Chunin Exams Part 1

Team seven was now waiting for Kakashi to show up while they were on training ground number seven. In the past two weeks, they have worked hard to complete their missions, even though they were mostly chores like painting fences and houses, baby sitting, catching Tora every now and then, buying groceries for the elderly and so on. The weight seals had made it more difficult for them to accomplish things than it would normally, but right now, the seals were at level two, meaning that they were twice stronger and faster than normal if they deactivated their seals.

After one hour of waiting, Kakashi finally arrived in front of them with a shunshin.

"Yo. Good morning. Sorry for being late. I was having a chat with Hokage-sama and Jounin sensei from other teams. Today, the teams that want to participate in the chunin exams need to fill out their applications. I have recommended you guys to take the exam, but the final decision will be yours. There are four of you in this team and normally only three genin per team should be allowed to take the exam, so one of you will need to give up." Kakashi said.

The other from team seven all looked at each other's faces as none wanted to give up. Specially Naruto and Sasuke. Sakura felt a bit insecure since she was the weakest one on the team. She was about to raise her hand and give up, but Hiroki beat her to it.

"I give up on the spot. You can give it to them." Hiroki said.

"What? No, Hiroki, you can't give up." Naruto said.

"Look guys. I really don't care about the ranks of being a genin, chunin, Jounin or whatever. It's something superficial if you ask me, so I'll give my spot willingly so you guys don't have to worry about it." Hiroki said as he shook everyone's worries off. He then looked at Sakura and saw that she was averting his gaze.

"Sakura, be more confident in yourself. You have made a lot of progress since the beginning, so keep your chin up."

"Well then, since that is that, I'll hand the applications to the three of you. You have one week to get ready for this. Sign this application and get it to room 301 in the academy. Once you enter that room, the exam would have already started. You should go now and prepare. Team duties are going to be held off until you return from the exams." Kakashi said as he urged them to leave.

Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura looked at Hiroki as they were reluctant about him not participating , but he only smiled back.

"Naruto, here. I got this for you since we've been training kenjutsu. It should help you in this exam." Hiroki said as he unsealed a jet black ninjato and handed it to the blonde.

Naruto had stars in his eyes as he saw the ninjato. He grabbed it and thanked Hiroki for the present as he strapped it tightly to his right shoulder. The three then left as they went towards the academy. Only Kakashi and Hiroki stayed behind.

"Well, I was expecting that and so was the Hokage. Here." Kakashi said as he handed an application to Hiroki.

Hiroki took it and read it.

"Why?" He asked as he looked at Kakashi.

"Hokage-sama said that the limit of a chunin exam is a team of three. Normally, if a team was composed of two people, they would team up with another person to make a whole three man team, but if there isn't anyone to take the exam with them, then the person can take the exam by themselves. Of course, this means it is much harder for the other person so it is uncommon to see something like this happening. People would prefer to wait six months for another exam instead of taking the risk. So this is up to you. You can take the exam by yourself or wait for another six months and see if there are other members willing to take it with you." Kakashi explained.

Hiroki only smirked at him and didn't say anything.

"I was expecting you to take the exam either way. You can help each other out, but know that you are alone in this and you should be extra careful." Kakashi said as he shunshined.

'Never thought this would happen, but whatever. I really don't care about ranks, but I don't have the liberty I used to have in the other timeline so it won't hurt if I become a chunin now.' Hiroki thought as he went toward the direction that Naruto had gone to.

As he jogged, he remembered that the blonde would meet up with Gaara thanks to the little fuss created between Kankuro and Konohamaru. He then sped up to get there in time. He knew nothing would have happened, but he wanted to see the sand siblings and Gaara as well. He knew what the kid had gone through in his childhood and he knew that it had messed up his mental health. If there is a way to help, he would help regardless if he was from another hidden village.

———

"Hey, let the kid go." Naruto said as he saw Kankuro holding Konohamaru by his collar and lifting him up into the air. Sakura was behind Naruto and she yelled at Kankuro as well.

"Why are you picking on the little guy?"

"Huh? Why should I let him go? He bumped into me." Kankuro said as he had a smirk on his face. There was a blonde girl behind him as well and she only smirked at the situation.

Out of nowhere, a blur flashed in front of Kankuro and ran into him, sending him a good distance away as he skidded on the ground.

"Damn it. Who did that?" Kankuro asked in pain as he got up with some difficulty from the ground. He grit his teeth since the pain wasn't anything to scoff at.

"I bumped into you. You're not going to let me go now, are you?" Hiroki asked while putting Konohamaru down.

"Stay close to Naruto." Hiroki said as he looked at Konohamaru and his friends.

"Thank you, Hiroki-sama." Konohamaru said as a snot started falling from his nose and tears came out.

"I told you many times before, Just Hiroki is fine. Now go." Hiroki said as he pushed them towards Naruto.

"Damn you kid. I'm going to hurt you really bad." Kankuro said as he put in front of him what was kept behind him and enveloped in bandages.

