SIX HOURS AGO.
Nawaki opened his eyes. At least, he thought he did. All around him was darkness, so he couldn't be sure. He tried activating his sharingan but his mind was still dazed. He tried to remember what had happened. The last thing he remembered was falling of the bridge. Then all he could remember was darkness.
He flexed his hands and stretched his legs. Everything was working fine, and there was no pain. That was good, but Nawaki still didn't understand how he had survived. He tried once again to activate his sharingan and this time, it worked. The two tomoe appeared in each of his eyes. He tried looking around again. He was in a cave, deep underground. He knew he was under the minefield because he could hear the explosions. He was lying on a blanket that was draped over a slab of stone. Nawaki gathered all this information then stored it at the back of his mind so that he could focus on the immediate danger.
He wasn't alone.
The figure moved out of the shadows. He was tall enough, and Nawaki could tell he was a man. His face was invisible to Nawaki, which he didn't understand. His sharingan should be able to see the man's face, even in the darkness. The man came closer, and Nawaki's hand twitched towards his kunai pouch. To his surprise, the man chuckled.
"So you are an Uchiha after all." he said in a deep voice.
Nawaki didn't like the sound of him. Some would say he was judging a book by its cover but the man sounded evil.
"I may have the sharingan but I'm not an Uchiha." Nawaki said, trying to sound braver then he felt.
"Don't lie to me child, I know who your father is." the man stated.
"As do I, but despite that I don't consider myself part of the clan." It was the truth. Nawaki knew he had Uchiha blood, but he had always thought of himself as a Haruno. He didn't want to be an Uchiha.
"You have the sharingan boy. I don't care what you think you are, as long as you have that. It will always mark you as an Uchiha, whether you like it or not."
"What do you want with me?" Nawaki demanded.
The man gave another low chuckle.
"Calm down child, I'm not here to hurt you. I saved your life didn't I?"
Nawaki's eyes widened.
"You were the one that saved me when I fell off the bridge? How?"
"I have my ways." the man replied. "In time, you'll come to learn them. But for today, I am merely here to introduce myself, and to learn your name."
"What are you talking about?" Nawaki demanded.
"Tell me your name and I'll explain."
Nawaki thought it over. The man seemed to know who he was anyways, and he couldn't see a way out of the cave. If he had any chance of surviving, he needed this man. He sighed and gave in.
"My name is Nawaki." he said. "What about you?"
The man smirked.
"I'll tell you next time we meet. The reason I came here today was to save you. When next meet, remember this talk. I am not, nor will I ever be, your enemy. No matter what you do, I will never harm you. Do you understand?"
Nawaki was extremely confused, but he decided to go along with this man's craziness.
"Yes." he said. "I understand. Is that all?"
The man laughed.
"Yes, that is all. I'll take you back up to the surface now. Your teammates are currently in the middle of a fight. You'll find them in the grove of trees fifty metres ahead of you. Just run straight. Got it?"
Nawaki nodded, but he realised that the man wouldn't be able to see him in the dark. He opened his mouth but the man had already begun to use his jutsu. A huge amount of chakra spiralled around the dark hole that was the man's face. The focus point seemed to be where the man's right eye lay. Nawaki stared harder at him, trying to see anything that would give him a clue about the man's identity.
He stared into the focal point until his sharingan saw through the chakra. Just as he saw the man's eye, everything began to warp. Nawaki found himself being sucked into the man's eye. He was scared for a few seconds, until he remembered the man's promise not to hurt him. He didn't trust this man, but he did believe his speech about not being enemies was genuine.
His whole body was sucked into the man's eye. Once again, his world went dark, but this time it only lasted a few seconds. He felt himself being warped again and with a thump, he landed on grass. He blinked and looked around. He was definitely in the minefield, and up ahead he could see the grove of trees the man had told him about.
The man! Where was he? Nawaki looked around wildly. Suddenly, he heard the man's voice from behind him.
"I shall leave now. I don't think I'm welcome here. We won't see each other for a long time, young Nawaki but one day, we shall meet again."
With that, the man disappeared. Nawaki stayed on the ground, trying to wrap his head around what had just happened. Teleportation jutsus were extremely rare and difficult, but that wasn't what was worrying Nawaki. He had deactivated his sharingan, but he had managed to catch a glimpse of the man's eye. He recognized it from both his own eyes and his mother's stories.
The man had the Mangekyo Sharingan.
Trembling, Nawakik got to his feet. He began to run towards the woods, trying not to think about the man. He decided to keep the whole meeting a secret. The man knew who he was, and if he told anyone he had met the man, they would want the full story. What he needed to do was wait until he got a mission and then he would talk to his mother about it.
He reached Hisa just in time to see the strangely dressed girl pin her to the ground. The girl raised a kunai to kill Hisa.
Like Nawaki was going to let that happen.
