Chapter 14: Chunin exam first stage

With just about a month left before the start of the chunin exams, I need to prioritize my time. One month is not a lot of time, to get good at a new jutsu, but I will get nowhere in such a short time, with developing what I already have. So I will find a new jutsu to start on, if I can master it before a month is up.

With our current team composition, were pretty well rounded. Itachi is good at both close and ranged combat. I don't think there is any genin or even chunin that could be a match for him, when he is using his sharingan. He is also the genjutsu expert on our team, both as offence and defense. His use of fire and water jutsu is also pretty good, to use for both attack and distractions. His only real weakness is that he does not have a huge chakra amount, so in drawn out battle, someone could tire him out. However the likelihood of a drawn out battle with Itachi's offence is pretty low. And to top it all off, the kid is only 10 years old. I am 4 years older than him, and I can barely keep up with him.

Yugao is strong in close combat with her kenjutsu as well, however we usually have a formation with her in the back. She is the only one of us who has any ability as a sensor, so we usually have her behind us. One more than one mission, a ninja that wanted take out our sensor in the back, has had a nasty surprise, when they engage Yugao and gets sliced in half by her moonbeam. Due to her sensor ability, she also acts as our commander in combat, directing us around to where we add most value. Her weakness is ranged combat, although she can make sword beams, they take a lot of chakra, and they are not very precise. So any ninja worth anything can avoid the sword beams. The real utility of the sword beams is when fighting multiple or even armies of enemies.

I have the role of medium range support and fighter in our group, when I use my chains. When I don't I am frontline fighter. With my earth release, I can be a real tank. If I surprise my opponents in close combat, with my chains, its almost a instant win. However I don't have a good personal defensive jutsu, and after considering our team and my personal, I think this is what I need. So with all that in mind, I will try to aim for mastering a new earth style jutsu in the month before the exam.

How would I get a hold of a new jutsu, you might ask? Well I was pretty surprised by how it worked as well. But long story short, in Konoha each ninja is awarded money for completing missions. Anything you find or acquire during the mission is yours, as long as you pay a small percentage to the city. So if you find 100 shuriken, and give 5 of them to the city, you keep the rest. The same if you find money during your mission, or are awarded any ninja bounty.

The Hokage tower, then has a library, where you can buy jutsu. The Hokage tower library has the largest collection of jutsu in the world. At least that is what they told us, the first time we were there. To buy a jutsu from the library, it corresponds with rank. So a D rank mission reward could buy a D rank jutsu. While I know that there are also S rank jutsu, that are kept out of the public eye, the highest available for purchase is A rank jutsu.

So today my goal is to browse through the library to find my own assigned homework for the next month.

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After training in my new jutsu for about 2 weeks, I got it working, but not to a stage where I can use it in combat yet. There is still 2 weeks to go though, so I hope to have it ready by then.

For now I need a break though. I think I will go visit Shira, and see how her research is going.

Thus I make my way to the Aburame district of Konoha.

I arrive at the gate to the Aburame district, and greet the guards. While I could just sneak in, I like to have a good relationship with the Aburame clan. So that means I will have to follow the rules, set forth by the clan.

After going through the formalities and paying respect to the guards, I am finally allowed to enter the district, and set course for Shira's home. Shira is living as part of the clan, and is related to the current head of the clan in some fashion. This means that even though she could live somewhere else, she choose to live as part of the clan head home. While she would never admit it, I think the clan head also took pity on her, and wanted to have her close if she needed help.

While I think the Aburame clan had expected Shira to become a burden to the clan, I am pretty sure her achievements over the last 2 years have shown otherwise. While the path of research is something that takes a long time, it has finally started to show some results.

Last time I was here to visit her, she showed me the first generation of heat and cold resistant bugs.

As I walk in my own thought, I am greeted by a happy voice:

"Anya, what a pleasant surprise" Shira said. I hadn't noticed her, but she is walking in front of me, carrying a heavy looking sack.

"Are you here to see me?" Shira asked again.

"Yea, I had to do something different. Have been working on the same thing for the last two weeks, and I need a break." I answered her.

Shira scowled at me and asked:

"Is it another one of those doodles you do?"

