Konoha Gennin, still without a known name, said. Something about him put Naruto on edge, and somehow the boy smelled of snakes and laboratory chemicals. "My name is Kabuto, I am a fellow Konoha Gennin taking the exams."
"Huh, you sound like you have been here before," having been the first to speak, Kiba had been wordlessly elected their spokesperson. Nobody else wanted to speak directly to the stranger, so he volunteered ... unwillingly.
"I have, this is my seventh time taking the test. Since they do two tests a year, this is my fourth year taking it." Kabuto said, pushing his glasses further up his nose, even though they hadn't slipped in the slightest. [2]
"Wow, you must suck," Kiba said, taking on his trademark mocking tone.
"Not really, it's just that the exams are really tough, especially in the later stages," was Kabuto's rebuttal. He didn't let it show on his face, but he was really tempted to teach the brat a lesson.
"So, you got any useful advice for us?" This time, it was Zaraki that spoke. He had lived on the streets for a long, long time and he had learned the value of information. The more information you had, the longer you lived. And if the information was scot free, that was just an added bonus. As such, Zaraki tried to get any and all information he could get his hands on.
"I guess you call it useful," Kabuto reached into his top. When he withdrew his hands, he was grasping a deck of what appeared to be playing cards. "These are my Ninja Info cards. They hold all my information I have collected over time. I have information on pretty much everyone here."
"What do you have on Zaraki Kenpachi and Naruto Uzumaki? Also, I would like to know anything you have on Gaara of the Sand Waterfall." This time, it was Sasuke that spoke up. Being around Naruto for so long had changed him a lot, but he still retained his competitive streak, and he wanted to know everything about the competition. Granted, he knew almost everything there was to know about Naruto and Zaraki (at least he thought he did), but he wanted to see if Kabuto had anything interesting.
"Well, alright," Kabuto didn't want to give away information. He treasured it, they were his babies. But he had a mission, and to complete that mission, he had to get as close to Sasuke Uchiha as possible. Not in a romantic way, of course, but he had to be someone Sasuke trusted explicitly. He took out three cards from the pile, and put away the rest.
"First off, Zaraki Kenpachi. His mission records are as follows: 24 D Ranks, 3 C Ranks, 0 B Ranks and an A Rank?" His voice jolted up a little at the end, not believing that a Gennin was capable of such a feat. "His teammates are Sasuke Uchiha and Sakura Haruno. He is average and both Ninjutsu and Genjutsu, but his Taijutsu is exceptional. His Kenjutsu is through the roof!"
"Next is Gaara of the Sand Waterfall. His mission records are: no D Ranks, 9 C Ranks, 8 B Ranks and 14 A Ranks?" This was even more surprising. Who were these monstrous Gennin? He didn't remember putting those cards. "His teammates are Temari of the Desert Breeze and Kankuro of the Hidden Puppets. His Ninjutsu is insane, no sign of Genjutsu or Taijutsu though. He can control sand and apparently, has never gotten hurt."
"Lastly, Naruto Uzumaki. His missions record ... oh brother. Where are these monsters popping up from? 9984 D Ranks, 0 C Ranks, 0 B Ranks and an A Rank." This was ridiculous. Why was he not aware of Konoha having such monsters as Gennin? And Suna too? "He has no teammates, apparently, and the information on his abilities aren't up to date. All I have is that he was the dead last of his graduating class and that his ability with anything is mediocre at best. He is, however, noted to have near infinite amounts of Chakra and he is the student of Kisame Hoshigaki."
"Well, that was useful," Sasuke said, not really paying attention to the older boy. That was information he already knew, and was completely useless
Just then, an explosion at the front of the classroom stopped all activity in the room.
-TT-
"Wow, how are you supposed to answer this shit? Wait, are you even supposed to be able to calculate this accurately without a calculator?" Naruto was becoming more and more skeptical of the integrity of this test as time passed by. It didn't add up. Insane equations that nobody except genius mathematicians could work out? A stipulation where you needed to cheat multiple times to get kicked out? "Complete bullshit. You have to cheat to get passed this."
