A/N: Hello, people!
I don't own Naruto.
I have no beta.
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TAGS: Drama, Humor, Yuuki Being Yuuki, Poor Editing, Queer Themes, Chunin Exams!, Xenophobia?.
The day of the Chunin Exams dawned without any fanfare. There was nothing different between today and the day before, and there probably would be nothing different in the day after. Yuuki got up just as she would any other day, took a nice shower with some hot water, and then prepared her pack for… anything.
Because anything could happen.
She had a habit of going to the library whenever she was confronted with something that she did not know or understand. Even when she could technically ask the adults in her life, Yuuki had come to understand that adults tended to not like to answer questions from children. She had gotten used to not even bothering to go ask adults for help despite them being right there. Iruka-sensei had been a very rare outlier in her experience.
One of the adults that actually liked answering questions. It was probably why he became a teacher.
As he was not around, and she had a new teacher, she had obviously gone to Shizune for some assistance. But then her shishou had to burst her bubble by telling her that each Chunin Exams was unique to the Hidden Village hosting it. And that they kept these sorts of things vague so that the Chunin hopefuls had to deal with the psychological uncertainty surrounding the entire event.
Of course, just because her teacher didn't have answers for her did not mean that Yuuki did not decide to go to the library anyway, just to be sure. And as Shizune had basically suggested, there was no information available. Or rather, Yuuki was not of a high enough clearance level to be given access to the records of prior Chunin Exams.
As she had no idea what was in store, Yuuki decided that it was absolutely necessary to be prepared for anything. In the Academy, thanks to their upgraded curriculum, they got to learn all manner of survival skills. Iruka-sensei liked to send them out on various missions around the village to prepare them for unique mission types and survival exercises.
Common things to be prepared for were things like, a pot, a spile, and a row boat if you could fit it in your scroll. Extra scrolls for depositing unhygienic items. Storage scrolls specifically for perishable items. Storage scrolls for nonperishable items. A set of lock picks. A face mask in case of suspicious air quality. Flint and a few fish hooks(most ninja carried ninja wire which could be used for fishing line in a moment of desperation). A pen and a pencil. Scentless soap and spare underwear. Yuuki also liked to throw in some books, markers, tags, smoke bombs, and paint. Oh! Naruto had also gotten her a cute little stick thing that you could click and it would shift into different animal paw prints! It could be used as a distraction!
Yuuki would like to think that she was prepared for any kind of scenario that the Chunin Exams would throw her away. Sure, fighting would be involved at some point, but that would not be the main focus because they were supposed to show off various skills to prove that they could handle the duty of being the leader of a team.
Survival, leadership, intelligence, reconnaissance, etc… All of these things would have to be tested in some way.
In situations like this, Yuuki knew that she needed to play to her strengths. It was best for everybody to think of her as a slightly above average civilian level Shinobi, as she was not from a clan, and she didn't even have a family name. People would automatically look down upon her because of that. Even if all of her public information stated that she was a very good student in school and that she did her work as she was supposed to, people would believe their eyes if they wanted to believe their eyes were telling them something.
Yuuki's partners for this venture were named, Kuronuma Ryuji and Kurosaki Ayato. Both didn't seem particularly pleased to be taking the Chunin Exams, but they had promised that they'd at least give it their best shot. The Genin Corps wasn't exactly a great place to be after all. Most people never even made it out.
Yuuki met up with her teammates right outside the Academy's main entrance. The two looked to be as prepared as they could hope to be, and Yuuki prepared herself in turn to have to pick up their slack. It wasn't that she didn't think they were going to fail or anything, but she did not know them, and she did not have any kind of knowledge about what their actual skill sets were. Kuronuma was a Doton user and Kurosaki used Suiton. Both preferred mid-ranged combat.
That was about it.
On the flip side, they were perfectly aware that she was a medic in training and that she was definitely ahead of her fellow trainees. The best description she could give them was, 'I can stop you from bleeding out and give you enough time to get to a better-qualified professional'.
