Chapter 28: The Start of the Preliminaries
When they arrived at the facility's courtyard, they were surprised to see their jonin senseis.
Ino immediately went to Kurenai, and yelled, "Sensei!" as if she was sad. Then hugged her, and everyone could clearly see the perverted look on her face as she rubbed her face between the older woman's chest.
Her teammates let out an exasperated sigh, and also went to the Jonin, whose face made it obvious that even though she's annoyed by this, she just let it happen.
Team 10 greeted the green spandex-wearing man, and he shouted, "For you three to pass this early in the phase, your youthfulness is truly astounding! After this, we will be doing a one-thousand kilometer run throughout the village!"
"Yes, Gai-sensei!" Lee responded with a shout of his own.
"Again? Ugh! My body's been sore for almost a week now, y'know!?" Tenten complained to her teacher.
For Neji, he just accepted his fate and moved on… Albeit he could still feel the phantom pain of when he did 3000 squats.
Sitting under a tree was Itachi, and the 3 approached him.
He said, "How is the exam?"
Ren shrugged, and replied, "It's easy, incredibly so. I don't even know why these two struggled so much."
Azumi crossed her arm, and said, "Well, not all of us are like you, mister prodigy."
Sasuke sighed, "Can you stop it?"
She just looked away, "Hmph."
Itachi smiled, "In any case, I'm just glad all of you are fine. For now, you three go and rest. The next phase is not going to commence until a few days from now, unless all of the teams inside have either passed or died."
Suddenly, Sasuke remembered something.
"Aniki, look!" He activated his sharingan, and continued, "I've awakened them!"
Seeing that, the older Uchiha felt proud and happy for his younger brother. Proud because he knew that Sasuke had faced something traumatic inside the underground facility and had survived it. And happy because his brother didn't have to watch someone close to him die or had to kill someone just so that he could awaken the eyes of his clan.
The sharingan causes someone to have something close to photographic memory, meaning that someone has to endure the mental anguish of the time they awakened their sharingan every single day of their life, until somewhere along the line, they forget about it.
He, too, at some point, couldn't forget about the time his entire team got killed by bandits when he was a genin. He still remembers it but not to the point that it interferes with his day-to-day life.
In a way, the eyes of his clan are cursed. It gives great power but in return, the countless trauma that every Uchiha experiences once their sharingan has awakened could lead them to a bad path in life. That's why, over the years, there have been many Uchiha that have gone rogue.
Uchiha Madara is a great example of that.
However, they've been rectifying this by bringing an Uchiha to a psychiatrist after they become a chunin. So that they could see whether they have a mental problem or not.
He just hopes his brother doesn't have any of those.
Itachi smiled at Sasuke, and ruffled his hair.
"That's good. Father and I will train you how to use your eyes. However, after the exam, whether you pass it or not, you cannot leave the village for a mission. An untrained Uchiha with an awakened sharingan is a target for many people, do you understand?" He said to his younger brother, with a bit of strictness in his voice.
Seeing this, the younger Uchiha nodded, and said, "Don't worry, aniki. Besides, I have so much money right now, I won't have to do missions for a while."
"Alright, as long as you know. Anyway, I have a few things to give you guys. Wait a second…" He pulled 3 small scrolls from his vest's pocket, and gave them 1 each, "These are your rations. I don't know if you three packed something to eat earlier when I told you to prepare but just in case you don't have any food, you can eat what's inside the scrolls."
They looked at the scroll.
Azumi pocketed it, Sasuke put it in his pouch, and Ren merely glanced at it lazily, then put it inside his pocket.
From a distance, Hinata watched team 7 out of curiosity. They do not exactly have that "teamwork" everyone would see in a team. It's like a jumbled team, mixed up with the best of the current generation.
Azumi is the number 1 kunoichi of the year, while Ren is the rookie of the year. And Sasuke is just second to the red-head. It's also a known fact that Azumi has hated Ren for many years, to the point that she'd try to bully him in the academy. Of course, Ren never really fought back.
But in spars, he was a beast. While Sasuke was badly beaten a few times by Ren, Azumi, every day, was humiliated every time that they spar. One time, she even kneeled in front of the red-head. They didn't know why but when the blond girl came back, she said that Ren did something to her. He caused her to feel terror while staring at him.
That day, Hinata realized how strong Asahi Ren was. Now, he's even stronger. To the point that it's unfair.
