Chapter 28 - Genin Exam

With all of Team 9 together, Guy explained how their final exam would work. Basically they would go through a couple tests to see what they were best at; at least that is how he explained it.

Guy took his three little students and had them start with ninjutsu. He told them to use their strongest ninjutsu starting with Lee. Lee obviously couldn't use ninjutsu or genjutsu, but that didn't stop him from trying. Even though he failed miserably and didn't accomplish anything, Guy noticed the sweat and exhaustion on Lee's body from trying to use chakra with all his ability.

Guy told Lee to stop and moved on to Ino. Ino's best ninjutsu were her clan's secret techniques which would allow her to take over another person's mind. She used it on Lee and struggled for a while with his will to take over his body. It also helped her case that Lee barely had any control over chakra, so she eventually came out on top. She tried to take over Chojusen's mind, but even when he was restricted, his will and energy control put him leagues ahead of her, so she lost that battle.

Because she lost the battle of will, her consciousness entered a weakened state for a couple minutes and she had to give up on continuing the test. Guy moved on to Chojusen. The man in question chose to use his flame bullet technique while suppressed to B Rank. At that level, Chojusen blew a ten meter wide ball of fire from his mouth; when it collided with some trees off in the distance, it exploded and made everything within a couple dozen meters catch on fire.

Guy was actually testing his students resolve to continue with all their power, but upon realizing that Chojusen could do this much damage even outside his Sage Mode, he refrained from asking Chojusen to show more of his strength.

Guy then moved on to genjutsu. Lee "failed" this test just as badly as the ninjutsu test and Ino managed to catch Guy in a genjutsu for half a second. Chojusen however, was on another level. He used his Illusion Skill to catch Guy in a genjutsu for over three seconds; and that was only when he suppressed himself to A Rank.

(A/N: I forgot to add the Illusion Skill back in Chapter 25, so by the time you read this it will be up there. Oh and the Auxiliary Chapter is updated~)

The last test was for taijutsu; something Lee could actually do. Lee first took off all his weights and began to bombard Guy with advanced CQC (Close Quarters Combat). Even Guy, a taijutsu specialist, couldn't mess around too much when facing Lee. He fought Lee for over half an hour, constantly hitting him wherever he detected flaws in his attacks, but Lee never gave up.

Guy was amazed that Lee had the motivation to keep going even after being beaten for so long, but he had to move on to Ino and Chojusen to wrap up the test, so he told Lee to stand down. Ino wasn't nearly as good at taijutsu as Lee, but she was better than most her age and was around the level of a Mid Genin. She didn't have Lee's undying will to fight, so she collapsed from exhaustion after twenty minutes of fighting.

Chojusen picked Ino up to move her outside of the Training Grounds so that he could have his taijutsu match with Guy. But while he was moving Ino, he discreetly used his Yang Rebirth Skill to recover all of her stamina in an instant. It worked so well that she actually woke up to see Chojusen giving her a princess carry; waking up to this scene made her blush.

When Chojusen was going to put her down on the grass to recover, Ino thanked him for carrying her and he left to go fight Guy. Chojusen asked Guy if he could use his staff and Guy said it was fine. Chojusen made his way to where he left Chokogo and when he was behind her, away from everyone else's view, he took out his staff from his personal dimension.

Chojusen walked back to where Guy was. With his staff on hand, he began the hardest fight so far in his life. Chojusen was limited to Guy's power with his limiter, but he took it upon himself to suppress his already limited strength to Lee's level for this fight. He would have a hard time explaining why he was just as strong as the Hidden Leaf's No.1 Taijutsu Master, if he didn't do this.

With his strength suppressed, Guy naturally also suppressed his strength; if he didn't suppress his strength to fight Ino and Lee, they would literally be meat paste scattered across the battlefield right now.

Chojusen used his staff to fight aggressively, but every attack he made was either blocked or deflected by Guy. The fight looked less like a fight and more like a dance with Chojusen being in the lead position.

Guy wasn't exactly chilling while he fought with Chojusen as he was stressed to pull out some of his fanciest Taijutsu tricks to combat Chojusen's staff arts. Slowly, Guy started to increase the amount of power behind his punches to try and end this test; he had already determined that Chojusen was more than capable with regards to taijutsu.

However, he was distraught to find that while he was increasing his power, Chojusen was changing the style of his staff arts. The more powerful Guy made his punches, the less aggressive Chojusen's staff art became. As Chojusen's fighting style switched from hard to soft, Guy found it hard to even land a hit.

Even when he returned back to his full power and full speed, he could only barely touch to clothes on Chojusen when facing his staff. He didn't want to open a Hidden Gate just to end the test with someone who technically wasn't even a Genin so he called off the fight.

Guy and Chojusen stopped their fight to see Ino and Lee look at them slack jawed and wide eyed. They couldn't believe that Chojusen was at that level of skill with his staff. It was true that he trained with them, and sometimes when they trained their taijutsu he would use his staff, but never had they seen him be so graceful with his staff.

Guy gathered all of his students and said "Congratulations all of you are now Genin."

Lee was ecstatic, but at the same time he wondered how he passed. He asked "Wait really? But I didn't even do anything for the first two tests… How did I pass?"

Guy didn't even bat an eye, he said "Young man! The way of the ninja is not entire based on how good you are at these separate skills, but how you use them! You never gave up on trying something that was impossible for you to achieve and that's the kind of spirit a ninja should have. Just based on that alone I would pass you in a heartbeat, but your taijutsu is also a main contributor to why you passed."

Hearing this, Chojusen, Ino, and Lee understood more or less and went on to start celebrating. However, Guy said "Now that you are officially ninja, we start taking missions tomorrow. So we will meet in the Hokage Tower at seven AM sharp! Understood?"

Simultaneously, the three of them said "Yes sir!"

"Well that is all that I have for you today. Ino you are free to go home, but I want Lee and Chojusen to stay behind for a bit. I have something to tell you."

Ino thought it was weird that she was the only one left out, but she didn't mind. She said goodbye to Lee and Chojusen and ran home to tell her parents that she succeeded in becoming a Genin.

Guy waited for Ino to leave to start speaking. He said "You two are the most talented kids I've ever met with regards to Taijutsu. I, being a taijutsu expert myself, have several high level skills that I can pass to you guys since you are compatible. However, there is one that is particularly important. It is a skill that is incredibly powerful, but takes a tremendous toll on you body."

"If you guys want to learn this skill it will be incredibly hard, possibly even impossible. But out of all the younger generation, I think you two are the only ones that can possibly achieve it."

Chojusen was a bit curious as Guy was hyping this skill so much. He said "Oh? What does the skill do for it to be so powerful?"

"Well, it's not really a fighting style or move like other taijutsu skills. The technique I am talking about isn't even technically a technique. It's called the Eight Hidden Gates which are eight chakra points in your body that act as limiter to your physical strength. To use the technique, you have to open these gates which will exponentially increase your physical prowess."

"Ok, so what do we have to do to attempt this technique?"

"Well, you need to have a strong body; the stronger the better. The stronger your body becomes, the less effects your body will take from the backlash of using the technique."

"How many gates do you think we could open with the level of taijutsu we showed today?"

"You and Lee both had around the same level of power, so perhaps you might be able to open the first gate for a couple seconds before having to stop, without causing serious damage to your body."

"So… are you going to tell us where the chakra points are in our body, or do we have to do something else?"

"Eager to learn, I see. Well the Chakra points are located in..."

Guy then explained to Chojusen where all the chakra points were and how to open them. Chojusen was very intrigued by this, so when he got home he began experimented to see how far he could go.