"So what you're saying is, you want to register the three of you as an official team of this year's Chuunin Exams?" a staffer overseeing the registration inquired. Given the unprecedented size of these exams, the village had to pull chuunin and even special jounin from all other assignments just so they could fulfill this elementary role.
"That's right, all three of us have participated before." Kiyomi nodded, she acted firm about the decision of signing her, Meiko and Gwido up for a team. Sure, Gwido was just a filler and would not amount to anything but, given their vastly overqualified specifications, it should not pose a problem. Despite her intended appearances, something in the man's tone troubled Kiyomi.
"I'm afraid that is not possible. Amaikon Gwido is not a graduate of the Ninja Academy, if he is not an officially acknowledged genin, he cannot be promoted to chuunin." The administrator shook his head.
"Really? Cause a whole bunch of this year's participants haven't graduated the Academy." Meiko pouted her lips and closed one of her eyes while she leaned with an inquisitive look at the sole barrier in their task to settle these lowly administrative matters and begin training for the exams proper.
"Nice try, any entrants from another universe or timeline are redirected to a table that is capable of validating their IDs. We have representatives of each timeline and each universe that is participating." The administrator shrugged.
Kiyomi could have made those indifferent, half-closed eyes that took their rest, akin to that of a greased kidney, inside the black bags under the man's eyes or she could have wrapped the man's dark, shoulder-length hair around his throat and put the squeeze on him. This ridiculous obstacle was the only thing in their way, the only thing that bothered Kiyomi and here the Team Hokage was, withheld from advancement in yet another Chuunin Exams.
"Oh well, it was worth a shot…" Gwido shrugged.
"Wait, how did you bypass the registration the last time?" Meiko wondered while she stretched her numb body out and relaxed her neck and head. The trio let the ever-growing line gather in front of the registration while they settled their further plan of registering. They only had time until the end of the day.
"Registration?" Gwido pouted the right half of his face as he scratched the back of his head in an attempt to remember something from last time. "I don't think I did any of that. The tall lady and the tiny zombie-man just approached me and took me, I went along for the ride. What's the problem, guys, I thought you two knew what you were doing?"
Kiyomi growled, simmering with fury she did her best to keep down. It was a combination of both the total cluelessness as well as the complete inadequacy of this imbecile whom she took for being the last hope for Team Hokage to make it into the exams.
"So what now? We have until the end of the day to find us a third member…" Meiko stated the obvious.
"Wait… Didn't Mana have that… That teammate guy from back in the day? He hung out with Daidao and Nanaba but he wasn't there yesterday, meaning he's not taking part in the exams, what was his name, Sugemi?" Kiyomi scratched her head. The Yamanaka have always had a history of cooperation and common understanding with the Nara, even if Kiyomi did not do much to justify or strengthen that historic bond, she was willing to go along with it if that would have helped her case.
"Yeah… Let's go and find Daidao and Nanaba and ask them about him." Meiko nodded. "I recall him being pretty tough…"
Meiko had all the right in the world to make that assessment, having clashed fists with the fellow, if the Nara matched and even ranged on surpassing Meiko's natural strength, speed, and toughness, Kiyomi was more than hopeful about the guy being of great help to the already top-notch chances to perform well in this thing.
"Horn Breaking!" an artificial shout echoed through the training grounds, followed by a boisterous shatter and a loud grunt. Daidao straightened his body, appearing noble as a deer that had just repelled an overly anxious wolf with a declaration that the predator would taste no meat that day.
"Hey, hey…" a snarky chuckle coming from a blue-skinned man in a black cloak, littered with red cloud insignia with white outlines interrupted the seriousness of the moment. "I've never even seen this technique and this brat broke through it like butter…"
"Y-You're welcome to join in, Kisame…" a man with long, black hair and a flaring Sharingan that possessed an unusual shape compared to that of the most Sharingan, appearing like a three-blade windmill shuriken, instead of the usual three-tomoe formation. The Uchiha hailing from a different universe looked decently rustled, his cloak had been devastated and incinerated by the superheated aura that covered the charging Jinchuuriki during his earlier attack. A single look at that wild black hair suggested that the ninja wore them in a ponytail under normal circumstances.
