Ch9 Prelude To Chunin Exams

To achieve a sense of calm, peace, balance with body and mind is meditation. Aki preferred the more mundane and mortal word for this phenomenon. Impossible. Yes, to achieve a sense of peace with your mind and body is impossible.

How can someone calm himself when a hundred worries are eating at their soul? When responsibilities are chasing you like mad beasts, how does someone achieve peace?

They do not. Meditation is a hoax made by old geezers to sleep in their jobs. Aki was sure of it.

Still, somehow, for the sake of training, he had to do it. He had to achieve the impossible. He had to meditate.

Finally, after hours of racking his brain, he did it. He achieved the impossible. By redirecting his attention to the smaller problems while running away from the bigger ones, he created a relative peace and calmness.

It was like running away from a predator while only worrying about your clothes being dirtied in the muddy forest. No, that does not make any sense, but nor does the idea of running from your problems.

Still, people run from their problems and if loads of them are doing this then maybe it has some merit to it.

Aki stopped his mind from worrying about acquiring a team for the chunin exam, from overthinking the recent happenings in life, his goals and roles as a shinobi. He did all that by writing.

Technically, it was the stress of learning to write that took his mind away from all the problems, dropping him into a zone of constant effort that kept his mind off of his problems.

He let Dan put a Gen-jutsu on him. An illusion that made him see a streak of light running around. Aki made his chakra imitate that streak of light. Tracing its route on his palms. When that streak of light was done running around, an alphabet was formed on the boy's palm.

Even without Gen-jutsu. To his visual senses, that alphabet turned into a hermit and rode away on a dust cloud. But the crafty bugger could not evade his physical senses.

Aki could feel the imprint of the alphabet on his palm. He could feel the weight of his chakra and the shape of it on his skin.

He committed each and everyone of that sensation to memory. Associating a sound to that sensation.

It took him around ten minutes to learn one alphabet and catalogue every physical sensation related to it with a sound. Aki spent an hour cataloguing ten kanji characters in his memory. He just had to learn forty-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety more characters. Great.

Before Aki could conquer the world of literature, loud voices from outside his front yard interrupted him. On one hand, he was glad to find a reason to take a break from the tiring practice. On the other, he was troubled.

"What is Konohamaru doing outside my house?" Aki said. "He sounds like he's in pain?"

"Who's Konohamaru?" Dan asked.

"My cousin, and pain in the ass, sorry, a constant pain in the ass. Don't tell me he's here to play castle in my house again!"

Aki stood up from his perch on the dried grass and jumped on the wooden fence of his front yard as Dan turned into an earring. The scene outside gave him a surprise, and not a good one.

A shinobi dressed in an all black attire, and wired cap was holding Konohamaru up by his collar. Aki controlled his anger and watched as a blonde genin in an orange tracksuit tried to attack the ninja with a sand headband.

Aki threw two golden-brown cylinders with a senbon tip at the sand ninja as the blonde genin's assault failed due to him tripping.

"Kankuro, watch out!"

With a warning from his partner, Kankuro evaded the projectiles, dropping Konohamaru. Aki jumped from the fence, weaving hand-signs as he aimed a kick at Kankuro's neck. Kankuro blocked the kick with his arm and Aki used them as leverage, jumping back, dragging Konohamaru with him.

"You leaf runts like coming in waves, doesn't matter, weak–argh!"

Kankuro's words got stuck in his throat as Aki completed his jutsu and red chains of chakra tied themselves around Kankuro's neck and body.

The menacing red chains knocked the air out of Kankuro, making it harder for him to even breathe, much less complete his sentence.

He was forced to twist his neck to the side because of the pressure being exerted on him. With his neck bent to the side, Kankuro saw the source of the chains, the golden-brown cylinders stuck in the ground.

"Picking on academy brats? Just the thing I would expect from a sand rat. Still, what are you doing here, and why are you not with your delegation?"

"Release him. We are here for chunin exams. This is no way of treating your ally."

Aki looked the sand Kunoichi dead in the eyes, maintaining his saru seal as he tightened the chains around Kankuro.

