Last Leg before Exams

There were only 5 weeks to go before the start of the Chunin exams. Nobita had taken a few days off after the mission, in order to rest his body as well as mind for the carnage that was about to occur.

Nobita had created a strict training regimen; it was essentially a closed door training regimen, and included him going all-out training with no disturbances. He had bought a new property just for himself with an even larger training ground. Nobita had become a sort of investor in real estate now, and had three properties worth over 40 million ryo.

He wanted complete privacy to get as strong as he possibly could before the exams. After all, he may have to fight Orochimaru in the worst-case scenario.

Since his chakra capacity had increased dramatically, he was now able to create a significant amount of clones, which would make his training much much more effective. Thanks to this cheat-code of a training regimen, he would be able to focus on his overall combat strength, instead of just picking a just a few areas to excel in.

Nobita was doing individual training, because after thinking for like around 5 seconds, he realized that having teammates in the exam would just slow him down. He needed special permission, and had requested Kurenai to help him plead his case to the Hokage. Surprisingly, the latter was easily accepting of the proposition.

Now it was time to go balls to wall, and push himself to the point where he couldn't even muster a breath.

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Nobita had trained for 4 weeks in isolation, eating the food and water he had prepared beforehand. It was a single-minded focus to survive and even defeat Orochimaru once the exams arrived. This was a powerful motivation, as he believed he could really impact the story if he could get rid of some troublesome pests at the beginning, rather than at the end.

He wanted to protect his brother, and a world without Orochimaru would be a safer one.

At the end of his training session, he looked weak, tired, haggard, and just about every other adjective you could use to describe who looked absolutely exhausted. He looked extremely dirty, as during these 4 weeks, taking a bath was a rarity.

The first thing Nobita did, was go to the ramen shop and just ask for 10 bowls of his favourite stuff. After eating some comfort food, he took a bath for the ages and hit the sack early.

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It was now 5 days to the Chunin exams, and Nobita had started making his preparations. He was packing a whole lot of exploding tags, his katana, smoke bombs, and other random shit and weapons that could help during a fight. His opponent could be the legendary snake, and so he needed to be as thorough as possible.

While on the way to the weapons shop, he encountered Ino's flower shop, and saw the blonde girl flowering her plants.

Nobita felt it might be a good idea to check out what was going on with their team (any maybe check her out) and if there were any important announcements by the exam commission. He walked up to her and called out.

Nobita: "Hey Ino, what's up?"

Ino looked up and responded: "Hey, Nobita, right?"

Nobita: "Yup, that's me. How's it going?"

Ino: "Not great to be honest. I'm stuck with my idiot team, when I could have been in a team with Sasuke-kun instead of that bitch Sakura! Uh just thinking about it makes me mad!"

Nobita just smiled and changed the topic, "You know I heard that the first exam will be a pretty hard one. But its theme is apparently persistence or 'not backing down'."

Ino: "What?! Really, where did you hear that?"

Nobita: "A couple chunin were discussing it yesterday, and I overheard, haha! Well at least we know that no matter what the exam throws at us, we must not falter."

Ino smiled: "Thanks for the heads up, I really appreciate it!"

Nobita: "No biggie, by the how's your preparation going for the exam?"

Nobita continued to talk to Ino, as he wanted to foster a friendship, and maybe something more down the line. After all, Ino would turn out to be very attractive, and despite her Sasuke infatuation, she might come to realize how stupid she was when Nobita woops Sasuke's emo ass.

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In these last few days before the exam, Nobita further polished his skills, and had some fun as well with his younger brother, as he would be very busy once the exams started.

He also trained with Kurenai's team, as he had built a very close bond with them. Hinata had become less shy and had become good friends with them, as she was much more talkative and less restricted in her speech with him.

Nobita had built a couple of strong connections in Konoha, and after these exams were finished, especially the Konoha Crush arc, he was going to further cultivate his relationships, since they would definitely come in handy down the line.

Coming up: Chunin exams part 1