It took me a moment or two to understand what she was referring to. When I understood her, I acted mad:

"What do you mean doodles. Its called fuinjutsu, and it is one of the most powerful disciplines a ninja can master" I said with my fake angry voice, ending up with me slapping Shira on her shoulder. While I didn't mean for it to effect her, the sack she was carrying must be pretty heavy, and she almost dropped it.

"Here let me help you with that" I said, and took the sack from her. Now that I have gotten use to chakra, and using it as easy as breathing, I could never go loosing it, like Shira did.

"And no, I am working on something new, that will help me during the chunin exam in a few weeks" I said to her and continued the conversation.

"Cool. When you and the others pass the exam, you have to come by so we can celebrate like old times. I will even make chocolate cake." Shira said.

I looked at her in a scowl.

"Okay okay, I will buy a chocolate cake" Shira said after looking at my scowling.

"Cool, then well be sure to celebrate together. Though for some reason Itachi does not like cake, so we will have to trick him to the celebration with something else." I said.

Like this I spend the next few hours helping out Shira with her chores and talking together. The chores was mostly about feeding her different bug experiments, maintaining their environment and recording data. Nothing really existing.

After this I had an appointment with with a certain orange bundle of energy. I have decided that enough is enough. Today is finally the day that I start to change the shows cannon for real. Today is the day, that I finally convince Naruto that cake is superior to ramen. I will make him see the greatness of CHOCOLATE CAKE!

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I give up. There is no way to get Naruto to see reason. There is just no logic with him. I gave him the best chocolate cakes that Konoha has to offer, and yet he refuses to acknowledge the superiors food. Even now he is talking about ramen. We were sitting in my house, in the kitchen, around 6 or so half eaten chocolate cakes on the table. Naruto was sitting next to me, with and empty plate in front of us both.

"Alright alright Naruto, if you wont see reason, then there is nothing I can do" I said.

"Yay big sister, now you have to take me for ramen" Naruto said with the biggest smile I have seen him have. His entire left cheek is smeared with remnant cake, and I swear his stomach is twice as big compared to the start of the day. If I had not just lost my most epic battle, he would have looked pretty cute.

"That was the deal we made. However I can't eat anymore today, so I will have to take you for ramen another day" I said to him.

He looked a little sad, that he had to wait for ramen, but then cheered up again and said: "Tomorrow then"

"Hmm, fine tomorrow for dinner. I will come get you for dinner, and we can go together" I said to him.

This seemed to be agreeable with Naruto, and we had struck an accord.

After we cleaned up the mess we made eating cake, Naruto suddenly said:

"Big sister, can you show me that thing you do with chains again"

During the last two years, I have trained my use of the adamantine sealings chains, by doing a bunch of daily tasks with them. Like washing cloths, preparing food or dusting the house. One day, Naruto showed up at my house, while I was training the chains. He immediately started asking about the chains, wanting to know how they worked. I tried explaining it to him a few times, but it is just to advanced for him currently. He however was really interested in the chain, so once in a while he asked to see them.

I was happy to show him each time he asked. While there is no way he can learn the jutsu without knowing fuinjutsu as well, maybe this is a way to get him interested in fuinjutsu. Fuinjutsu would be a huge help to him going forward. Especially when he will have interactions with the beast within him.

"Alright Naruto, watch closely" I said, and summoned a chain for Naruto to see.

I did a few tricks with the chain to Narutos "Uhhhs" and "Ahhhs". After showing him what it could do, I had an idea.

"Naruto, are you interested in learning the way to do chains as well?" I asked him.

"Yes, big sister, but you said that I couldn't learn any ninja stuff until I am 5 years old" He answered me.

"That is true, when you are 5 I will personally help you unlock your chakra, and teach you the first ninja jutsu. However what I have in mind now, is something you can start with already" I said before I used my chain to enter my room for an item, without me having to move.

"As you know already, my chain is special and something I make from my chakra. However to know how to use a chain, you can use any normal chain." I said, while my chain returned with another chain in it's grasp.

"Here this is for you Naruto. I think you can start to learn how to use a chain with this." I said, while handing the chain over to Naruto, before I continued: "This chain was the first one I ever bought. Handed to me by my teacher Ibiki."

Naruto looked at the chain I handed him, like it was an ancient treasure. While I am not sure with him, I think he is happy about getting it.

"Are you saying you think I can learn this?" Naruto said, looking back a me with wide eyes.