"We do outnumber these kids but… I think I'd rather wait until they get worn out a little bit. I'm in no rush to get killed." Kisame laughed out, mocking what his teammate perceived as a dead-serious situation.
"You guys should have hung around this universe a bit longer before challenging us. Whatever your beef with us is…" Nanaba leaned at the handful of black-coats, gesturing at them with two of her fingers placed by her cheeks, like an older sister teaching their disorderly little brother a life lesson.
"I suppose that's why the security around us was this lousy, hmm…" a blond-haired, rather effeminate looking black-coat surmised while turning at a short yet bulky hunchback by his side.
"Scared, Deidara?" a husky growl came from the freakish hunch.
"Scared? As if… I was just taking in the moment of the high and mighty Itachi falling flat on his face, hmm." Deidara snickered while taking to the air and leaning his upper body down to where his palms were facing the ground underneath. A mighty pop and an even chunkier dust cloud later, an avian of white clay burst forth from the scene and took it to the sky.
"Are you some sort of an idiot? We will survive this, your friends will not." Daidao leaned his head to the side in bemusement, observing the blonde creating a sizeable doll of the same white clay and hold it in front of the tall fall like a fat jug he was about to let loose.
"Are you sure you don't want to play the hero, kid? If this bomb lands, your entire village is going kaboom, hmm!" Deidara yelled out from atop of the bird and chugged the bomb forward.
"Ninja Art: Shield Slash!" Meiko's voice interrupted the silence before the boom. Deidara turned his eyes away a bit beforehand as his hidden mechanical eye picked up an odd reading that was a deviation from the norm.
A round flash of white carried the devastating power but it did not expand as far out as Deidara implied it would. It barely surpassed the buckler that came to meet its plummet by a good dozen of times before dissipating in flames. A metallic sound of steel wire reeling telegraphed the yo-yo-esque return of the buckler back to Meiko's hand while the blacksmith posed with a raised thumb.
"Aren't you guys a bit too old to be genin anyway?" the redhead remarked with a degree of nonchalant attitude that appeared to vex the gang of black-cloaks.
A pair of ninja appeared with a flicker. Two from the local version of Konoha and two from beyond. Kiyomi knew the first pair – Mars and Haikan, two Konohagakure jounin that the Yamanaka had seen around, doing one thing or another that, the girl reckoned, was far above her paygrade. Their presence here was confusing – these black-coats seemed like chumps, unworthy of challenging anyone past their first year as a genin…
Then again, the presence of the other two – Seventh Hokage Naruto and his universe's Sasuke Uchiha explained much more. Sasuke seemed to be a sort of right-hand man for Naruto, despite official statements claiming otherwise, ever since arriving in this universe through one of the hundreds of rifts, Sasuke has been Naruto's shadow, whereas Shikamaru tended to deal with things Naruto should have been dealing with for all intents and purposes.
"That's enough, you guys." Sasuke declared with a cold voice. "I expected something of the sort from Deidara but you, brother…"
"I just wanted to see how my little brother turned out. I figured we would stand no chance against these kids in our current state." The one whom Sasuke referred to smiled with one of his eyes closed. Kiyomi could only wonder if all those bruises and busted eyebrow and lip were worth it. Sasuke was a looker but a hunch suggested that was not what the man's brother meant. "Plus, I am pretty certain I am not your brother…" the black-coated Uchiha closed both his eyes.
"Contain your dogs, or we'll cut right through them." Mars threatened the pair from another universe. The man had an iron scowl that was frightening to look at. He was one of those no-bullshit types and that much was apparent before he ever said a single word, coincidentally, much to his liking, that made most people he met not even bother with the single word phase.
Sasuke moved his hand up to his lower eyelid but his injured brother raised his hand. The gesture made Sasuke freeze in whatever attempts he was about to make in subduing the unruly group. Hastened by Itachi, however unwillingly, the black-coats withdrew. Hokage Naruto followed them with his eyes, Haikan leaned in on the pair.
"Shouldn't we follow them?" he wondered. Haikan had a certain carelessness to his tone even when he raised concerns. "They did just threaten to destroy the entire village…"
"That type of power is meaningless to ninja from your universe." Sasuke closed his eyes, making his own unique set of eyes go out. Kiyomi had never seen that type of Sharingan, one that was of an entirely different color, she'd have reckoned it was no Sharingan at all but Sasuke was an Uchiha so it must have been.