"Kankuro, are you going to use crow in this?" The girl behind him asked in surprise.

"Your puppet won't be of much help. And where exactly do you think you are? This isn't Sunagakure. Think twice before looking for trouble. Specially picking on the grandson of the Hokage." Hiroki said as he looked serisouly at Kankuro. Kankuro on the other hand didn't move once Hiroki said those words. His only thoughts were: "how did he know?"

"And you, was it fun watching it and seeing him pick on a defenseless kid?" Hiroki asked as he looked at the blonde girl, who had a large fan on her back, that was next to Kankuro. She didn't have any words to say and only grit her teeth.

"Kankuro, Temari, stop this. You two are an embarrassment to our village. I'll kill you if you keep up with this." Another voice rang out as it leaked killing intent. It was a short boy with a large gourd strapped to his back. He was upside down a tree branch above Hiroki and the others.

"We're sorry Gaara." Kankuro and Temari said.

"You, what's your name?" Gaara asked as he looked at Hiroki as he jumped down and stood next to his siblings.

"What's your name?" Hiroki asked back without answering.

"I'm Gaara of the sand. You better watch out in the exam." Gaara said as he looked at Hiroki and then at the other branch of the tree that he was upside down on and moved to his siblings.

"I'm Hiroki. I say the same to you three. Don't think this will be easy for you." Hiroki said as he looked at their receding backs. He then turned towards Naruto, Sakura and the kids and smiled.

"There now. Everything is fine. You guys need to pay more attention to your surroundings. I know it was an accident, but as you saw, there are a lot of people who pick fights for no reason whatsoever." Hiroki said to the three children.

"We'll pay more attention, Hiroki-sama." The three said in unison.

"I told you already. It's just Hiroki."

"Thanks for helping, Hiroki. I was about to do something before you came in." Naruto said.

"Hey, you don't need to worry. Those guys aren't anything special. You can take care of them. I just took care of the hassle beforehand." Hiroki said to Naruto.

"Yeah. I'll keep that in mind." Naruto said as he smiled.

"I'm sorry for you not participating in the exam."

"Who said I'm not participating?" Hiroki said as he took out his application.

"What? But you gave up on the spot on the team."

"Yeah, I did. Kakashi said that I could take the exam by myself, but it would be many times harder since I'm all alone. There aren't any that would choose to take it alone, but I'm up for it." Hiroki said as he smiled.

"That's awesome. We can help each other out if there's a chance." Naruto said.

"Yeah. I'm sure there will be a chance to work together. I'll be part of the team and not part of it at the same time. Let's work together."

He then looked at the tree behind them and told Sasuke to come out.

"You've watched the show for long enough, Sasuke. How about coming down?"

Sasuke then jumped down from the tree and went next to them.

"Those guys were strong. They're here for the chunin exams. We better prepare to face them." Sasuke said. This was different from the original since he didn't have the air of total confidence on himself. It was all thanks to Hiroki taking him down a leg or two in the academy and their spars while training with Kakashi.

"We'll do fine against them. We've been working hard for this moment. We're all getting promoted when this ends." Hiroki said, passing some confidence to his teammates. He then invited them to train together in the training field for the remaining days starting tomorrow and they all agreed. The team then started to leave each to their own destination, but Hiroki stayed behind.

"Hey, you guys go ahead. I have something to do."

"Alright then. We'll see you tomorrow." Sakura said as she waved at Hiroki.

Naruto waved at him as well, but didn't say anything. As for Sasuke, he just walked home.

Hiroki stood in place and then felt his teammates leaving the area. He then turned towards a tall tree and looked at three people standing on the same branch.

"Why don't you guys introduce yourselves? You've been watching everything and talking by yourselves over there. I also heard you calling us from Konoha weaklings. What's up with that?" Hiroki asked.

The three standing on the tree were surprised since they thought that no one had seen them. They were wrong to think that. Not only did Hiroki see them, he also heard them talking.

"Huh? We have a cocky brat over here. Shut him up, Zaku." The guy in the middle, who had some bandages covering his face said.

The other guy next to him, jumped down and sped towards Hiroki as he motioned his arms in front of Hiroki's face.

"Zankuuha!!!" Zaku yelled as his arms blasted air pressure towards Hiroki's face.

*Boooom~*

The area around them was covered by dust as the strong air pressure lifted it up. Zaku was smirking and laughing lightly thinking that Hiroki was incapacitated and badly injured.

After the dust cleared, he and his other two teammates only stared with wide eyes as they saw Hiroki standing on the same spot and perfectly fine.

"Wow. That was something. Too bad it's useless against me. You have quite a technique, but imagine the backlash of those tubes were clogged." Hiroki said the last part with his voice laced in killing intent, making Zaku quickly leap backwards as he started trembling.

"What? You are so tough coming here and attacking me. Why did you jump back? Isn't it time for me to attack you once?" Hiroki asked seriously as he started running towards Zaku. Zaku got ready to run away from Hiroki, but stopped as he heard some laughter.

