Published at 10th of May 2020 6:24 pm

Chunin-Exams (7) – Part 27

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Sometime later, when I woke up again, I noticed that Sasuke had come to join our group.

I had thought that he would be leaving at that exact moment … but thinking about it logically, made me realize that that’d be pretty much impossible.

Sakura had fallen asleep next to me and I gently laid her head down onto a blanket as I stood up.

Sasuke got up from the ground and faced me.

His eyes … looked sad and lost when he looked at me … he had regret in his eyes.

“Naru … I’m sorry-“ He said, before getting interrupted by me.

“It’s okay. Let’s talk about this after the test, okay?” I said, giving him a very, very, very small smile.

One part of me wished to just jump into his arms to seek comfort … but … another part of me did not want to just accept what he had said and done. Curse mark or not … what he had done yesterday … it should not be so easily accepted. Even … if it was Sasuke that did that.

Sasuke nodded, clearly disheartened by my words.

He sat down again, continuing to keep watch.

Nii-chan had, at some point, woken up and looked at me in worry.

I sat down next to him, my eyes practically begging for him to hug me … and that he did.

“Are you okay? Wow. To think that that’d be the only thing I could ask in this moment … of course you aren’t okay. Sakura and I don’t know the full story, but from your state yesterday, we can deduce some things. Mind telling me what it was about yesterday?” Nii-chan asked.

I nodded, before quietly recounting yesterday’s events.

When I finished, Naruto just hugged me tightly without saying anything.

“I love you, Nii-chan.” I said, feeling safe and comfortable in his hug. This is just what I needed. I’m glad … even after having neglected my brother for some time now … he is still there for me and will always stay by my side. I need to try to do the same for him … though I don’t know if I’m good at giving others a place to seek comfort from.

After some rest, we began moving again.

Sasuke and I did not talk. I preferred talking with Sakura and Naruto right now.

Sometime later … we met Kabuto … seeing that we had neither of the scrolls, he gave us a spare earth scroll that he had gathered at some point.

While searching for a team with a heaven scroll, we came across the team of that one Genin that attacked Nii-chan in the beginning.

As we fought, we noticed that whenever Sasuke used too much of his chakra, the curse seal would activate, causing him immense pain.

I used some of my chakra to fight its influence, but … before we can seal this curse in some way … neither me nor Kurama have any idea as to how to “burn” it off, without severely damaging his chakra pathways. In fact, even after sealing it and only then burning it off, his chakra pathways will still be damaged … but it’ll be manageable. We can find a way to heal those later on.

We later beat that team and acquired a heaven scroll.

…

After splitting up with Kabuto, who had met his team at the tower, we also entered the tower and were met with an empty room.

On a wall, there was a big scroll that held words that suggested that opening the scrolls would lead us out of the forest.

After some hesitation, Sakura and Naruto each opened a scroll.

Meanwhile, I was helping Sasuke, who was feeling weak from the seal’s influence. I know that we are not … the same … anymore, but … that doesn’t mean that I won’t help him!

Or … should I just leave him alone for now … for what he did?

I mean, he decided that he wanted to leave … and for such a stupid reason too. I’m sure there is some other way to gain power that’ll let him enact his revenge. And … does he even need to complete his revenge?

I heard that his brother was incredibly strong … and there was something really fishy about the whole incident anyway. It just smells … of Danzo.

From my remaining memory … it shows that he was the cause for much pain in Konoha. It wouldn’t be too far away to think that he had his hands in this too.

However … the third Hokage won’t do anything against him, so there is not much I could do to find out more … unless I go to Danzo directly … and since I don’t want to work for him at all … being a spy is impossible. I could only directly attack him and force him to give up all the information he has upon that incident while threatening him with his death and Konoha’s destruction. At that point, when all that he holds dear is in jeopardy … he should willingly give up the information, right?

I don’t care too much about either his life or Konoha. It hasn’t done much good to me and it probably won’t in the future either.

There are only three people … maybe four … that I want to protect. I couldn’t care less about the rest. I mean, come on … Sakura, Naruto and Sasuke are a given, but Hinata is whom Naruto loves, so I’ll protect her too.

Kakashi honestly hasn’t done much … sure he didn’t tell the Hokage about my true being … or did he? I wouldn’t know. He also doesn’t put in his all to train us. His facemask helps him in masking his emotions and I … think I felt his chakra in my childhood before. If I’m not wrong, he was one of the Anbu that did a very fabulous~ job at “protecting” us.

Honestly, were they even trying?

I thought about all this while Sakura and Naruto opened the scrolls.

When they finally completely opened the scroll, smoke started rising from them and they quickly threw them away.

From the smoke, Iruka-sensei appeared and told us: “Hey, long time no see, Naruto, Naruko.”

“Oh! Iruka-sensei!” Naruto shouted as he rushed at him to hug him.

“Sigh …” I could only sigh at his behavior.

“Naruto, I see that you are still very energetic even after this second exam! What do you say, wanna go eat ramen later?” He said, looking at all of us.

“Ramen! Ramen! Yay!” Naruto chanted.