He looked around the room. He had no viable ways to cheat, without getting caught. He could activate his Rinnegan, and try to look around to see if he could see any answers on anyone else's paper, but he didn't want to use his emergency trump card on anything so stupid. It was a complete waste.
Then he looked to his right, and had an epiphany. He quickly wrote something down on the bottom right edge of his paper, and thanked God that he was using a pencil to write and had a rubber. He tapped the girl next to him on the back of the hand once, to gain her attention.
Hinata didn't speak, but did look at him questioningly. In response, the blonde looked down towards his paper. The lavender haired princess saw the note at the bottom of his page, and looked even more confused.
Her confusion was replaced by a bright red blush, however, when she felt Naruto's hand on hers. At first, she didn't understand what the tapping on the back of her hand meant, but remembering the note on the bottom of Naruto's test paper, she understood everything. A look of realisation dawned on her face.
"Finally getting the messages?" Naruto said. Well, he didn't actually say anything, he tapped out the message on her hand in morse code. He didn't want to get caught by anyone, and he didn't know if talking to other contestants counted as one of their opportunities to cheat.
Hinata took her hand from beneath Naruto's, put it on top of his and proceeded to tap out her own message. "Yes. This idea was complete genius, but why are you talking in a test? I thought we weren't supposed to cheat?" It didn't take long for them to tap out messages to each other, since they had been taught morse code back in the Academy, and they were surprisingly the two best transmitters in their class.
"Yea, thing is: the cheating part was a lie. There is no way in hell we can pass this test without cheating. The problem is though, I don't have a way of actually cheating," Naruto looked a little concerned, but Hinata couldn't tell. He was still looking at his test paper, and so was Hinata, to uphold their facade of pondering over the contents of the test. They didn't want anyone to know they were cheating, after all.
"So, how do you want me to go about this?" Hinata asked, looking slightly confused. She could use her Byakugan, but wouldn't that be a dead giveaway? The veins around her temple were far too easy to notice when she had her Byakugan active.
"I suppose you can activate your Byakugan without any handseals?" Hinata tapped out an affirmative. "Good. Pretend you can't figure out the test, and put your head down on the table. That way, my body will be blocking the examiners line of vision to your head, if I just lean over my paper a little. Once your head is down, activate your Byakugan and tap out the answers to me. Afterwards, I can tap the answers back to you, and we can both finish the test."
"But what are we going to do for the answers? What if there is no one here that can answer the questions?" There was a nervous tremble to her hands as she tapped out the message, conveying her doubt to her blonde friend.
"We don't have that problem. Even if there aren't people planted here with the answers, we have Shikamaru. He has a shit ton of IQ cramped in his head, I know he can do these equations." Again, Hinata tapped out an affirmative.
They put their plan into action, and a little timely distraction from one of the Suna Gennin going to the toilet gave them perfect cover to begin their operations.
As it turned out, Shikamaru did have the answers. Hinata trusted her former classmate's ability to answer questions, but she did a thorough check of the classroom to see if there were any plants with the answers. There were two, and they had the exact same answer as Shikamaru. It all went perfectly.
-TT-
"Alright maggots, time is up. Put your damn pencils down and listen up," everyone did as the bear of an examiner told them to. Ibiki was large man, and combined with the scars all over his face, looked rather intimidating. "You answered nine written questions, now there is a tenth one. Listen up, 'cause I'll only say this once. The last question has some special stipulations."
Everyone paid rapt attention to the man at the front of the classroom. They had come this far, they weren't going to drop out now. "Rule number one: you get a choice as to whether you want to take this question or not. Rule number two: your decision affects your teammates. Rule number three: if you refuse to take this question, both you and your teammates will fail this test." A loud uproarious shout went through the room.
"Of course we are going to take the question, then!" One Suna Gennin, the same one that went to the toilet earlier, said.
"Shut up and listen, dumbass. I have more rules to tell you, and they'll explain why you might wanna quit. Rule number four: if you do take this question and fail to answer it correctly, you will be banned from taking the Chunin exams ever again. Essentially, you will be a Gennin for the rest of your life."
