A/N: What's this? Clena's chapter being about something OTHER than what she planned? SAY IT ISN'T SO!
Yeah. I know I said this chapter was gonna be the start of the chunin exams, but instead Natsu went and pissed off Sasuke, and everything sorta went downhill from there.
In regards to the doctors at the end, I just wanna say that from their perspective, it honestly did look pretty bad.
Of course, they're still biased asshats so *shrugs*. Just wanted to clarify that for the sake of anyone who might think it was a bit extreme/out of character.
Anyway, thanks for reading! Let's hope Sasuke and Natsu don't just blow up my entirely timeline for the chunin exams!
Iruka asks so many questions about magic that Natsu's pretty sure even Levy would give up answering them. He answers nearly all of them with, "I don't know,", and only one or two of those are lies.
The look on Iruka's face when he described the feel of the Kyuubi as 'less dangerous' than the feel of Earthland's demons would have been funny if he didn't have to spend ten minutes explaining it.
"Less dangerous and less powerful aren't the same thing!" he says with a groan, face planted against the table.
If he doesn't look at Iruka, it's easier not to fall for his harmless-sensei trap.
"If the Kyuubi is more powerful, then it should also be more dangerous. That's just how these things work, Natsu. Unless you believe the Kyuubi to be rather… stupid, compared to your homeland's demons?" Iruka returns, far too sensibly, and Natsu has no idea how to explain how wrong he is.
"Danger isn't- I mean sure, I don't know much about the Kyuubi's personality, since, y'know, none of you ever talk to it so I couldn't say. But it's like, those demons, at least the ones I've met or heard of, all they want to do is kill. They'll deliberately seek humans out just to kill them. And you can tell, just by their, I dunno, presence? They're creatures whose sole purpose is killing, they don't exist for anything else! But the Kyuubi felt different! Maybe it does kill a lot, I guess if you guys fear it so much it probably does, but it's purpose isn't killing people. So obviously it's less dangerous. Even if it's stronger."
"That's an interesting way of looking at it." Iruka muses, somehow managing to sound entirely non-judgmental. "But that begs the question, who on earth would make a demon for the sole purpose of killing?"
Natsu shrugs, dragging himself up to prop his chin on his hand. "Some guy named Zara or something. I don't really remember, but he's like, four hundred years old, supposedly, and he made a bunch of demons. No one knows why, they just run around the world killing people for kicks I guess. Supposedly that guy's dead or something, cause I've fought a couple people saying they were trying to bring him back, but I didn't really pay attention to that. They were threatening my family and that's all I cared about, yeah?"
Iruka gapes at him. "People were… attempting to bring back from the dead someone who creates demons for fun, and you didn't care?!"
"Good or evil or anything in between, I don't care. But they messed with my family so of course I'd fight them! And if I stopped some ridiculous plot in the meantime, then I guess it just works out that way."
"Even Kakashi-sensei agrees! Those who fail the mission are scum, but those who abandon their comrades are worse than scum! That's what he said! So what's your problem, Iruka-sensei?" Naruto asks, curious, and Iruka sighs.
"Just because you're protecting your friends doesn't mean you can't also gather information about the people threatening them. What if that sort of information becomes important in the future?" Naruto looks contemplative, but Natsu shrugs again.
"I mean, Lucy-chan is really smart. If it's important, then I'm sure she'll tell me! I'd rather just worry about the fighting!"
Iruka turns to the side and puts a hand on Naruto's shoulder. "Please know that I expect you to take your missions a bit more seriously than that, Naruto-kun. Just because someone else can do the work for you doesn't mean you should slack off! Right?"
"H-hai!" Naruto stutters, attempting to sit up straighter, and Iruka grins proudly.
The conversation lulls for a moment after that, as they finish off the food, before Naruto breaks the silence.
"Ne, sensei, what can you tell us about the chunin exams?"
"Hm? I thought your team wasn't participating?" Iruka asks, half-way to the kitchen with the dirty dishes.
"Well, yeah, but I'd still like to know! C'mon, Iruka-sensei, since we aren't participating you don't even have to keep it secret or anything right?" Naruto wheedles, and Iruka gives in with a laugh.