"Of course, as you are an Uzumaki like me, you will be able to do incredible things in the future. And in no time, you will be stronger than me, and even become Hokage of Konoha." I said to him

While I am unsure if he knew any genjutsu, I swear there were stars in his eyes.

"You are the first person to believe in me like that! Thank you big sister!" Naruto screamed, before taking his new chain, and running out of the house, while grinning like a madman.

Oh, shit. I might just have screwed over Iruka. I didn't mean to throw a wrench into canon like that.

Oh well, what's done is done.

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*Time skip 2 weeks*

At the assigned time, I meet up with Yugao in front of the Ninja academy in Konoha. We were told to meet today in room 323 in about half an hour, but us from team 02 decided to meet up before hand.

While Yugao and I was talking, waiting for Itachi to arrive, Yugao suddenly looked into the sky. I asked her about it later, to know what se saw. According to her, a flock of crows were flying around in the sky, making several unnatural moves, before swooping down between Yugao an myself. When the landed one crow on top of another, they started to morph together into a human figure. Itachi was standing in front of Yugao with a smirk on his face, one hand in the air and spoke one word: "Hello".

As genjutsu of that level no longer work on me, from my point of view it looked a bit different. As soon as Yugao looked at the sky, I tried to look around to find Itachi. I had assumed he was the one behind it. I found him, hiding behind a fence about 10 meters behind us. He then proceeded to "sneak" from the fence to a position between us. Under the genjutsu he would be invisible, but for me Itachi was walking silently out in the open. The total confidence he had in his genjutsu was just so funny.

When he finally arrived between us, I just couldn't hold it back anymore. I had to bend over in a 90º angle and hold my stomach, but it wasn't enough. I burst out laughing at the same time as Itachi said: "Hello"

I think Itachi knew why I was laughing, but he ignored me. Yugao just looked like a big question mark.

"Lets just move on to the room" Itachi said, while I was trying to get my laughing under control, we started to move to the first part of the chunin exam.

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We entered into room 323. Just like with the chunin exam shown in canon, there were a few small traps setup inside the building. The traps were mostly that the room numbers were switched, or a low level genjutsu was used to make a door look like a wall, and so forth. Anyone who would fall for that level of tricks or genjutsu were not ready for this exam.

As we entered the room, that looked like a school room with space for about 200 people inside, all eyes were on us. We arrived about 15 minutes before the designated time, and the room was at about half capacity.

There were ninja from all 5 major villages here, all hoping to participate and get promoted to chunin. Konoha seemed to have most ninja present, and Kirigakure had the fewest. I made a quick scan of the room. And there didn't seem to be anyone I recognize from the anime here. I leaned into Yugao and whispered to her:

"Can you sense anyone here that could be dangerous? Or anyone to look out for?" I said

Yugao started to sense, and a few moment later she whispered back to me:

"I can sense a few people here that could be a problem. While I can't sense their specific power, there are at least 3 teams, that have large chakra levels. And there are especially 3 individuals in the room, that have a large chakra level and give me a dangerous feeling." Yugao said.

"When we have the time, point them out for me will you?" I asked her.

"Of course" Yugao answered back.

I nodded at Yugao, and thanked her for the information. Itachi had also overheard us, and nodded at us.

We then took a seat, and waited to the time of the start of the exam.

After 15 minutes, and several more ninja hopefuls entered the room. I think were close to about 150 people in this room. Suddenly there was a smoke blast, and several people entered the room. I assume these are going to be the examiners of the first test. There were about 15 people, and the all took a seat around the room, so they could have a view of the entire room.

After they all settled in, one person from the group got up, to the front of the room, and looked over the participants.

"Hmm, about 150 participants. When were done here that number will be down to at least half that." The figure said. He continued: "Welcome to the first stage of the chunin test. As this is a team test, before we can begin, we need you all to change seats. So that none from the same team is sitting beside each other."

At this we all got up, and shuffled around, to take new seats. A piece of paper was then handed out to each participant. After this was done the figure continued:

"As that is settled, we can officially start the test. Here are the rules for the first test. The time limit for the test will be 30 minutes. In these 30 minutes you have to find the answer to the 3 question on the piece of paper in front of you. However each team member will have 3 different question, and you only pass if you get all questions correct. When there is 10 minutes remaining of the exam, the final 10th question will be revealed. And let me tell you now, that you need to have answered all 9 questions before that time, to be able to solve the 10th question.