He reached into his pouch and grabbed a random bunch of tools. He threw the mixture of shuriken and kunai at the girl, just snagging the top of her dress. The force of the weapons yanked her off Hisa. She flew through the air until the weapons embedded themselves into a tree. She was left dangling there, screaming angry curses.
Nawaki grinned down as Hisa finally noticed him.
"Sorry I'm late. I got a bit distracted." he called down.
She smirked.
"What took you so long?"
He laughed and jumped down onto her branch. She was removing the shuriken that had were stuck in her clothes.
"Seriously though, are you alright?" she asked.
"Yeah, actually I'm completely fine. I don't even have a scratch."
"How did you manage that?" she asked in disbelief.
He grinned smugly.
"You'll learn my tricks one day. But until then keep trying."
She glared at him and he quickly changed the subject.
"Where's Oki?"
She pointed over to where Oki was lying in the ground. Nawaki gasped and rushed over to her. He breathed a sigh of relief when he noticed she was breathing.
"What happened to her?" he asked.
Hisa smirked. "She hit her head on a branch and it knocked her out."
Nawaki laughed. His laugh was loud enough for Oki to wake up. She blinked a few times, eyes blearily scanning around the place. She gasped when her eyes saw Nawaki.
"Nawaki, how are you here? Am I in heaven?"
He was about to answer her but Hisa interrupted.
"If you were in heaven you wouldn't owe me 10,000 yen. But you aren't, so you do."
Oki groaned and lay back down.
"Damn." she muttered. "Now I kinda wish we were all in heaven and not alive."
Nawaki was lost. What the hell were they talking about? Girls were confusing creatures at the best of times.
"Um… Shouldn't we get going? We only have a few hours left before the gates close."
Oki nodded, then winced. There was a small bruise at the back of her head. She pushed herself off the ground. They turned to leave, but she reached over and pulled Nawaki into a hug.
"I'm glad you're alive. Really, really glad." she whispered.
Nawakk didn't know what to say. He groaned slightly as he felt himself go red. He had been trying to control his blushing over the past few months. But it was clearly not working very well.
!
They made it to the gates just as the sun began to set. Hanabi was waiting for them, along with Ino and Shikamaru. Nawaki was surprised to see Naruto and Hinata there as well.
"Hisa!" Hinata cried.
She rushed over and enveloped Hisa in a hug. Ino went over to Oki and gave her a quick hug as well. Oki grinned proudly.
"Hisa, I was so worried about you! What were you thinking of causing that big explosion? Do you have any idea how worried I was?"
"This is not the time for this Mother." Hisa grumbled.
Hinata glared at her.
"Don't you 'mother' me! You are in so much trouble young lady! You could have killed your own brother!"
"Obito's alive?" Hisa gasped.
Naruto nodded.
"Yep. Oki, your sister is alive as well, and so is Hizashi. All three of their teams made it out in time."
Nawaki saw Obito come ambling up to them. He recognized him from the times he had been over at Hisa's house. As far as he could remember, Obito was a genuinely nice guy. He seemed to be glad to see his sister.
"Hey Hisa." Obito grinned. "I know we don't get on, but trying to blow me up was a bit too much."
For a second, Nawaki thought Hisa would hug him. Instead, she glared at him.
"Obito, did you rat me out to Mother?" she hissed.
Obito shrugged.
"It was hard not to. They all wanted to know how the big explosion happened. I had no choice."
Hisa looked like she was going to argue but Hinata interfered.
"That's enough. We'll talk about this later. For now, listen to Naruto. He'll explain the last stage of the exams."
Naruto stepped forward, and Nawaki watched as the genin crowded around him. It seemed that the only ones who had passed were them, Obito's team, the Ino-Shika-Cho team, and Hizashi Hyuga's team. He thought that was everyone when he noticed the Kazekage's children walk up to them.
"First of all, congratulations to all of you for passing. You proved that you are the best of the genin. The question now is who is the single best genin? We'll give you a month to train, to learn new moves. Then, the real exam will begin! You'll all fight one on one matches, and the winner will progress to the next round. We'll judge your worth as a chunin depending on your performance in the matches. Any questions?"
Most of the genin, including Nawaki, had already known about the matches, so Naruto dismissed them. As Nawaki was leaving, Oki came over to him.
"Cover your eyes and ears." she muttered. "Hanabi's blowing up the field."
Nawaki's eyes widened.
"She was serious about that?"
Oki nodded grimly.
"She's insane, and I mean psycho insane. Just don't listen."
Nawaki did what she had advised and covered his ears and eyes. But he still heard Hanabi give one crazy laugh. He decided to find out what the hell was wrong with that woman.
But that was an adventure for another day. For now, he put Hanabi and her insanity to the back of his mind and he and Oki went off to get some Ichiraku ramen. Life was good.