She took on a calculative expression. With the strongest of their generation and the daughter of the Hokage on her side, taking the seat of the clan head would be easy for her.
She just needs time before her uncle rebels.
Rock Lee is a hard working person, not very talented, but a hard worker nonetheless. Jeers and insults had been thrown his way but he knew to never give up, if he wanted to reach his dream.
His dream of becoming the greatest taijutsu master of all time. It used to be the greatest shinobi but that title should be reserved for someone else. Someone way more talented and hardworking than him.
Someone like Asahi Ren.
He's never seen so much talent oozing from someone else, especially someone his age. So strong yet so young, but he has the eyes of an experienced warrior. A warrior that has come face to face with death, and survived the encounter.
A truly fearsome person.
He would never want to face him in a battle. Only when he has no choice, will he fight him.
(A Day Later)
They slept on the courtyard using their easy-to-make tents, and sprayed a bottle of insect repellant around them. It wasn't pleasant but they managed to get a nice night of sleep.
Anyway, numerous teams had come out of the underground facility by then, most of them tired and full of wounds. And soon enough, there were now 30 people hanging around them.
Most of them didn't have a complete team, especially teams from other villages. Strangely, however, the Konoha genin teams, along with Kumo, were still unharmed, albeit with a bit of scratches here and there.
In the case of Kumo, they came to the village with 3 teams of genins, now they only have 1. And it's the team that Yugito leads, which means that this team is quite special to their village. But even then, they still have 3 genins left.
Takigure only came with 1 genin team, and now they only have 2 genins.
One of them is glaring at their teammate, Fuu.
Ren almost smirked.
Konoha takes up the majority of the remaining genins, having 15 of them.
Fortunately for Suna, they still have a team left, which is Gaara's team.
From hundreds of genins, to… this.
In a way, this chunin exam is something Konoha has devised to kill off some of the future shinobi of other villages in a legal way. Except for Konoha's genin team, everyone else got fucked right in the ass.
Suddenly, everyone's attention was attracted by a bomb of smoke that appeared near the entrance of the facility.
As it faded, they saw Kakashi standing straight with his usual eye-smile.
Then he said, "Congratulations to everyone that has passed the second phase. And my, my, I see a lot of rookies here. This is the first time I've seen something like this."
Almost everyone not from Konoha cursed him in their thoughts.
"Anyhow, follow me to the third phase of the exam. The Hokage and the proctor are already there, so let's get going."
He disappeared using shun-shin, which surprised them.
Seeing this, the genins and their jonin-sensei tried their best to keep up with the one-eyed jonin.
(Konoha Gym)
The gym is a large area where spars between genins up to jonins happens most of the time. Sometimes it's used for other stuff, like a celebration or for festivals.
There were platforms attached to the upper walls of the gym, with protective railings and stairs fixed to them. By the northern part of the gym, there's a statue of hands doing the Ram hand-seals.
The Hokage stood on one of the platforms, and in the middle of the gym was the proctor.
Kakashi arrived on the ground, and soon, one by one, the others appeared as well.
They looked around for a bit before Minato said, "I see that a lot of you have passed phase two of the chunin exams. Congratulations! Now, all of you are here to participate in a one-on-one match between each other. This monitor," he pointed at the large screen behind the statue, "will determine who you will fight. The winner will advance to the semi-finals. Any questions?" They didn't answer, "Alright, now I'll let the proctor take it from here."
The proctor, a sickly, pale man with brown hair and black eyes, with dark markings under it. He wore the standard konoha shinobi outfit complete with a forehead that he wore as a bandana.
He coughed for a bit before he started.
"Good morning to you all. I apologize if I look a bit messy today, I was in a rush earlier. I am Hayate Gekko, by the way. Anyway, I don't really have anything left to explain since Hokage-sama practically said it all," in the distance, Minato smiled sheepishly, "So I'll just start the preliminaries immediately."
He took out a remote with a big red button on it, and pressed it.
The monitor started to roll different names on the screen, sounding something like a lottery. Then, it stopped.
Hayate turned to look at it and turned his head to them, saying, "Haruno Sakura and Sabaku Gaara, please step up."
And everyone could see the pink-haired genin's face immediately drop.
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Miko_Sayaki
Miko_Sayaki RIP Sakura, lol.
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