Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ The Chronicles of Kakashi & the Kunoichi from Thunder Country ❯ Start of the Chuunin Exams ( Chapter 8 )

Start of the Chuunin Exams

 

Kakashi: It was my fault. I should have been with them.

 

Obito: It was unexpected.

 

Kakashi: I should have expected the unexpected. I should have been prepared. I was lulled into complacency again. I'm such an idiot!

 

Obito: If only the sharingan were truly capable of foresight. Everyone has hindsight. If we all had foresight no one would make mistakes, but then no one would learn from their mistakes.

 

Kakashi: Since when did you become so wise?

 

Obito: Since you started talking to yourself…

 

-...-…-…-

 

It was regretful that his genin had to see death up close so soon. But Kakashi was baptized in blood by the time he was six. Sometimes it was better sooner than later. `They will become stronger, more motivated this way,' he reasoned to assuage his guilt. His genin recovered from their experience with seemingly little side effects, but each underwent a change after the C mission. Takeo finally made more of an effort to be stronger and was even willing to train with Kenji on their time off from official training sessions. Kenji took Kakashi more seriously, realizing his experience could account for something, and trained doubly hard (if that were possible) with the intent of learning to fight multiple opponents simultaneously. But the mission seemed to have the opposite effect on the girl. She was uncharacteristically inattentive during his lectures and disinterested in training and seemed to be constantly thinking of something else.

 

If she were having problems dealing with what happened on the mission, her sensei hoped she would talk to her parents about it. Unfortunately, there was no shinobi shrink on staff at the hospital, and it was not his job. Kakashi was uncomfortable with such situations. He never knew quite what to say. If only he were more like Iruka, who was like a father to Naruto. If it weren't for him, Naruto wouldn't be who he was now. If only he had been closer to Sasuke. But it just wasn't in his nature, and she already had a father. What she needed was a mentor to set an example of what it was to be a shinobi. A shinobi was a tool of the state, remaining stoic, viewing death as nothing more than an unpleasant part of the job description.

 

Kakashi thought back to his first genin team members, Naruto and Sakura, who always wore their hearts on their sleeves. After the death of Zabuza and Haku, and the near death of Sasuke, they were visibly shaken, but realized then what it meant to be a shinobi. Naruto, as resilient as ever, swore to follow his own path. But not everyone was that resilient.

 

To his relief, Rikako did not look to him for solace or advice but independently tried to resolve her own personal issues. But her curiosity remained the same. And now that she knew about his sharingan, so did the rest of the team. The questions were endless. Before, when they asked why he covered up his left eye, he would just shrug and say he thought he looked cooler that way. Now they demanded to know where he got it, did it have special abilities, why was it red with black dots, and more. Kakashi casually explained he picked it up on one of his missions years ago and it allowed him to see things in greater detail, which allowed him to copy his opponents' techniques. Luckily, it was the latter part that interested his team and he did not have to elaborate on his most precious memory.

 

The weeks passed and soon it was that time of year again. The chuunin selection exams were coming up and it was Konoha's turn to host again.

 

Kakashi thought about his current team and the perils they would face during the exams. Some participants came back with serious injuries, either physical or mental. But many participants did not come back alive, or at all. His team would be rookies amongst more experienced, more dangerous opponents. Were they ready? Should he nominate them? Last time around he didn't hesitate. Sasuke and Naruto were strong and could compensate for Sakura's weakness. He had been worried about her, but she had grown more than he thought. This team was strong enough, but Kakashi was now older and wiser and he was the one who was different, more cautious, after everything that had happened in the past.

 

He appraised his current team as more defensive team than his first one. Or rather, Takeo and Rikako were not the type to attack first, but to stay back and evaluate the situation. Those two were smart enough to recognize and run away from a death situation, dragging Kenji with them if they had to. That was important.

 

Takeo's traps and barriers were defensive techniques and worked well with Kenji's offensive techniques. And the girl was sort of a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none. She could set traps, though not as well as her teammate, and help with barrier techniques. And though she was not physically strong, she had a respectable number of ninjutsu techniques at hand. Though their execution was adequate, they were not that powerful. She had as much chakra as Sasuke, and as good chakra control as Sakura, so why wasn't she producing more powerful attacks? Kakashi felt she was holding back, and was training less enthusiastically since the C mission. If she were to undergo the chuunin exams, she wouldn't be able to hold back when everyone else was coming at them at full steam, especially in the second exam. It would be a good lesson for all of them.