We all facepalmed at his behavior. Even though he has become more mature lately, he is still easily excited by ramen.

At this point, Sasuke said: “So, if we had opened the scroll before the end of the exam, what would have happened to us?”

“Ah, right. All those that opened the scroll before the end were hit by a jutsu that made them sleep until the end of the exam. This was meant as a test to see whether you could endure missions like this, that would take a longer time frame.” Iruka answered with a small smile on his face.

“And what does that scroll on the wall mean? There are some parts missing …” Sakura asked.

Iruka just nodded and laughed: “Yea, I’m actually supposed to explain this to you four. I almost forgot, haha.”

After a small, awkward pause, he continued: “This contains the philosophy that the lord Hokage has set for every Chunin to follow. Earth symbolizes the body and heaven symbolizes the mind. If you train both your body and mind, acquiring both strength and wisdom, you can master even the hardest of missions. That’s what this scroll means.”

Everyone’s eyes flashed in understanding.

“That’s all that I was told to tell you~.” He smiled.

…

All the Genin that passed, which included the rookie 10 from Konoha, gathered at the arena, to listen to the Hokage announce the details of the third test.

The Genin teams that passed, were standing in lines, facing the front, where the Hokage, their jonin-sensei and some other ninja of Konoha stood.

“First. Congratulations on passing the second exam!” Anko said, smiling at the Genin.

“Considering the fact that 79 people started the second test … having much less than half of them pass is good. Though …” Anko thought to herself quietly.

Some time later the Hokage finally spoke up.

“Before I tell you about the third part of the tests, I will tell you about the actual reason for these Chunin-Exams. Please listen well.” The Hokage said.

“Why do we hold these Chunin-Exams together with our allies? To strengthen friendship and to strengthen our shinobi, yes. But there is something more important about them. These exams … are essentially representing the fights between the several villages. All the villages that are now allies, had, at some point, fought with each other before. To lessen the unnecessary deaths of the village’s military personnel, we have decided to choose representatives to fight with each other! And this is how these Chunin-Exams once came to be.” The Hokage said with a serious voice that made clear that he was by no means kidding.

Some Genin were shocked and someone asked: “But we did these exams as a way for us to become Chunin.”

The Hokage nodded: “Right. These exams are also used to decide who is Chunin-material and who is not. However, during these exams, especially the third one, many different, influential figures of the elemental nations will come to visit these exams. They come here to find promising young ninja that they may hire to work for them later on. This may cause that countries with weaker Genin receive less jobs. Of course, this also works the other way around with countries that have strong Genin.”

“This third part of the exam gives you the platform to fight for your dreams and for the dreams of your village and nation. Many, many, many shinobi have fought for their villages and nations before this and they were honored to be able to lay down their lives for this ‘friendship’ between the nations. Now, let’s come to the actual contents of the third test …”

Just then, a new figure appeared in front of the Hokage: “Hokage-sama, please let me, Hayate Gekkou, explain the contents of this last test.”

Then he turned around and faced the Genin.

“I’ll have you know, before we can start the third test, we need to reduce the number of participants. There are simply too many Genin for the third test which will be a one vs one fighting contest. So … we’ll have preliminaries. Right here, right now.” Hayate said, causing many of the Genin to cry out in anger.

*cough*

”Now is the time for people that can no longer continue to fight, to raise their hand. We’ll start with the preliminaries right after that.” Hayate said.

Naru looked at Sasuke in front of her and thought: “He should … take this chance to leave. He won’t be able to truly fight against anyone in his state. But … I know him. He won’t leave, so there’s nothing much I can say at this point.”

It was then that Naruto said in disbelief: “Kabuto? Why are you getting out at this point?!”

“Ah, Naruto. I’m already weary from the five days inside of the forest … and my chakra reserves are nearly depleted. There is simply no way for me to fight anyone here. It’s better for me to leave.” Kabuto said as he then walked away, not looking back again.

“Is there anyone else?” Hayate asked.

There was only silence in response.

Sasuke turned around to look at Naru: “Thanks.”

Naru just looked at him and didn’t respond.

This made Sasuke’s face warp in sadness.

Regret was written on his face. Now, he had truly fucked up.

“I … I’m sorry …” Sasuke mumbled.

Naru just raised an eyebrow and looked at him coldly.

He flinched at the indifference in her gaze. He knew … that she was hurting.

“Naru.” He said, his voice cracking and tears forming in his eyes.

“If you are leaving, then don’t bother coming back.” Naru said in a voice devoid of emotion.

Sasuke’s eyes widened, only then realizing that … with that one premature decision … he might have just destroyed all that he had. Everything that he had gained after that night … in chasing after his brother, he might have lost it again.

Naru was just barely suppressing her tears at this point. It hurt to say that. And she did not want to say it, but … she did not want him to leave. And she knew that just saying that she did not want him to leave wasn’t going to change his mind at this point in time.

A few tears flowed down Sasuke’s face and he averted his eyes, choosing to look at the front instead, where Hayate was telling the Genin to head towards the spectator seats while waiting for the randomized fights to be decided upon.

The people that would need to fight would then be called to the front.

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