"Hm, well, it changes up depending on which village is hosting it, but there are always three phases, and the third phase is always a public exhibition, usually with other Kage, and occasionally even a Daimyo in attendance."
"And whoever wins gets to be a chunin?" Naruto bounces into the kitchen behind Iruka, and Natsu follows, glad the questions have moved away from him.
"Not exactly. The entirety of the exam is considered, so sometimes even if you lose if you did well enough in that fight, or scored well enough in other phases, sometimes you'll still be promoted. I don't believe anyone has ever been promoted who failed to make it to the third phase, however. You do at least have to get that far, but once you do, even if you lose your very first match, you might still be considered for promotion. Of course, winning does all but guarantee it."
"How is it graded," Natsu asks, glancing towards the window. "Was Kakashi right in thinking it'd be impossible for Naruto and Sasuke to get to the third phase?"
"I'd say it's fairly likely," Iruka says after a moment of thought. "Konoha's exams are always very teamwork-reliant compared to the other villages. We tend to balance that out by having the third phase be full of one-on-one fights, so that both teamwork and individual skills are tested, of course, but... I haven't seen you three in action as a team, so I have to defer to Kakashi's expertise in the matter. However, I do agree with him."
"Really? Why's that, sensei?" Naruto looks more curious than insulted as he waits for the answer.
"Well, since you aren't participating, I suppose I'll say. I work part-time in Administration, so I know that this year Konoha is having the second phase in Training Ground 44. It's going to be a rather more intense version of the survival exercises you had in the Academy, and if one of your teammates is disqualified, or too injured, then the entire team is. And Sasuke-kun really is the best of his year, while Naruto-kun's stamina is better than some jonin. And you'll have to worry about fighting other teams too. All of that together, while I think if you were given even a week of dedicated training to get used to a new teammate it would probably increase your chances, I guess Kakashi thought otherwise. Or perhaps had his own reasons, I couldn't say. But I know attempting to sign up now with no chance to adjust wouldn't be worth it."
"Ugh. If I tell that to Sasuke, he's just going to complain about teammates holding him back again!" Naruto sags dramatically, and Iruka turns around, somewhat surprised.
"You wanted to help Sasuke-kun?"
"No, I wanted him to be less of a jerk to Natsu! But if I tell him that, he's just gonna be a jerk to everyone instead! Ugh! He just needs to stop being a jerk, 'ttebayo!"
"I suppose I'm not surprised he's taking it poorly, he's always been so driven. But perhaps instead of getting upset with him, you could talk to him and try to understand why he's upset?" Iruka offers encouragingly.
"He's upset cause he's a jerk." Naruto grumps, and Natsu tilts his head.
"Sasuke's always been really determined. I just thought he was one of those people who took everything seriously, and he doesn't like being told no. Do you think there's more than that?"
Iruka shrugs, turning back to the dishes. "I only have ideas, and I won't share them. Perhaps try talking to him, is all I'm saying?"
Natsu knows a dismissal when he hears one, even when Iruka is good at pretending to be far too polite to actually dismiss them (probably annoyed they didn't offer to help do the dishes, if he thinks about it…), so he grabs Naruto's arm and drags him out of the house, despite the blond's protests.
"I wanted to ask him more about the exaaaam," Naruto whines, though he doesn't pull away. Natsu lets go, to lace his fingers behind his head as he spins to walk backwards, grinning.
"If we stayed there any longer, he'd have me scrubbing dishes! No thanks!"
Naruto gets a weird look on his face, that he quickly shrugs off. "So, where are we going?"
"Sasuke lives out this way, in that big empty compound near the edge, right? He's got his own training grounds, so I'm sure that's where he is."
Naruto gives him a skeptical look. "How do you even know where he lives?"
"Kakashi showed me way back, during that whole 'general tour' thing."
"Ah! Right! Cause you knew where I lived too! I remember!" Naruto grins, skipping up until they're nearly side-by-side, so Natsu turns around to walk normally again.
"What're we gonna tell him?" Naruto asks after a couple minutes, as they get closer to the outskirts.
Natsu shrugs. "I was actually just planning to start a fight and let him get it all out of his system. And then we can talk after, when he's too tired to run away! Hehe!"