"That is no way a guest should behave. Maybe I should teach him some lessons-"

Aki's hand seals broke from a sudden invisible tug, pulling his arms apart. He cursed as a kunai came for his head from the kunoichi. Fortunately, a stone knocked the kunai off the path.

"You've got some balls, causing trouble in our village."

Everyone looked at the source of the voice. A teen dressed in a blue turtleneck sitting on a tree branch. The pink-haired kunoichi behind Aki squealed with delight at seeing the boy.

"It's Sasuke!!" the pink-haired girl said.

"Another brat joining the fray. Come down, let's see if you leaf shrimps are worth anything."

"Tell me you're not planning to use the crow?" Temari asked.

Kankuro proceeded with removing the bandaged puppet on his back, answering Temari with his action. Aki Tsuchisaru took the moment to take out another golden-brown cylinder from his pocket and channelled some chakra into it.

Every other piece of Ser-Fat-Bastard hiding in his back pocket and hostlers jumped out. The eighteen golden-brown cylinders stacked themselves on each other, forming a Bo staff in Aki's hand. Aki held it in one hand, maintaining a ram seal with the other.

Before Aki could get his dose of an anticipated violence to test his new skills, a sudden voice interrupted the atmosphere.

"Kankuro, don't! You're a disgrace to our entire village. It annoys me that you'd lose control in a quarrel with children. Have you forgotten why we came here?"

"But Gara… They started it, the little one slammed in to me, and this brown-haired one–"

"Shut up, or I'll kill you."

Talk about intense, Aki thought. The red-haired boy who interrupted their meeting was hanging from a tree, staring daggers at his own teammate. With his red tattoo, dark eyeshadows and big gourd on his back, he seemed like the leader of the three-man squad from sand.

"You're right, I was out of line." Kankuro said.

"We are sorry… okay, Gara?" Temari said.

Yes, yes, definitely the leader of the sand rats, Aki thought. He watched as the boy jumped from the tree, landing near his friends.

"Sorry about my friends. I know we're a little early, but we didn't come here to play around." Gara said, looking at his two teammates. "Let's go."

Aki raised his hand to warn the pink-haired girl named Sakura from stopping them. He curled his index and forefinger raised in the ram-seal to call back the two pieces of cylinders stuck into the ground where Kankuro had been.

"Don't stop them. They're trouble, especially the one with the gourd."

"But we cannot let someone from another land roam our village freely, even if they are our allies. We have to know what they are doing in our village."

"They're here for the chunin exams. At least, their basic motive."

"Chunin exams?" Naruto said, freeing himself from Konohamaru. "What are those?"

"And what do you mean, their basic motive?" Sakura asked.

"How'd you pass the academy? That's plain basic." Aki said, sighing. "Listen, chunin exams are conducted every year to examine the skill of the genins. Their purpose is to handpick the ones ready to be promoted to a chunin. Hidden Sand and Konoha have been allies for quite some time, so we hold these exams together, and the small lands between our borders also take part in them. As for their basic motive, imagine if you're allowed to enter a different village. Would you just take part in the exam and mind your business?"

"Oh, I see." Sakura said."They're gathering intel on our village."

"Listen Konohamaru! Maybe I should enter these chunin exams too, huh!" Naruto exclaimed.

"Totally boss. I think–"

"–Think it is time to study and not cause any ruckus around here." Aki said, interrupting Konohamaru.

"Wha– I don't think that, I think it is time to play ninja!"

Aki held Konohamaru by the back of his scarf and started dragging him towards his house. The two little companions of the boy trotted behind him, trying to save Konohamaru.

"Wait," Sasuke said, jumping down from his perch on the tree. "Your jutsu earlier, was it kekkei genkai?"

Aki looked at the boy, noticing the red eyes with two tomoes. The sharingan? So he is the last Uchiha, Aki thought.

"No. Its weapon art."

"What is that?"

"An incredibly rude behaviour, I would say. To interrupt someone, and ask him personal questions–" Aki said, then stopped, realising his slip up. "Oh, sorry, sometimes I have trouble getting the context right. I thought you were asking about your behaviour. Same answer though… just imagine it being… phrased politely."

Aki moved on with his task of dragging Konohamaru to his house, leaving behind confused and bemused team seven.