"Hahahaha. Oh boy, that was fun." Hiroki said as he cleaned some tears from his eyes for laughing.

"You three better watch out. Don't even think you ate anything special. You won't even be able to touch my team, much less me." Hiroki said seriously as he disappeared from his spot. Zaku, and the other two saw this and were surprised. They didn't see the speed Hiroki had moved in.

"This is what I'm talking about. You're not worth my time." Hiroki said behind the two that were still up the tree branch. The two turned back, but Hiroki was already back to his original spot.

"Let's meet up in the exam. Take care you three." He said as he waved at them and left.

'I feel bad for them. They're being used by Orochimaru, but have no idea about it. If they had good personality, I might have tried helping them out.' Hiroki thought as he walked back home. As he walked back while thinking of many things that would happen in the coming month, he noticed a shinobi from Amegakure behind him.

"You should give up on the chunin exam. What could a brat like you do all by yourself instead of being on a team. Your chances of advancing was minuscule, but now it zero." The Amegakure shinobi said.

"Huh? That won't work on me, Iruka-sensei." Hiroki said as he laughed.

"What? How did you know?" The Amegakure shinobi asked before turning back into Iruka.

"Well, first thing is that only Kakashi and Hokage-sama knew of me taking the exam alone and the second thing is that I read your chakra signature and noticed you once you were in a certain distance from me." Hiroki explained.

*sigh*

"I guess Kakashi was right. I've been worrying too much. I thought that you guys weren't ready yet to take the chunin exams, but all of you rookies are ready. I'm proud to have been your academy sensei. Please take care of yourselves. The chunin exams are not easy." Iruka said.

"I'll be sure to be careful, Iruka-sensei."

"Good. Good luck to you guys then. Let's celebrate after the exams are over, Hiroki." Iruka said as he shunshined away.

Not so distant away, Kakashi was on the roof, atop of a building. Iruka then appeared next to him.

"So, how was it?" Kakashi asked.

"They are ready. I was worried for nothing. The rookies have made a lot of progress and shouldn't find any troubles in this exam." Iruka said.

"You should have had more confidence on them. They aren't academy students anymore and are try shinobi." Kakashi said and Iruka kept quiet.

———

One week later, team seven arrived at the academy together one hour before the proposed time. They were chatting amongst themselves as they walked inside the academy.

When they walked up to the second floor, they heard a commotion. They saw two genin standing in front of a room as they didn't let anyone go inside. A boy wearing a green one piece tried going in, but was punched. A girl then tried again and was punched back.

"Why are you being so mean?" The girl asked.

"Being mean? We are being very good to you. This is nothing compared to what will happen in the real chunin exams. With chunin it's always life or death. Chunin are qualified to lead missions. The lives of your squad members are in your hands, so you better be tough enough to take the heat. Delicate little girls don't belong here." One of them said.

The other one the struck as the iron was hot.

"We are thinning out the herd. You won't pass anyways, so go home and play with your dolls."

"Really nice speech. Now both of you stop playing around." Sasuke said as he moved forward along with Naruto and Sakura.

"And while you're at it. Reverse the genjutsu. We can see through your illusions. We are going to the third floor."

"What does he mean? We are on the third floor." A few of the genin around them asked one another.

"Well, well. So you noticed the genjutsu, huh?" One of the two asked.

"Aren't you the smart one? So you noticed an illusion. Now let's see you deal with this." The other said as he spun quickly, trying to hit Sasuke with a kick, but before he could even take a step forwards, Hiroki appeared in front of him as he held the guys leg and pushed him back, making him fall down on his butt.

"Aren't you guys old enough to be playing tricks like this? I know you're thinning out the ones that can't even differentiate a low level genjutsu like this, but trying to fight some genin, tsk tsk, shame on you. Shouldn't you two be doing gate guarding duty Izumo, Kotetsu?" Hiroki asked the two.

The two that were in front of the door blocking everyone, were surprised seeing someone seeing through their henge and quickly left the scene.

When Hiroki turned around, he saw Sakura rejecting Lee's love confession and he could only laugh at how overdramatic the taijutsu user was being.

"Hey, what are your names?" A boy with long hair asked as he walked in front of Sasuke.

"It's common courtesy to tell your name first before asking someone their name." Sasuke replied.

"You two are rookies right? How old are you?" The guy asked again.

"We are not obliged to tell." Sasuke said as he turned his back and walked back to Hiroki and the others.

"Hey, Sasuke, Naruto, Hiroki. Let's go." Sakura said with a smile as she started walking over to the next case of stairs going to the third floor. As they were going up, the two chunin that are mostly on gate guarding duty, were looking at the genin from behind the door.

"So those are the bunch of misfits that Kakashi and Gai have been going on about. I guess that they have passed their first test." Izumo said.

"Specially Hiroki. He even figured us out even with our henge. It looks like the exams are going to be fun this year." Kotetsu said.

"Yeah, for us. But maybe not for them." Izumo said.