 

And they were able to hold off three experienced shinobi for nearly five minutes. Not bad at all. They were a well-rounded team, so they should have a fair chance of making it to the finals, and a good chance of surviving, which was most important. Yes, he would nominate them without reservations.

 

-…-…-…-…-…-

 

All the sensei of the genin teams gathered together in the large meeting hall in the Hokage's admistration building. There were sensei of genin teams who had never been nominated and of teams who had gone through the exams multiple times. There were teams with the original members and teams which were amalgams of other teams who had sadly lost members. There were also sensei from the Academy who were on hand in case their input was needed.

 

It had been three years since rookies were nominated. That was an exceptional year. All nine rookies who had been nominated then were already chuunin. This time around, Kakashi nominated his rookie genin team and so did his self proclaimed eternal rival, Gai. The other rookie teams elected to pass.

 

Everyone paused to look at Iruka, waiting for a protest. He turned red, looked down and shuffled his feet uncomfortably, but said nothing. He had learned his lesson - the jounin sensei knew best. He only knew their skills in the Academy, not how much they could have grown in just one year.

 

Gai normally did not believe in nominating rookies. But after Kakashi's success with his first team, and knowing that Kakashi was likely to nominate his current team, Gai felt obligated to nominate his rookie team. Gai explained to Kakashi, “I normally wouldn't nominate rookies, but this year I have the top rookie genin and two other very strong genin, all with great individual techniques. They're even better as a team. They've already completed several C missions. And they have a super hard working attitude! All three should make chuunin on their first try! Ah, the exuberance of youth, keeps us young don't you think? So how's your team Kakashi?”

 

“Umm, were you speaking to me?” The gray haired jounin turned his head to give Gai his apathetic lazy-eyed look.

 

“Argghh! You did it to me again! Why do you insist on risible radical reactions!” Gai grabbed his hair and continued his tirade while the other jounin finished their nominations, ignoring his usual crazy antics. `My team will crush yours!' Gai swore to himself.

 

-…-…-…-…-…-

 

“Sorry I'm late, but I have a surprise for you,” Kakashi smiled down at his genin from the top of the torii. “I just nominated you all for the upcoming chuunin selection exams. Here are the applications. Drop them off on Friday by 3PM.” He didn't pretend that it was an individual choice as he did with his first team. Having someone on the team with an ex-shinobi parent really put a damper on his fun.

 

The veteran shinobi jumped to the ground, applications in had. But the ground suddenly split opened revealing a mouthful of large spikes. The spikes shot up, grazing his shinobi vest as he expertly somersaulted away to safer ground. His punishment for being twenty minutes late.

 

`Yes!” yelled Kenji as he grabbed his form from Kakashi, “I've been waiting for this.” He instantly forgave his sensei for being late yet again.

 

Rikako took her application silently and began reading it immediately, looking for the fine print.

 

Kakashi had to walk over and hand Takeo his application. He accepted it unenthusiastically. “I thought we'd be genin and stick to C and D missions for a while longer. That last C mission was just too much,” he sighed.

 

“Oh, well,” Kakashi scratched his head, “that really should've been a B or A mission. Umm, sorry about that.”

 

“Excuse me, Kakashi sensei, but wasn't that mission reclassified as a B or A mission? If it was, shouldn't we be paid more?” asked the girl astutely.

 

“Yeah, well, problem with that, the client refused to pay extra. He said that the contract did not include such unexpected events and our actions were unauthorized.” Kakashi shrugged. “Stuff like that happens every so often. Not much you can do about it. We were lucky we weren't charged with destruction of the docks and ruining the shipments of peaches, rice and potatoes.”

 

The team had recovered the other illegal artifacts hidden in the importations, but they were returned to Water Country in exchange for goodwill, no reward.

 

Kenji frowned and suggested, “How about we go rough up the client? Get him to cough up some more cash.”