The interesting thing about training in Iryo-Ninjutsu was the fact that the most difficult things were actually the bones. Internal organs, skin, arteries, etc... Those were relatively much easier to handle and could be coaxed along with little effort. If someone got stabbed, Yuuki would be able to completely heal a stab wound and all the surrounding damage with only a minor scar left behind. However, if someone broke their femur, she could heal around the area and even create a splint out of pretty much anything, but someone of much better skill would have to heal the bone itself.
Also, for people who repeatedly broke their bones, it was not safe to force Chakra into the same injured place over and over. If a man broke his ulna and got it healed up, he would still have to rest and do not work at all to let his body catch up. If he broke it again months later, his body will have developed a certain resistance to the foreign Chakra forcing the bone to do as it pleases. And if he breaks the same bone again later on, it'll get harder and harder to heal the same injury. Bones are stubborn after all. They don't like being tampered with.
Yuuki was reasonably certain that if anyone on her team, or if any of her friends got any lacerations or contusions, she'd have no problem handling it. Stabbing would take a bit more effort but she was pretty sure of herself in that area as well. Any kind of stab wound shouldn't be impossible for her at her current level at least.
"We were told to go to Room 301," Yuuki said the moment their temporary team met up. "From this moment on, anything can happen. You both have your assigned code words?"
"Mn."
"Yeah."
She nodded. "Then let's step to it."
They didn't even get to make it up two floors before the shit hit the proverbial fan.
Why, one may ask? It was because, for some reason, a majority of the Genin participants decided to completely fill up the second floor corridor. And for some reason, none of them had noticed that they had only gone up two floors. The sign above the stairwell declared that it was the third floor, but they had only gone up two flights of stairs.
Already, the examiners were doing their best to mess with the participants. This meant that literally anything could happen. The exam hadn't even officially begun yet, and they were already being tested. And so many people had been tripped up on the second floor of all things as two supposed 'Genin' further down the corridor, were trying to mess with the other Genin and tell them to give up, because they wouldn't be able to handle going in the 'room' where the exam was taking place.
Yuuki gestured for her teammates to follow her. What did it matter to her if the rest of those idiots could not tell basic directions? Based on a cursory glance around the corridor, none of her friends were being tripped up by these two idiots. Therefore there was no reason for Yuuki to stay around or point out the fact that all of these people were being fooled by an illusion. If there was a way to safely cull the herd before the Exams even began, then why should Yuuki stand in their way?
They continued up the final flight of stairs and made their way down the empty corridor toward Room 301.
Upon entering, Yuuki noted instantly that Team Seven was the only one out of the Rookies to not be there yet. For a moment, she considered staying behind to make sure that they got to the room without a problem, but then she realized that she should just have faith in her friends to be able to make it through such a basic Genjutsu in the first place.
If none of them managed to make it through… that would be pathetic.
Shikamaru's team was the first to appear. She was a bit stunned to have to admit that he was moving far faster than his other teammates. It was almost as if he was excited to see her, despite the fact that they had seen each other at dinner just the other day. Dare Yuuki get her poor hopes up over that?
No! No way! Not possible at all.
"You made it," the Nara murmured, his brow not quite as furrowed as usual. "We've been here for like half an hour already. My troublesome mother made me wake up extra early this morning." He then yawned to prove how tired he was.
"Did you manage to get here before that massive crowd of people got stuck on the second floor by a Genjutsu and haven't been able to get anywhere because they haven't realized that they're stuck on the second floor and not the third floor?" Yuuki asked in amusement.
"That must have happened after we got here," Choji said, holding out am open bag of chips in offering. "Who're your teammates?"
"Kuronuma Ryuji, Kurosaki Ayato," she said, gesturing to them quickly. "Please endeavor to be welcoming to make up for my lack of inviting personality. I'm a shitty teammate."
"You're plenty inviting," Shikamaru grumbled, glaring at Ino when she elbowed him suddenly. "And you're a good teammate as well."