A tense silence followed the last rule. That was a large step to take, especially if the question was going to be as tough as the last ones. Hinata, among others, became doubtful and her resolve started to waver.
Then one Konoha Gennin gave up, and his entire time was escorted out of the room. The first quitter started an entire avalanche of withdrawals. Gennin of all shapes and sizes left the room left, right and center, from every village. As Konoha had the largest amount of participators, they naturally had the largest amount of failures. When no more Gennin left their seat or raised their hand, Ibiki spoke up again.
"Well, doesn't anyone else want to quit?" That comment nearly drove Hinata off the edge, and she would have raised her hand if Naruto hadn't put his over her's.
"Hinata, don't quit. It's a trick, don't be fooled. Sit still, and let the weak of resolve quit." Naruto tapped out in morse code. He would have tapped out a more encouraging message, had he not been distracted by a rough voice.
"Tch, if you kiddies are scared of a question, then get the hell out. I ain't scared of something that can't hurt me, in fact, I wouldn't be scared even if it could hurt me. So gimme that question so I can get my ass outta here and take the rest of the exam." Zaraki punctuated his remark by plopping his feet on his desk, on top of his test paper.
"Well, we got a tough guy here, have we?" Ibiki grinned a menacing, predatory grin. "Tch, that brat just inspired the rest of them to stay. No way in hell they are quitting now." He took a look around the room, and did a quick head count. "24 teams? I guess I'll let them pass."
"Well, alright you maggots. Since you all have the balls to stay and take the question," he saw some of the girls in the audience cringe at that remark. "I guess you all pass."
"WHAT?" A surprised shout went through the room. Even Naruto was surprised. He expected there to actually be a question, just to thin out the crowd a little more. Before anyone could say anymore, though, a window on the side exploded in a shower of debris and glass, and a woman flew in through it.
The woman stood at the front of the classroom, looking at the number of contestants that still remained. "Ibiki, you must be going soft. You let 72 of them pass?" She shrugged. "Well, whatever. I am Anko Mitarashi. By the end of my test, there will be less than half of you still standing. Come to Training Ground 44 in ... an hour." With that, she vanished and the entirety of the class stumbled to get to wherever Training Ground 44 was before time ran out.
-TT-
Naruto stood alone in front of the looming, fenced off forest in front of him. The Gennin around him were milling about slowly, sticking together with their teams. They were now awaiting the beginning of the next test, having already received a full rundown of what the next test entailed and a scroll to go with it.
Naruto had, funnily enough, received the Heaven scroll. It would have been ironic if he was still as dumb and idiotic as he used to be. Still, it brought a wry grin to his whiskered face.
He looked around. Every team had already hidden their scrolls before even leaving the tent, so nobody knew what scroll anyone else had. That way, nobody would be targeted before the test even began.
Well, that wasn't quite true. From where Naruto was, he could see every eye looking at him hungrily. He was the only one taking the test without any teammates, and everyone was looking at him like a piece of meat. They all wanted to take him out, and as fast as possible. If he had the correct scroll for them, which was a 50% chance, then that was just an added bonus. Of course, having an extra scroll as a bargaining chip wouldn't be a bad idea either.
Naruto sighed. It seemed that if he wanted to survive, at least without giving too much away, then he had to team up with someone. He looked around for a team to partner up with, but sighed at the limited choice. He didn't know anyone except for the Rookie Nine, and everyone among them had a reason to decline him.
Sasuke and Zaraki would be the most likely to accept him, since they were the only ones even remotely aware of his strength. Well apart from Hinata, but that was another story. But Team 7 had Sakura, and she hated his guts. Even if she didn't hold much sway over the overall team dynamics, Zaraki and Sasuke were bound to consider themselves strong enough to get through on their own.
Shikamaru's team was the most likely to accept him amongst them, but there was the problem of Ino. She hated him too, perhaps even more strongly than Sakura did. And that wasn't even mentioning the amount of risk he would put his secrets under if he was around Shikamaru for too long.