 

“Only rogue ninja work that way. Though it's very tempting, we're supposed to be honorable, right?” the girl laughed for perhaps the first time since the horror of the last mission. It seemed Kakashi's news had cheered her up considerably.

 

“Yes, well, if you guys pass this, you will be assigned and paid for B missions.”

 

“'If' is such a pessimistic word. `When' we pass is much more encouraging.“ Rikako now smiled confidently as the light returned to her dark eyes.

 

-…-…-…-…-…-

 

When Friday came, the team dropped off their applications then waited in the large room with all the other applicants. Kenji may have been tall on his team, but some of the other genin were even taller, and bigger, and more scary looking, especially the ones from the Grass and Rain countries. There were a fair number of non-Leaf teams and teams with much older members. One guy with a mustache and glasses looked to be over forty. `A genin at forty? How pathetic! I'd throw myself off a cliff if I were so untalented,' Rikako thought unsympathetically.

 

She looked around the room and counted the number of genin and then she calculated the number of teams. `Strange, a number not divisible by three, a remainder of two. Did I miscount?' She counted again, but it was the same. `Well, someone must be late or sick,' she concluded.

 

-…-…-…-…-

 

Ibiki was feeling lazy this year. It had been three years and six exams since he had been an examiner. Countries and examiners were rotated so that the same genin retaking the tests would not have an advantage. He didn't have time to come up with anything new, not with his interrogation schedule, so he decided to reuse the test strategy from three years ago, but with some different questions. Torturing shinobi wannabes was more fun than real interrogations. He liked to watch their confused faces as they squirmed and sweated, their looks of horror when he uncovered his burnt, scarred scalp. There was nothing like the feeling of control and power.

 

After the examinees were settled in their seats and the proctors had given out the test papers, he gave them his standard introduction and then the test rules in his most terrorizing voice. “Each of you starts with ten points. The test has ten questions, each worth one point. It's a deduction based test which means one point will be deducted for each wrong answer. The pass, fail decision is determined by your team's total points. If an examiner determines someone cheated, each action is a 2 point deduction. If anyone gets a zero, the entire team will fail. There are nine questions on your paper. The tenth will be given out later. Start!”

 

Rikako scanned the test sheet. The questions were hard, but not impossible if you had a good grasp of higher mathematics, good language skills, and biology-physics-chemistry knowledge. She could figure out most questions with some effort. Takeo would be able to answer a few if he tried hard enough, but that was a big “if.” But math and analytical thinking were Kenji's weaknesses. There was a good chance that he wouldn't be able to answer any of them, and if he couldn't, they would all fail. And yet, something was fishy. The questions were hard, way too hard. She doubted if most jounin could answer them! And allowing them to cheat, even with a penalty, didn't make any sense at all.

 

Takeo read through the questions, looking for the easiest ones. But there weren't any easy ones. `Crap, these are hard. I can answer maybe a few of them, but all I need is to answer one or two and that should be enough, since Rikako should get most of them. If we don't make the cut, it will be Kenji's fault and not mine. There's always next year, and the year after that, and…'

 

Kenji felt a headache coming on, as if a low pressure system were rolling in. The more he looked at the questions, the worse his headache became. `I just need to answer one.' He thought about each question one by one. `A cipher, shit I suck at those…next, a math problem with lots of variables requiring simultaneous equations and trigonometry… fuck, even worse… next, a foreign language? What the fuck? Next, a chemistry question…don't know shit about atoms… next...' Finally, he picked the one that looked the easiest - a logic problem.

 

A few weeks ago, Rikako was reading "Shinobi Brain Teasers" while waiting for their sensei. Kenji took a quick look at her book and complained about logic questions being impossible. "Actually, they're quite easy,” the girl responded. “There's no real math or numbers involved. And they're all basically the same. You just need to prepare a grid and fill it in."

 

'A grid...I can do that.' He read the problem slowly again and again:

 

For six shinobi, determine what village each is from, their favorite weapon, and best jutsu.