"Plus, I have a good sense about people's intentions, trust me, they're going back to the containment facility, you know." Naruto grinned at the jounin, his smile looked apologetic and encouraging at the same time. "You guys, I'd appreciate if you forgot what you've seen here today, everybody hates spoilers, you know."
Without waiting for a reply, the four flickered away, likely to oversee the return of the black-coats just so the locals could have felt safer about hosting that group, whoever they were.
"Who were those guys?" Meiko wondered, forgetting all about the immediate purpose of them coming here, to begin with.
"I do not know," Daidao replied, stretching out and doing some light breathing exercises to calm himself down. It was self-evident that the young man was not in complete control over his emotions or the creature housed within just yet. "They seemed interested in our Tailed Beasts. With their level of strength, they're swinging far above their paygrade."
"Hmph… I think that they're from another universe, except, for whatever reason, they are being kept away from naturally acclimatizing to this one. As if the heads of the exams don't want those guys escalating in power as fast as the others." Kiyomi noted her observations.
"Did you guys come here for one final stretch of training? That makes you and every other participant of the exams…" Nanaba smiled. Despite housing the creepiest-looking Tailed Beast inside her, the girl was one of the most cheerful people that anyone would have had the pleasure of meeting and brimmed with happiness whenever given the opportunity.
"No. We've come here in search of a third member. We're kind of desperate… You said Sugemi was no longer involved in your team?" Kiyomi asked for a clarification of something that the two Jinchuuriki alluded to yesterday during the meet-up dinner before the pair of Narutos interrupted them.
"Yeah. I bet he'd still be involved if it wasn't for him disappearing after the big Eden bust." Daidao nodded. It was just so tough to tell how he was feeling through the rubber gas mask and the bowl-shaped, steel helmet that covered it. Even his voice failed to portray much of a message since it sounded so artificial and cybernetic while the voicebox was doing its part in concealing Daidao's vocal identity.
"What do you mean?" Meiko bent her head to the side, baffled.
"Didn't you know? Sugemi disappeared. He's one of very few prisoners to have gone missing and nobody really looked for him, given how he was not being forced to stay there anymore and contained himself of his own will." Nanaba explained with a bit of sisterly care to her voice, despite essentially saying the same things, the flowing humanity in the girl's voice made her a much more engaging and satisfying conversant compared to her teammate.
"Huh… So Sugemi isn't even around… How about you guys, did you get a third member?" Meiko wondered.
"They sure did." A familiar, polite tone came up from behind Meiko. The blacksmith turned around to meet a figure that would have been oh so awkward to meet if Mana was still taking part in the exams. An odd thing was that Kouta had undergone a slight growth spurt since parting ways with Mana, the unfortunate payoff to the change of body build was, of course, the drastically dropped beef of the young man's shape.
"Two Jinchuuriki and a Curse Seal user… Great, looking forward to that match-up…" Kiyomi nodded in acknowledgment of Kouta's presence. As far as she was concerned, that was all that Kouta was now – a disadvantageous draw at the lots. Trouble. The fact that Mana would have described him with that same word was just a coincidence.
"You guys still don't have a third? You better hurry, you've got a couple of hours at best…" Kouta looked worried. It was so nice and caring of him, then again, maybe it was that same kindness that pushed him for a side-gig as a medical ninja and what drew Mana to him once.
Kiyomi did not feel right characterizing this talented youth as just that – Mana's ex, however, she just could not help it. Whenever she had to think about him, that was all that came up, the hurt he put Mana through, even if unwillingly, the Yamanaka did not recall ever seeing the magician in the state of that sweet daze of love, she's always been sour and mournful about it, even if she couldn't want it more. Some people were just not cut out for a relationship…
"Ugh! I know…" Meiko grunted. "Do you guys by any chance know if all the others found their replacements? I can't believe we're about to fail this exam by not even signing up for it!"
The blacksmith looked about ready to pull her hair out when she noticed an alleviated smile on Kouta's face. The young man prompted the two to stay where they were with a gesture while his own feet morphed by protruding tube-shaped cannons downward and streams of chakra launched him onward at blinding speed.