His only choice was Team 8. Hinata was his friend, she knew his strength and held some authority over her teammates, as the voice of reason. Shino was also there, who would consider the logical advantage of having an extra member. Kiba would be a problem, since he was a complete egotistic bastard, but that was something Naruto was going to have to deal with.
Sighing once again, he moved towards them slowly. He didn't want to do this, but if he was going to keep any amount of his abilities secret, and everyone off his back, this was the best course of action. When he got close enough to be in hearing range, he called out to them and waved.
"Hey Hinata, is it okay if I join your team?" Naruto asked, sounding as cheerful as possible. He didn't want to give away his changed personality too quickly.
"It's fine by me, but why would you want to join us?" Hinata asked, playing along with Naruto's act. There was no reason for Naruto to act like his old self, unless he had something planned.
"And why would we want a dobe like you tagging along with us? You'll only slow us down," Kiba's voice was loud, but nobody paid any attention to them. Everyone else was taking care of their own last minute preparations.
"Because the more the merrier? Look, everyone is looking at me like I am a piece of meat to be taken down, so I was wondering if I could tag along with you guys for some protection?" Naruto said, doing his best impression of a puppy.
Before Kiba could say anything more, Shino spoke up. "You can come with us, Naruto-san. Why? Because it is more logical to travel in a larger group." Though he agreed with Shino, and was grateful to him for stepping, something gave him the creeps. It was as if [3] if he could see Shino's eyes, they would hold a look he really wouldn't like.
-TT-
Naruto and his entourage were in a situation they would rather not be in. Mizu shinobi weren't the most forgiving, and being stuck with two teams of them wasn't their idea of having a seamless exam.
"Alright kiddies, either cough up all your scrolls, or we'll leave here with nothing but corpses," One of them, apparently the leader of one of the teams, said. He was a sleek looking man, perhaps in his twenties. Like all the other Mizu contestants, they were wearing a beige wetsuit and a rebreather on their faces.
Kiba's first reaction was to answer back to them, to claim that they weren't going to back down from a challenge, no matter how difficult it was. However, Shino laying a hand on his shoulder stopped him in his tracks, and made him reconsider. Looking to the side, he was surprised to see a calm and composed look on Naruto's face. Weird, he thought the blonde would be the first one to freak out at the threat.
The leader of the Mizu contingent took off his rebreather, and his face took on a lecherous look. "Actually, we'll kill all you three guys. That girl there with the creepy eyes is a little too pleasant on the eyes to just kill off without having some fun first." As if to prove his point, he moved forward and tried to grope Hinata.
Shouting in outrage, Kiba tried to intercept, but was thrown back by the larger man. Shino stayed composed, though on the inside he was raging. Hinata tried to struggle in the man's grasp, but was too weak, physically, to break free.
Naruto saw red and he tilted his head down, hiding his eyes from view. "I suggest you take your hands off her," he took his sword off his back and moved it to his hip. "That is, if you want to keep that hand attached to the rest of your body."
"Hah? You think a little pipsqueak like you can act tough-?" The man's words were cut off by a shrill cry of pain. Naruto had chopped his hand off.
"I told you, if you valued your hand, you would have taken it off Hinata." He promptly kicked the Mizu Gennin back towards his team. One of them, a female by the looks of it, cradled him in her arms. The rest of them stayed quiet, but slipped into their battle positions. "You okay Hinata?"
"Yes, I'm fine." She answered. Her eyes hardened, and her face took on a look of determination.
"Can you fight?" Naruto asked.
"Yes," was her short reply.
"Kiba, Shino, if you don't mind, I would like for you to stand back." Naruto said, standing up straight and facing their enemies.
"What do you mean, you'd like us to stay out of the fight? No way in hell. You forget, it was out teammate that got groped, you retard." Kiba was on the brink of attacking Naruto, rather than the enemies in front of them.
Naruto turned his head and glared at Kiba. "You misunderstood. I meant stay the fuck out of the fight if you know what's good for you."