Unfortunately, Yuuki was not prepared for Shikamaru's pretty face to be telling her such kind words so early in the morning. She could feel her own heartbeat stutter slightly, and asked in the most horrifyingly timid voice she'd ever used in her life, "Could you look in the opposite direction for like, a few seconds? Just a few?"
He frowned, but did as requested, and Yuuki was able to take in a deep breath and then let it out all at once. Okay. This was one of those super charming days of his. She could handle it. She sat next to Shikamaru for years in school, this should be nothing.
Ino seemed especially interested in what was going on.
"Okay, I'm good, thanks," Yuuki said, prompting Shikamaru to turn back around, his face displaying every level of how done he was. "Sorry."
Ino sighed, a bit put out. "I just can't believe Shikamaru's your type."
"I can!" Choji laughed. "Shika's smart and pretty!" he said with Yuuki nodding along gravely. Because he was and damn was it very unfair for Yuuki's poor heart.
As Shikamaru glared at his teammates, Yuuki ignored the stares of her own teammates. She didn't feel like catching them up to speed on her ridiculous minor-fangirl behavior in regard to Shikamaru and his entire self.
"YAHOO! Hey! Yuuki!" came the loud voice of Inuzuka Kiba. He and his team were making their way over. Beside him, Shino and Hinata looked especially relieved to meet up with familiar faces. Hinata was practically beaming with joy! "What's this I hear about you shoving your hand up some guy's butt?"
Shino's face turned bright red under his coat collar, and he began to cough. Hinata had to pat his back to assist him in clearing his poor airways. On either side of Yuuki, however, her temporary teammates also suffered from similar reactions, and took a few good thumps to the back courtesy of Yuuki's strong arms.
Never let it be said that she didn't look out for her teammates.
"They made me prove I was paying attention in medical classes by arranging a prostate exam with a random volunteer," she explained once she was certain her teammates weren't dying. "The prostate gland is located inside, near the external sphincter of the body of a biological male and can in fact be stimulated during acts of anal penetration. Supposedly it feels good, and it can hasten erection and eventual ejaculation.
"However, for the sake of my exam, the prostate must be carefully prodded with a medically lubricated finger, and measured to make certain there are no health complications so lumps, bumps, or odd pains that should not be there. Prostate cancer is a bitch and probably the biggest medical fear of anyone who has a prostate."
All of Yuuki's friends, sans Team Seven who hadn't arrived yet, stared at her like she had said something truly baffling.
"How can you just say all of that with a straight face?!" Kiba demanded, looking both embarrassed and invested. "Do you feel any shame at all?"
"It's basic human anatomy," Yuuki said plainly. What was there to feel shame about? The body did what it was made to do. Both a fascinating and terrifying creation.
Shino cleared his throat. "I believe Kiba-san was wondering how you can speak so easily about such topics. Why? Because they a typically considered impolite topics to bring up in social settings."
"...But Kiba literally asked about it in a crude way," she pointed out. Said point left Kiba as the object of attention. For a moment at least. "He's the reason it even came up at all."
"...Mendokusei."
Seconds later, the door to the room burst open to reveal Gai's team. TenTen caught Yuuki's eyes and gave her a quick wave in passing. Minutes later, Team Seven finally appeared and Yuuki could already tell that Naruto was being his extra loud self on this fine day. He'd also slept in it seemed, judging by how the hair on the left side of his head was still weirdly flat.
As the final group of rookies approached, Yuuki gestured to both of her teammates and said, "That is Kuronuma Ryuji, and that is Kurosaki Ayato. Don't be rude."
As Naruto started on a self-professed 'I'm-Not-A-Rude-Guy -ttebayo' rant, Yuuki took a moment to survey the rest of the room. "Anybody meet any of the other Genin? Despite seeing foreign Shinobi all over the village, I haven't actually encountered any of them myself." She also hadn't felt particularly moved to introduce herself to anyone either. That wasn't Yuuki's MO in her personal opinion.
The members of Team Seven all went a bit stiff and shared a grimace. So they had met at least one other person from another village. Interesting.