"I guess we will have to get used to him doing that, huh?" Daidao sighed, the air he breathed out filtered backward through the gas mask and left with a high-pitched wheeze.
"So freaky!" Nanaba smacked her cheeks with her palms and shook her head in disgust.
"You can grow wings and sprout a tail. You also host a colossal rhinoceros beetle inside you." Daidao noted while pointing a judgmental index at his teammate.
"Yeah, but I don't have to see Cho-chan protrude out of me every time, it just kind of happens…" Nanaba scratched the back of her head while acknowledging how horrible her lack of empathy to the surrounding observers was with her apologetic facial expression.
"I'm telling you, these two are desperate for a teammate, you told me you wanted on my team and were willing to spar for it – it's just perfect!" Kouta's voice came from the distance. Speaking in such confident and booming tone was new for the Juugo, he did not use to speak with such confidence and volume back when the Yamanaka heiress had last seen him.
It was a bit of a horrible thought but perhaps being away from Mana only served the boy better. Fate was yet to show if perhaps her constant drama being absent from everybody else's lives made things better for all parties involved.
"Hmm, I'm getting the chills from you…" Meiko shivered. It did not need to be vocalized but the young woman was wearing a tracksuit, which meant that the chills weren't external but rather came from a subconscious vibe that the blonde was putting out. "Are you thinking about murdering someone?"
"Just getting prepared, you better get serious too. I won't forgive you if we fail after this long of a wait for a second chance." Kiyomi could almost hear her own defensive tone. Murder. What the hell was Meiko even on about?
"Huh? It's you guys, you know!" the older of the two Narutos that the remaining Team Hokage met yesterday over ramen pointed his index at the two girls.
"Forget it, Team Hokage is an all-girls club." Kiyomi wrapped her hands over her chest.
"Weren't you the only girl in the original roster?" Meiko pointed out.
"I'm down to teaming up with you guys if you're willing, you know. I won't be begging though…" Naruto squinted with a pinch of childish pride of his own.
"What, am I to believe that the future Seventh Hokage does not have a team to take part in the Chuunin Exams with? Why did you even sign up for them back in your own universe then?" Kiyomi shook her head. She did not have an inherent problem with teaming up with Naruto though she was almost obsessed with the thought of getting this shot right. She was almost more trustworthy of Gwido hours back when the only contribution of the Great Ramen Destroyer to the team was that he would not get in their way.
Plus, Gwido was just kind of adequate at eating ramen as well, he held no records whatsoever and his title was mostly self-proclaimed anyway.
"Sakura is already a chuunin, Sai is in the… Well… I'm not even sure but… I'm pretty sure he's a chuunin or a jounin, Captain Yamato and Kakashi are both jounin too. I'm the only genin in my team and my generation too." Naruto dragged his finger under his nose, laughing in denial of how pathetic that sounded. Pathetic may have been a cruel word… Still, it inspired no confidence whatsoever for potential recruitment.
"Think about it, Kiyomi, he's going to be a literal Hokage one day, it doesn't get any more perfect for a Team Hokage member!" Meiko bent her knees and began hyping herself and Kiyomi up with those damned knuckles of hers.
"Fine…" Kiyomi sighed. "He can't be any worse than Gwido anyway."
"Heh, don't worry, the reason why I didn't rank up was that I went training with Pervy Sage for a couple of years instead of taking part in the exams. I'm sure I'll ace it for you two, you know!" Naruto gave the pair a one thumb-up.
"Yeah, Meiko, instead of taking on missions and ranking up, he went on a trip for two years with some perv. Doesn't get any more perfect for Team Hokage than that…" Kiyomi signaled for the blacksmith on the mental link which she could initiate without any hand seals or speaking the name of the jutsu by now, given how integral it was to the Team Hokage chemistry.
"Alright!" Meiko fisted the sky. "We've got a team together, now let's just get those sign ups out of the way! I hope you're not terrified by line-ups!"
"I hate them…" Naruto shriveled like a popped tube-man.
In either case, lousy beginnings were only half of a failure, if the dragged through the mud and abused sayings were to be believed and adapted.