"W-what, so you're just gonna go there and punch him?!"
"If I have to, though I think just offering to spar will be enough." Natsu says idly as he tries to focus on his senses.
Enough people have passed through the area that Sasuke's scent is buried, but he keeps walking in the direction he somewhat remembers going down before, and eventually catches a clear breath of it. He changes direction immediately, cutting across an alley then up over a wall, and there's got to be some passive seal-work on that wall, because suddenly all he smells is Sasuke and old blood.
A lot of old blood.
"Ugh, who died here?" he mutters, pinching his nose as he tries to dial down Sakura-chan's senses, and Naruto flinches.
"Cousin Tano and his girlfriend."
The words are cold, nearly furious, and Natsu spins to face the newcomer – only to nearly stumble when he lays eyes on Sasuke, whose Sharingan is active and spinning, and whose face could nearly be carved from marble.
Natsu's pretty sure he crossed a line no one even thought to tell him about, and he's doubly certain that Sasuke's not in the mood to care.
"Sorry," he offers anyway, even though he's pretty sure he's going to get the fight he came here for and a lot more seriously than he expected. "I didn't know."
He's honestly surprised when, instead of immediately launching into an attack, Sasuke glares instead. "What are you doing here?" His voice is nearly a growl.
"I totally came here to fight you, y'know!" Natsu declares, moving further into the field and away from Naruto. "But I didn't mean to be a jerk about it."
Sasuke blinks, clearly surprised, before he scoffs.
Natsu gets no other warning, as Sasuke immediately launches forwards with a nearly savage intensity.
Natsu would like to say he won their somewhat vicious bout, but he's pretty sure Naruto counts as a (somewhat) impartial judge, and the fact that he's freaking out more about Natsu's bleeding face than Sasuke's broken wrist probably means Natsu did not win.
The order of combat is already hazy, and Natsu's not sure if he broke Sasuke's wrist because the Uchiha pulled a kunai, or if Sasuke started using kunai after Natsu broke his wrist, but he does know that both of them will have to go to the hospital, and they're going to be in so much trouble.
He glances over as Sasuke drags himself to his feet, curious, but all the Uchiha does is walk over and sit next to them.
He doesn't look at either of them, but Natsu's pretty sure he knows an apology when he sees one, so he grins.
"We talked to Iruka earlier, you know." He starts, and Sasuke only glances at him for a second, and immediately looks away. Natsu keeps talking as Naruto settles back, looking between them both with concern. "He said Konoha tests more strongly on teamwork than the other villages, to the point where if even one member of your team fails the first two phases, the entire team gets disqualified. Only in the third phase are you allowed to go by yourself, without them. And you have to make it to the third phase to be up for promotion. And you know, half of what teamwork actually is, is understanding how your teammates will move in response to threats and stuff. Don't wanna get in each other's way, and all that. So you gotta know how everyone will move, so you can work together and be better than you might be by yourself. But, throw a new person in there, who'd have to learn everything from scratch… even if they found a genin without a team who's also at least as strong as me, it wouldn't work too well if they didn't give everyone time to learn how you all fight? Yeah?"
Sasuke scoffs. "What is there to get? We all charge in immediately."
"Well, yeah," Natsu agrees, leaning back to look up at the sky. Stars already dot it, and it still surprises him sometimes, how he doesn't recognize any of them. He hadn't even realized how well he'd memorized his own, before. "but we're all close-range fighters, honestly. Even if we have some longer-range techniques between us, our first response is gonna be to charge in, so we can get advantage. Right?"
Sasuke turns to look at him, and Natsu counts that as a win. "You're saying… our team is unbalanced. It might not have been before, because Sakura was never really a physical fighter, and they likely planned to make her a long-range specialist, but then you happened. So if they were going to give us a new teammate…"
Natsu honestly hadn't thought about it like that, he was planning to talk about some of their training with Kakashi and how they learned how not to all charge the same target together when faced with multiple enemies, but he's not going to complain.
Sasuke's idea probably makes more sense anyway.
"Teme's good at long range," Naruto offers, and Sasuke scowls.