Yuuki's spontaneous plan to grill them for information about who it was they had met, ended up having to be set to the side because they found themselves approached by an unfamiliar figure bearing a Konoha hitai-ate. She tried to apply the various lessons that Shizune had been putting her through, and she could tell that the guy in front of her was a medic.
He did not carry the standardized Shinobi pouch, and instead carried one that only medics in Konoha tended to use these days. However, Yuuki had never seen him at the hospital before nor in any records. So, either he was so good that he did not have to work at the hospital and was constantly on rotation out on important missions, or he was somebody pretending to be a Konaha Shinobi. Both were entirely possible and she still didn't trust him one bit.
And it wasn't like she was being unfair or anything. Yuuki worked at the hospital every single day, and one does not work dozens of hours seemingly non-stop, without at least encountering someone who might be so good that he did not need regular training. No active duty Shinobi was put on that many missions in a row without a break of some sort. There would have to be some point in there where he would legally have to stay in the village if it wasn't wartime. And if he was that good, then he would definitely have been heading up classes at the hospital under Shizune's direction. And he wouldn't still be a Genin at his age.
Also, there was a requirement for Yuuki as one of the workers/students in the hospital, to be aware of all of her superiors on active rotation within the hospital every day. People that she could take orders from and people that she did not have to take orders from. Shizune had even told her about a list of people that she was to absolutely not interact with if she could help it, and to flee to Tsunade-sama if she ever met any of them.
This was an odd one, and she felt on edge.
"Hey there," this strange, not-Konoha Shinobi said with a genial wave and an all too happy smile. "You guys might want to pipe down a bit. You're just a group of rookies and you've drawn some unflattering attention to yourselves."
There was just something about him that was overly unctuous. Yuuki could not force herself to take him seriously. He was off-putting and once her mind was made up, that was it.
There was a moment of time there in which Shikamaru decided to be the one to interact with this stranger. He laid out several carefully barbed questions and accusations to feel him out, and they all got to watch as this stranger managed to somehow carefully avoid all of them. So he was used to dealing with people like the Nara and how they handled business. Not exactly a positive or negative thing, honestly.
Then the conversation somehow devolved into this strange man – who called himself Kabuto – wanting to give the rookies some advice to better prepare them for handling the Chunin Exams. Apparently, it was because he had taken the Chunin Exams seven times so far and had failed out each time. This would mean he was going on four years worth of Exams, meaning he had served them in other countries, if he was speaking the truth.
See, there had always been this strange thing about Yuuki. She often she seemed to know things ahead of time, despite having no possible way that she could. And it was in how her mind could invent all of these super unique things while she, at the same time, felt like she hadn't really been the one to come up with those ideas at all. It was how she knew about certain Jutsu that she knew she had never read about before, and knew that she could teach them to Naruto of all people, because they were perfect for him.
If she was taking this strange thing of hers into account, and she was giving it the proper attention that it deserved, then she had to admit that something about this situation felt very familiar and suspicious. The idea of a person somehow failing such a major Exam several times over the span of several years, did not sound right. There was just something very deliberate about failing that many times, especially if he was choosing to garb himself as an expert Iryo-Nin who somehow hadn't been promoted yet.
Yet he was also claiming to have gathered information about everybody currently involved in this Chunin Exams. She doubted that everybody in this room had participated in the former Exams held wherever else it was held in the past. If he was an expert Iryo-Nin, then he would be often out on missions. He would not have the personal time to do extensive research on his fellow Genin for this round of Exams.
Of course, Sasuke seemed to be the one who wanted to put this Kabuto's information-gathering to the test because he requested information about somebody named Sabaku no Gaara. It took merely a second for Kabuto to locate the relevant ninja info card in his collection and reveal all the information that he had gathered about a Shinobi from Sunagakure.
Someone who had only been made a Genin a few months back, and who he never would have had any interaction with because they were from different villages. Yet he had the exact number of missions the boy had gone on as well as personal info about him and his siblings who were his teammates. Even the fact that he'd never been injured on a mission.