Again, Kiba was stopped from attacking by Shino. He hadn't said anything yet, but the bug-boy had a good idea as to what was going on. "Don't worry, we won't interfere. Why? Because I think you have a personal stake in this fight."
"Good, at least Shino has some common sense," Naruto then turned towards Hinata. "Do you want to take the bastard's head, or should I do the honours?"
He didn't get an answer from Hinata, because she was beaten to the punch by the female that was holding the enemy leader to her chest. "You think you brats can beat us in a fight? A two on six fight, no less?"
Hinata's face took on an uncharacteristic, sadistic grin. "No, this won't be a fight," she sped towards the fallen Gennin in a zigzag pattern, and Naruto followed behind her, going in the opposite direction. Their run created a string of connected diamond shapes.
"This will be an execution!" Naruto finished for her, as he lobbed off the head of the girl holding the enemy leader. The sudden increase in their speed at the end of their run surprised the other Gennin, and they tried to fall back. Alas, Hinata was already on them.
She ran through their ranks like a typhoon, hitting everyone she came across with as many Jyuken strikes as she could. Naruto followed in her wake, ripping apart any remnants of Hinata's preliminary charge.
By the end of their enraged onslaught, the two teams of Mizu Gennin looked like bloodied confetti.
-TT-
Elsewhere, Team 7 were having a much harder time with one foe than Naruto and Hinata did with six. It was a feminine looking Kusa Gennin with long hair and a farmer hat. He was currently fighting Sasuke, while Sakura was hiding behind a tree observing the fight and Zaraki was nowhere to be seen.
"You made a good decision, Sasuke-kun. Often, the way to escape a predator is to offer it a better prey," the man said, as he stood atop a tree branch. Sasuke was standing on another branch a little ways away, holding a Heaven scroll in front of him.
"Just take the scroll, but leave my team and I alone," Sasuke said, throwing the scroll towards the other ninja. The scroll, however, didn't make it to the other side as it was snatched out of the air by a fast moving blur.
"You moron, it's obvious you've never lived on the streets. You know what the number one rule of living on the streets is? If you see a predator bigger than you, don't give it anything it wants," Zaraki said, holding the thrown Heaven scroll in his hand. He was standing in between both combatants and a little ways to the right of Sasuke.
"You idiot! Are you trying to get us all killed?" Sasuke shouted in outrage, pointing at Zaraki. Said spiky haired boy rose an eyebrow at the unusual behaviour of the Uchiha, but said nothing about it.
"Do you know why that is the foremost rule of the streets, Sasuke? Because if you give the predator what it wants without a fight, it'll have the strength to fight for even more. You will lose more than you would have if you hadn't just given up what it wanted," Zaraki said sagely.
Sasuke didn't calm down at all. "What are you prattling on about you moron?"
"I'm ain't the moron, you are. D'ya think that giving him a measly scroll is gonna stop him from killing us? If he wants to kill us, he'll do it anyway, scroll or not. If he has the ability to kill us, why would giving him a damn scroll stop him from doing it anyway? Is there a fucking all-binding contract out there that would stop him from killing us?" Zaraki's rant did nothing to dissuade the Uchiha. When he was about to say more about why they should hand over the scroll, Sakura ran up to him and slapped him.
Sakura Haruno slapped Sasuke Uchiha.
-TT-
Having searched the Mizu Gennin and taken all their equipment, including their two Earth scrolls, Naruto and his group were on their way to the tower. He was hoping that having not been questioned yet meant he had gotten away with it, but alas, no such luck.
"Naruto-san, now that we have nothing to do but travel, would it be okay if I asked you some questions?" Shino asked, looking as stoic as ever and his voice betraying nothing. In a way, Shino was worse than Shikamaru. What Shikamaru had in intelligence, he made up for it with his laziness. Shino had no such impediments, in fact, some would even say the boy was as knowledge hungry as anyone was ever likely to get.
Seeing where this was going, Naruto only nodded his head in acceptance. He wasn't going to get away with it, but he'd be damned if he let this get out. He'd have to make sure to keep the leak as small as possible, and Shino was the perfect candidate for that purpose. Kiba was not, but he would have to think something up for that.