"Natsu has a point though," he says with reluctance. "I know how you two idiots move, even without my Sharingan, so it's easy not to hit you with kunai when I'm supporting. If I had to work with a third person, with an entirely different style… Dammit!"
He punches the ground with sudden fury, and Natsu winces as he hears the bones in Sasuke's wrist grind together.
If the Uchiha notices the pain, he certainly doesn't react to it, glaring furiously at the dirt with Sharingan spinning once more.
"This exam is all international, right? It's got genin from other villages and stuff?" Natsu asks, and both his teammates turn to look at him.
"Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's what they said." Naruto answers, and Natsu grins, leaning forward and propping his chin in his palms. One eye's still sealed shut with blood, and he wonders, by Naruto's sudden flinch, how much like Kakashi in sadistic mode he looks like in that moment.
"How many of those foreign genin do you think would spar with us if we couched it as 'giving them a chance to practice against Konoha shinobi'? Since we're not participating and all?"
"Wha- We can't do that! What if they actually do use it to beat our friends?" Naruto protests, but Sasuke jerks his head up sharply, staring at Natsu with consideration.
"They'd probably think we planned to sabotage them," he says slowly, "or plan to tell their strategies to our participating teams."
Natsu huffs. "Paranoid shinobi." he grumbles.
Sasuke very nearly quirks a grin at that. And then does manage a rather mischievous smile as a thought occurs to him. "Of course, as long as we don't mind getting in trouble, we could always start fights with them."
Naruto somehow manages to bounce forward, despite still sitting down. "Ooh ooh! I can prank them! I can totally prank them, right?"
Sasuke's smirk turns into something downright evil. "What sort of pranking materials do you have on hand?"
Naruto eagerly leaps into describing everything he has, and all the plans he had for them, and Natsu does his best to throw out ideas as they occur to him.
Sasuke's smirk never once leaves his face, and no matter how much trouble they get into for this, Natsu doesn't think he'll regret it.
He regretted nothing right up until the moment they finally let Naruto drag them off to the hospital.
The staff immediately drag Natsu and Sasuke into a room, with nurses checking over all their injuries with an urgency bordering on panic, and when Natsu asks why Naruto isn't allowed in the woman gives him a stare that implies he's stupid for not realizing. They don't answer the question, and someone runs for Kakashi just a few minutes later.
Natsu glances towards Sasuke, only marginally relieved to see the Uchiha is just as confused as he is.
A doctor strides in shortly after, hands already alight with green chakra, which he immediately begins healing Sasuke's wounds with, while the nurses clean the blood off Natsu's face.
He resists the urge to bite at them, but seriously, why are they fussing so much?!
Kakashi storms in a few minutes later, and Natsu wonders, from the absolutely furious look on the man's face, what happened to the poor runner who went to fetch him?
Kakashi takes one look at Natsu and Sasuke being fussed over, strides forward, and jerks the doctor away to look him in the eye.
"Where is Naruto?"
Natsu would think the doctor very brave, for how he completely disregards Kakashi's obvious fury, if not for the subject of conversation.
He's not quite sure what he's missing, but he's sure he's missing something.
"Oh we haven't done anything, I know the laws, but he came in here with them, practically showing off, he didn't even look concerned, so we separated them. I was planning to make an official inquiry after they were stable-"
That's about when Natsu realizes that the doctors somehow came to the conclusion that Naruto attacked him and Sasuke. He pushes the nurse away from him, already stumbling to his feet to tell the man off, when Kakashi reacts.
"Where is my student, Hanaka-sensei?" He says in a voice smooth as silk, and the man gulps.
"Wh-when we rushed them t-to a private room, he k-kept demanding to kn-ow if it was something s-serious, and then didn't believe us when we s-said no… s-so I had him sedated, b-but I swear! He's not hurt! W-we didn't do anything! H-he was just trying to force past us, and w-we couldn't let him go into the room. I didn't know what else to d-do!"
Natsu bolts out the door before anyone thinks to stop him, focusing on his senses, trying to drown out the sickening stench of death masked by bleach that soaks the hospital in order to catch that illusive ramen-and-wild-things smell that is Naruto.
He curses himself for ten kinds of idiot.
I swear if anyone hurt him…