Unable to shake her feelings of distrust and concern, Yuuki turned her body inward towards Shikamaru and reached out for his hand. They had been taught Morse Code in the Academy, and while there wasn't often a reason for any of them to ever actually have to use it, this was definitely a reason. Shikamaru was smarter and would probably be able to think of something faster than her.
Thankfully, they'd gotten to know each other well enough that he barely reacted to her taking his hand and carefully tapping out a message to him on his palm. To distract any onlookers, she'd even gone to the trouble of placing her head on his shoulder to make them look more like young love birds and less like competent Shinobi in the middle of a conversation.
Dresses Like Expert Medic.
Name Not On Active Medic Roster.
Suspicious.
He tapped back a single word: Understood.
Thankfully, Kabuto's uninvited advice session was interrupted when he ended up going on a rant about the different Hidden Villages and their strengths and weaknesses, and all the Shinobi from different villages currently taking the Exams, and then basically insulting a trio of Genin from Otogakure in the process. They chose to put him in his place and Yuuki found herself strangely amused by their use of sound in battle.
That could be a bitch to face later on though.
Thankfully, whatever sob story or potential rant about the greatness of their new village that was definitely incoming, did not actually get to happen because the proctors finally decided to arrive in order to announce the beginning of the Chunin Exams.
Yuuki would have to dedicate some personal time later on to thinking about all these recent developments.
A whole exam dedicated to cheating. To be perfectly honest, Shikamaru knew that the point the very first exam was actually to test their intelligence gathering skills and how good they were at sneaking. How fast it would take them to gather information that they needed and testing whether or not they could handle slight psychological manipulation in the process.
However, when you stripped everything down to the bare bones of it, it was all about cheating. A ten question quiz, where nine of the questions were readily available on the paper. But the tenth question would be withheld until the final ten minutes of the exam. And the nine questions on the paper were so difficult that they consisted of information not taught in typical Shinobi schooling.
What his current level of knowledge, Shikamaru could honestly say that he could answer the first two questions with a considerable amount of effort put in. But after that, the questions just steadily kept getting harder and harder and visiting upon concepts that he did not fully understand. Physics was not a topic taught to advancement in Shinobi schooling, because a lot of it had to do with theory and things that they just didn't have enough information about yet.
A cursory glance around the room showed him that people were already cheating. It seemed common among all of them, despite what village they came from, that none of them had any kind of knowledge about these particular topics. Well, everybody but Sakura seemed.
Haruno Sakura seemed to be having a blast!
He had known that Sakura was very smart, but these were not the kinds of things that regular twelve-year-olds knew about, let alone ninja twelve-year-olds. She had to be spending her personal time in a very unique way to find no struggle in this exam.
The reason that cheating was encouraged was because they were told that if they got caught cheating five times, then they and their entire team would then be kicked out. So, obviously cheating was allowed and even expected. And considering that only three people in the entire room seemed to know all the answers and had absolutely no problem putting them down, it was safe to assume that the other two besides Sakura were probably Chunin plants. It was then left up to the Genin to decide how to get their answers.
Exam Proctors lined either side of the room, watching every single Genin with laser focus. People had already been kicked out of the exam and some even had to be dragging away cursing and screaming as they went.
Shikamaru's teammates were behind him. And his rookie friends were on various sides of the room all around him. Yuuki happened to be all the way up front and judging by how she was bent over her paper, she was probably taking it very seriously. However, it also meant that she was at the most disadvantage out of everybody because she was at the very front of the group and could not look behind herself without potentially being accused of cheating. That meant that Yuuki could not survey the room, but that everybody else in the room could survey her.
The best they could hope for was that her teammates knew enough of the questions to get a passing grade. While Yuuki was incredibly smart and had originally come from a civilian background in a civilian school, Shikamaru very much doubted that these kinds of things were taught to eight-year-old civilians.
He was also aware that, despite his own intellect, he was at a severe disadvantage in this kind of situation. The best he could hope for was that Ino would properly lock onto the person with all the answers, switch places with them for a moment so that she could memorize their answers, and then she would have to switch places with he and Choji so they didn't fail. It was a lot to expect of her, but she was the best chance they had at passing this round. Shikamaru just hoped she wouldn't be super obvious about using her family's techniques.