Shinobi: Shinobi A, Shinobi B, Shinobi C, Shinobi D, Shinobi E, Shinobi F

Village: Leaf, Sand, Sound, Mist, Rain, Grass

Favorite Weapons: Kunai, Shuriken, Senbon, Explosive notes, Sword, Nunchucks

Best jutsu: Bunshin, Henge, Kawarimi, Hypnosis, Taijutsu, Water walking

 

Shinobi A is from Grass and dislikes using Kawarimi and Taijutsu.

The shinobi from Sound is best at Water walking, and his favorite weapon is not a Kunai or a Shuriken.

Shinobi C is not from Mist and Shinobi F doesn't like Taijutsu.

The shinobi good in Taijutsu is not from Sand.

The shinobi whose favorite weapon is Senbon is not good in using Bunshin.

Shinobi B's favorite weapon is the Explosive notes. He is not from Rain and he doesn't like Henge or Water walking.

The Nunchucks is the favorite of the shinobi who is good at Kawarimi, but this shinobi is not from Sand.

Shinobi E does not use a Sword.

The Mist shinobi's favorite weapon is Senbon. He is not Shinobi D or Shinobi E.

Shinobi D uses Hypnosis. He doesn't use a Sword or Shuriken.

 

`Damn! Takeo and Rikako can answer this type of question easily. But I refuse to be the weakest link!' His headache was getting worse, but he started to fill in the grid. It took him nearly the entire allotted time, but he was fairly confident it was all correct.

 

When their time was up, Ibiki was ready with the tenth question. But there was the catch first. “Whoever decides to take the tenth question must answer it correctly to pass. Failure means staying a genin forever!” `I just love this part! Ha! Those shocked faces, classic!'

 

Rikako was confident she could handle the final question. And she suspected it was an empty threat. She did not think Ibiki had that kind of power. A talk with the kindly Hokage would likely grant them another chance.

 

Takeo was not confident, but he figured nothing ventured, nothing gained. If he had to be a genin forever, that was fine. It just wasn't meant to be.

 

Kenji was frantic; he was barely able to answer one question. He didn't want to stay a genin forever and disappoint his family and his teammates. His headache came back. He took a deep breath and tried to calm down. `What does Rikako always say? `Nothing is as it appears. Everything is a test.' I thought she was just plain paranoid! It doesn't make sense. Why give nine impossible questions and then make everything depend on the tenth?' The answer came to him suddenly . The challenge wasn't the question. The challenge was the acceptance of the challenge!

 

A quarter of the teams were cut during the written test. Their team members were repeatedly caught cheating. Now after the condition for the tenth question, less than half remained. To their shock, the remaining genin found there was no tenth question and they were all passed just for having the courage to remain. They wearily left the examination room to prepare for the next day's test.

 

'Ah, another good pruning,' Ibiki thought in satisfaction as he collected the papers. There were some with unintelligible scribbles, some with several correct answers, many with just one or two correct answers, several stained with sweat, and one neatly written completely filled out with minimal erasing and completely correct. `Impossible! No one has ever answered all nine questions correctly before without resorting to cheating. Otori Rikako…is she the daughter of the old ANBU medic? I knew her father when I was just starting out on the ANBU. And people think I'm scary - they've never met the Mad Medic.''

 

He had noticed she was one of the few whose eyes never wavered from her paper, a look of total concentration. The last genin who came close to a perfect score without cheating was Haruno Sakura, also on Kakashi's team. She had missed one question written in a foreign language. Although the Yamanaka girl had used her clan's mind powers to copy Sakura's answers and give them to her teammates, their tests didn't count. It was obvious from the way their answers were exactly the same that they had all copied from the same paper. He could always tell who copied from whom. Ibiki had made the new questions just a bit harder because of that. Even though the questions ultimately didn't count, it made him feel superior. `Not that it's really impossible, but to answer all the questions in such a short amount of time is truly impressive. She's one to watch for. Just hope she has a better temper than her father - worse bedside manner ever.'

 

-...-...-...-...-...-

 

Answer to Logic Problem:

Shinobi - Village - Fav Weapon - Best Jutsu

A - Grass -Shuriken -Bunshin

B - Leaf - Explosive Notes - Taijutsu

C - Sound - Sword - Waterwalking

D - Sand - Kunai - Hypnosis

E - Rain - Nunchucks - Kawarimi

F - Mist - Senbon - Henge