Around the room are your judges. If they judge that your entire team is caught cheating 5 times in total, your entire team is disqualified.

Any questions? To bad, your time starts now!" The figure shouted the last part, and started the timer.

Everyone scrambled to start answering questions.

While this test was not the same one I knew from the anime, it was still pretty close, and the purpose was the same. Test if we could gather information under pressure, and have the will to become a high ranking ninja. While I don't know what the 10th question is yet, I assume is gonna be similar to the anime version.

As such I took a look at my paper for the first time. 3 questions there, all about rather complicated math stuff. Or at least complicated math stuff for this world. I would put it at about high school math level in my previous world. As such I just need to concentrate a little to remember how to solve this. I know that most people wont be able to solve this problems, and have to acquire the information from someone else.

As I sit in my thoughts solving the last question on the paper, I notice a piece of chalk flying through the room, and hear:

"Team 22, disqualified".

It has not even been 5 minutes yet, and the first team is out. That was fast. I solve the last question, and start working on another problem.

Several more teams are disqualified while I think. Itachi should have no problem solving his information gathering, he can just use his sharingan to copy it from someone else. Yugao is another problem, while she is not dumb by any means, she is just more of a combat genius than a information gathering person. However we already discussed what to do, if a situation like this occoured.

Yugao lock eyes with me, and then Itachi. Itachi uses this opportunity to put Yugao into a genjutsu, and give her the information she needs to solve her paper. At this point Itachi has had plenty time to copy all the information to all questions. He just needs a moment to scan the information with his eyes. And even if they caught the genjutsu cast on Yugao, that just one strike, and were finished with all the questions now. So now we just have to wait for the 10th question.

While we wait, I notice some of the other methods they teams use to gather information. Some cast genjutsu on other participants. There was even one funny moment, when someone tried to cast genjutsu on me, and had yelled in shock when it didn't work. His team was then disqualified. Hehe, serves him right.

One of the others, used mirrors created from ice, to see other ninja's answers. Hmm looks like a ninja with ice release. Interesting. Someone made a small earth golem, to steal answers as well. There is no way, they didn't notice these attempts, but they must not have hit the limit of 5 yet.

After the 20 minutes have passed, it is finally time for the 10th question. At this point there is about 25 teams left, out of the original 50. I expect that will fall even further with this question.

"There are 10 minutes left. It is time for the 10th and final question" The instructor said. He continued: "But before that, know that the 10th question is different, and you have to make a choice now. If you choose to continue and attempt the 10th question and fail, you will forever be banned from attempting the chunin exam again. If one from your team drops out, the rest of the team drops out. If you quit now, you are allowed to attempt the exam again next year.

So I advice you, to be absolutely sure that you want to attempt the last question, as your future will depend on it".

At this last statement, there were several participants that started to look nervous.

"If you want to quit, now is the time and there is the door." the instructor said.

At this, there were a few people that choose the option to quit. The total number of teams were down to 20 now.

"Hmm, this seems like all that wanted to quit did so. As such we will now continue with the 10th question. Be warned if you don't have the same answer in your team, you will fail" the instructor said.

"The 10th question is: What is the sum of the answers to your 3 questions?" The instructor said.

It took a moment for us all, but eventually at the same time, everyone in the room yelled out:

"1001" everyone yelled.

"You all pass" the instructor said with a smile.

The instructor then launched into this whole prepare speech about the point of the exam, and why it was designed like it was. It was honestly pretty boring, as everyone here had already figure all that out.

Thankfully halfway though his speech, he was interrupted, as a ninja flew through the window and knocked him out.

A female ninja, with back hair and black eyes stood in front of us.

"Hmm more candidates than what I would have thought. No matter we will thin the heard down with the next stage." The female ninja said, before continuing: "Hey everyone, I am the examiner for the second test. Everyone follow me to the Forest of death". She said this with a creepy smile. I am pretty sure she is an Uchiha.

While we were stunned for a bit, we all followed the female Uchiha out of the same window she jumped in from.

As she jumped out of the window she yelled back at us all:

"Keep up, of I will disqualify you before the second test even starts".