After almost a full hour had elapsed, they were finally given a chance to take the final question. The problem, was that apparently if they failed, then the entire team failed and would not be able to be become Chunin.
The issue with this kind of psychological warfare was that Shikamaru's father was the Jonin Commander, and he had been exposed to a lot of the bureaucratic side of the village from very young. By technicality, they could not just forbid somebody from ranking up anytime in their life, unless that person had committed some incredibly treasonous act. But if that was the case and they were a traitor, then they would be taken off the active duty roster, stricken from the list of Shinobi in the village, and listed as a criminal if they weren't available for immediate imprisonment. Then a squad of Hunter Ninja would be sent after them.
It was relieving to see that Yuuki was as unaffected as he was. She had realized the same thing that he had, or she was perfectly confident in her ability to pass the tenth question.
And Naruto, being himself, had to be loud and somehow encourage the remaining Genin who hadn't quit out of fear, to stay. In doing so… they passed.
Again, it was all just a psychological attack to make them second guess themselves. This had all been an attempt to make them overthink and overreact to every single thing happening, applying pressure in various forms to see if the Chunin hopefuls would crack. And because they had decided to stay for a question they didn't even know the contents of, they had passed.
Personally, Shikamaru did not know how being willing to take that kind of risk was proof that they might have what it takes to become a Chunin. At least they passed though.
Any actual chance they would have had to celebrate was ruined by the very sudden and explosive arrival of their next exam Proctor. A very loud and very annoying woman, who demanded that they follow her to Training Ground 44. As Shikamaru was from a family of Shinobi and one of said Shinobi was very high-ranking in the village, he knew what that place was and he was not amused. Of course they'd decide to test people in the Forest of Death.
"This place is widely considered to be the most dangerous training ground in the entirety of Konaha. There is no short number of dangerous animals, insects and flora. It's a death trap at every angle, so stick close," he told his team as they hurried on over.
The one good thing about this, however, was the fact that they had been put through many survival exercises in the Academy. Shikamaru had enough faith in his fellow rookies and friends that they'd manage to make it through whatever the challenge in this forest was. Since it was going to be designed to try and cut their numbers, at least by half, he had enough faith that they would be in the remaining half who would continue on to the next exam.
When he spared a quick glance for their friends, he was proud to see that they all seemed to be on high alert and were all paying attention. Yuuki was keeping an eye on the Kabuto guy, and the Kabuto guy was keeping a very suspicious eye on Sasuke. It was clear that Yuuki did not like that, and because her hackles were raised, Shikamaru especially didn't like that.
To be extra certain that he understood what was to come, Shikamaru paid very close attention to what their newest Proctor had to say about the second exam. Half the teams would be given one scroll and half the teams would be given another scroll. And in order to pass, they had to have one of each scroll. They then had to make it to the very center of the training ground, to the large tower in the middle. They were not to open their scrolls the entire time to prove that they could be trusted to handle sensitive information.
How they acquired the other scroll did not matter. And this was where they had to sign waivers giving consent to participate in such a dangerous exam, because people could die, and there were no rules against murdering your competition.
He had known that such a stipulation would come up eventually, but he didn't actually expect it to come up so soon.
Now, because Shikamaru was often considered the smartest person on his team, in which people would be right, of course, they would probably also assume that he would be the person that would hold the scroll. Instead, he decided to have Choji hold it. Shikamaru was perfectly fine with acting as a decoy in this sense.
All they would have to do was trap some people in place, knock them unconscious, and steal their scroll. And if they got the wrong team and the wrong scroll, then they would just keep that scroll anyway. Because why not? The less competition toward the end of the exams, the better for them.
He took a deep breath and prepared himself for what was going to be a truly troublesome exam.
It was a shame that Shikamaru wasn't aware of just how troublesome things were about to get.
A/N: Another chapter is done!
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