"Just how strong are you, really?" Naruto almost broke out in joyous dance. He had forgotten that Hinata already knew about his secrets, and was happy to keep them a secret from everyone else. Shino didn't see anything more than just some rudimentary Kenjutsu skills, and didn't even see anything that would allude to him being as good as he actually was.
"Truth be told, I haven't gotten that much stronger than I was in the Academy. Sure, I got a little faster and learned some stuff with the sword, but that's about as far as my skills improved. Some simple Ninjutsu and Taijutsu, too. Most of my time was spent studying and developing my mind for actual Ninja duty. That's why I am talking to you normally now, and not screaming and shouting like a moron. It's also the reason as to why I no longer wear that abominable jumpsuit." Naruto said, his face the perfect picture of stoicism. If his appearance didn't look so starkly different, one could mistake him for an Aburame.
Shino nodded in acceptance. "Hah! I knew all that shit your sensei talked about you was just trash! There was no way in hell that you got strong enough to take all of us out at once!" Kiba said, more to assure himself than anything, though it wasn't a conscious thing.
"Yes, you idiot, believe that for as long as you can." Naruto thought.
"And Hinata, would you mind telling us when you got that strong?" Shino asked, his voice still level and polite, though his eyebrows rose a little. As Hinata knew from past experience, that was equivalent to mild shock in Aburame terms. And why wouldn't he be shocked? His own teammate had hidden her strength from them.
"Eh … well, I have been doing some extra training with Kisame-sensei and Naruto-kun," Hinata said, reverting back to her shy personality. "They really helped me get over my weaknesses and helped me grow."
Again, Shino nodded in acceptance. "And what was with that attitude change? Man, I haven't seen anything like that since that time I saw my mum fighting!" Kiba said, jumping into the conversation.
Naruto answered for his friend. "I doubt there is anyone in the world that can hang around with Kisame Hoshigaki and not become at least a little blood thirsty. And he did try to bring Hinata out of her shell. Except, his way of doing it was to make her beat on me until she had gotten over her fear of hurting people, rather than hurting her until she got over her fear of hurting others."
Kiba only laughed at his expense.
-TT-
For a second, Sasuke blabbered in shock. What the hell had just happened? "What … was that for?" He asked a little uncertainly. What kind of nightmare was this? Was it even possible for one of his … fangirls to do anything to hurt him?
"Who are you?" Sakura asked, tears streaming down her face. "The coward in front of me isn't my Sasuke-kun, this isn't the Sasuke-kun I know. What happened to you?"
"Yeah, what has gotten into ya? First sign of trouble and you go all chicken? If you're scared of this little Gennin, what the hell would you do if you went and fought Itachi now?" Sasuke flinched.
Looking at the smiling Gennin in front of him, Sasuke hardened his resolve. He was an Uchiha, and Uchiha didn't run away. Seeing the newfound resolve in Sasuke's Sharingan eyes, the Kusa Gennin let out an amused laugh.
"You would do well to assume nothing. Who said I am any less dangerous than Itachi?" As he said this, he began to feel off the skin from his face, revealing a chalk white, pasty face underneath.
-TT-
A/R: Wow, this chapter is a monster in comparison to the other chapters. Sheesh this thing is big. Anyhow, I would appreciate it a lot if you left a review. It doesn't take long and motivates me to write. Who knows, if the numbers surprise me, I might be motivated enough to write something this big again.
Sorry if it was a little hard to keep up with the chapter, since I did skip around a little bit. I just wanted to get to the meat of the arc as quickly as possible, and you guys have probably read some of the generic Chunin exam stuff so many times, you guys probably have four different variations completely memorised. I know I do.
[1]: I am quite aware Glomp isn't an actual word in the English dictionary, and it's usage may be unprofessional, but it just fit the context too well not to use.
[2]: I never have this problem in day to day life, but when I am playing sports, my glasses always slip down like two millimetres and it just annoys the shit out of me. Same thing with dirty glasses, I can't stand having any dust or water stains on my lenses.
[3]: Not a typo, it was intentional.