Meeting Some Old Classmates II

"Seriously sensei," a voice sounded in a complaining tone, "Why do we have to get ourselves into more trouble? Why don't we just go and ea- Eh? Kiyoshi and Ryuuya?"

Hearing their names being called, Kiyoshi and Ryuuya turned towards the source of the voice as three kids about their age came out of the crowd.

"Pakura? Akemi? Haraki?"

Kiyoshi immediately recognised them as three old classmates from the academy walked out.

"What are you guys doing here?" he asked.

"Uh..." Pakura realised that the two boys did not know their team yet so she pointed to the jounin who was currently observing the two boys, "That's our sensei, Beniharu."

Immediately, Kiyoshi and Ryuuya turned to him and bowed as they introduced themselves, "Nice to meet you, Beniharu-sensei."

"I apologise for the violence that I caused to your relative," Ryuuya added as he bowed a little deeper.

Hearing their apologies, Beniharu's posture seemed to relax as a small smile appeared on their faces as he walked forward to the unconscious woman and picked her up. 

He then turned to Ryuuya and told him, "Bring her child. We're going to get them checked up."

Ryuuya did not hesitate as the two of them immediately made their way towards the hospital, leaving the four kids staring at each other clueless on what to do next. Eventually, they made their way to the restaurant that Kiyoshi and Ryuuya had just walked out of as Pakura's team had yet to eat.

"Did you hear the news?" Pakura asked excitedly as she began unwrapping her burger. 

"What news?" Kiyoshi asked he had no idea what kind of news that Pakura was talking about.

"The Chunin exams are happening in three months in Konoha," Haruki added plainly as he took a small bite out of his wrap.

"Oh, that. Are you guys going to participate?" Kiyoshi asked curiously as Pakura had topped their academy class among the females, there was little doubt in his mind that she would end up participating.

"Heck yeah!" Pakura yelled out in conviction as she took a big bite out of her burger.

"There's two teams that are open to us academy graduates and not just that, Lord Third has decided that the teams with the highest mission completions will get to participate so the competition is high," Haruki informed.

"I see," Kiyoshi mumbled as he asked, "So how many missions have you guys completed?"

"Three," Akemi mumbled as she was the only one who wasn't chewing.

"Eh? Already?" Kiyoshi's eyebrows raised in amazement as he did not expect other teams to finish missions are such a pace, "We've only finished one."

"Wait, you guys have only finished one?" Pakura asked in confusion. She did not expect the team that was made up of the top graduates from this year's academy to have only completed one mission.

"Yeah... It was so tiring," Kiyoshi added as he took a sip of his drink.

"I guess not having a jounin sensei to guide you slows down how fast you can complete missions as you don't have much experience to rely on," Haruki commented as a victorious expression appeared on his face.

"I'm sure that you guys will be fine," Akemi commented before asking, "Will you guys be participating in the exams?"

Kiyoshi paused for a few seconds as he scratched his head and replied, "I'm afraid not."

"Huh!" all three members of the team halted their actions and stared at Kiyoshi in unison. They could not believe that a team that they had previously believed would take the top spot in mission completion was not going to participate in the Chunin exams.

"Are you thinking straight? Why are you guys not going to participate?" Pakura asked in a disappointed tone.

"It must be because they took so long over a single mission. At that pace, there's no chance that they will catch up to us," Haruki added with a happy grin. To him, this meant that their chances of being one of the teams that would be selected to participate would be almost guaranteed.

"Haha," Kiyoshi laughed at Haruki's comment as he knew what Haruki was concerned about, "Don't worry Haruki, I had no intention of competing with you guys for the competition spot. Plus, I'm sure that you guys will make it."

Pakura and Akemi still had their eyes on Kiyoshi as they seemed to be waiting for the actual reason from him.

"Uh... The Kazekage said that we won't be participating," Kiyoshi informed.

"Huh, why would he make such a deci-"

Before Pakura could finish her question, three people had made their way to the table. Looking up, the people eating saw Beniharu, Ryuuya, and Haru.

"Hey Haru, Ryuuya," the team greeted before turning to greet their sensei.

Haru lightly bowed with a smile while Ryuuya greeted them back.

"Hey guys," Kiyoshi greeted as he scooted over to make space for them.

However, Haru simply raised his hand and waved it off as he turned to Ryuuya who then spoke, "We've got a mission request that we need to leave now for."

"Oh..." Kiyoshi let out a sigh before getting up from his table and placing some ryo on the table before making his way to the exit.

"I'll see you all at the Chunin exams," he commented with a cheeky smile before leaving with the other two boys.

Seeing the boys leave, Beniharu took a seat where Kiyoshi was previously seated.

"Are they also going to be joining the Chunin exams?" he asked with a tinge of curiosity.

"No," Haruki blankly stated.

A slightly surprised expression appeared on Beniharu's face as he seemed to not believe Haruki, "Are you sure?"

"Yeah..." Pakura replied with a deadpan expression, "He told us so..."

"That's strange..." Beniharu commented which caught their attention.

"Why is that strange, sensei?" Akemi asked.

"Yeah, why? Don't they have only one mission completed?" Haruki chimed in.

Hearing Haruki's comment, Beniharu let out a disappointed sigh as he spoke, "Haruki, why do you think they have only completed one mission?"

"It's clearly because they are not experienced enough to quickly finish missions without a sensei to guide them," Haruki answered with confidence.

Hearing that, Beniharu's expression grew even more disappointed as he replied with a question, "Haruki, what is the difference between a D-rank mission and a C-rank mission?"

"D-rank missions are assigned to genin fresh from the academy while C-rank missions are assigned to more experienced genin or even chunin," Haruki answered. But as he said this, Pakura seemed to have gotten the hint.

"Sensei, are you saying that they got assigned a C-rank mission?" Pakura asked in slight disbelief.

"C-rank? There's no way, all the C-rank missions in Suna are at chunin level difficulty minimum," Haruki retorted, not believing what Pakura said at all.

Beniharu laughed lightly as he told them, "Not only was their first mission a C-rank mission. It ended up getting upgraded to a B-rank."

"WHAT?"

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Yo, sorry for such a short chapter. I'm flying back to Tokyo today so this is all I could manage with travel. Enjoy!