Naruto kept his gaze locked onto the red-haired boy.
He tried his best not to look away.
His simple, brown clothes weren't very special, but there was something ominous about the weird, peanut-shaped cocoon on his back. Of course, comparing it to a peanut wasn't really doing justice to the object.
There's some sort of pressure around this guy…what is it? Naruto thought as he grimaced slightly.
[Ding!]
[Warning: Bloodlust Detected!]
That's what it was. Bloodlust. Was it some kind of ability or a technique to be honed, and if so, how does someone learn it? Or was the ability innate, something born out of the person themselves?
The boy continued. "To think you're out here fooling around with little children, it seems to me that you've forgotten the reason we are here."
Kankuro tightened his fists, his face scrunching up in frustration. "They started it first, Gaara! The kid, he—"
Gaara tilted his head slightly. "One more word and you're dead."
The atmosphere suddenly got several degrees hotter as Gaara issued his threat. Naruto wasn't sure whether the Suna Genin was serious or not. But with one glance at the intensity of sweat on Kankuro's face, it was safe to assume that he was.
"I-I apologize, Gaara! It was my mistake entirely," Kankuro jabbered, his eyes cast downwards.
Gaara merely nodded, before spinning down from his position to the side of Kankuro. The sand preventing the taller Genin's movement disappeared into the earth below as Kankuro let out a relieved sigh.
"And who are you?" Gaara asked, looking somewhere behind Naruto.
Naruto swiveled his head to match Gaara's line of sight, only to meet the familiar face of the sole Uchiha in Konoha.
"It's only polite to introduce yourself before asking someone else. Or do they not learn that in Suna?" Sasuke asked, smirking as he walked towards a spot beside Naruto.
Gaara showed no reaction. "I'm Gaara of the Desert, these are my siblings, Kankuro and Temari. Who are you?"
Wait…he threatened to kill his own brother? Naruto realized, eyes widening with horror. Just what kind of boy is he?
"I'm Sasuke Uchiha, and these are my teammates, Naruto and Sakura."
The Suna shinobi didn't show any sign of recognition.
"Why are there Suna shinobi in Konoha land? You are our allies, but you simply can't cross borders like that, can you?" Sakura asked strictly, crossing her arms together.
"Well, you aren't the brightest of the bunch, are you?" Temari badgered, putting up an ID of sorts to the group. "Were you not informed of what's happening in your own village?"
Sasuke and Sakura merely looked on, confused. But Naruto wouldn't let his village lose face in front of another, foreign one.
"Of course we know!" Naruto mentioned loudly, chuckling. "It's the Chuunin Exams, and you guys have come to compete in it."
Kankuro nodded, before narrowing his eyes suspiciously, which looked odd with the paint over his face. "Then how come your teammates were so surprised at our presence?"
"It's to be expected—you guys were very early. Plus, you don't exactly look like shinobi…" Naruto chastised, clearly alluding to Kankuro's strange attire.
Sasuke failed to hide his laugh.
Kankuro bristled angrily, before wilting at the sound of Gaara's snort.
"You, what's your name? Your full name?" Gaara asked, ignoring the jab towards his brother.
"Naruto Uzumaki, at your service," Naruto said, digging his hands into his pockets.
Swish!
Naruto's body moved on his own as a tendril of sand moved towards him at frightening speeds, flying through the air like an arrow itself.
He panted as he looked to his right, where a conjured spear of sand was only inches away from piercing into where his face once was, floating temporality before falling to the ground uselessly.
What the hell is wrong with this guy?
"Huh, you dodged," Gaara said, sounding almost surprised. "Now it will be even more satisfying to kill you in the exams, Naruto Uzumaki. Kankuro, Temari. Let's leave."
Without a second of doubt, the more than eccentric trio left the premise.
Sasuke grinned. The exams are certainly going to be interesting.
Sakura stood frozen, stunned by the meeting. If this is how all the other Genin are, how in the world will I survive?
Konohamaru simply looked at his boss with awe. "Boss, you're too cool!"
Naruto couldn't even smile at the praise.
He had known Gaara was different the second he met him, having experienced first hand the pressure of his bloodlust. It wasn't anything compared to the replica of the First Hokage he was forced to fight, but it was higher than Zabuza's before he died.
And how did a child similar to Naruto's own age have such an immense pressure?
The answer was with his observe.
He had kept the notification to the side, making sure to remember to accept once the interaction with Gaara was over.
[Would Player like a partial observation?]
[Yes/No]
Yes.
Name: Gaara
Title: "The One-Tailed Jinchuuriki"
Occupation: Genin of Sunagakure
Level: ?
HP: 100/100
MP: 100/100
Chakra: ?
STR: ?
VIT: ?
DEX: ?
INT: ?
WIS: ?
LUK: ?
He was a Jinchuuriki just like Naruto himself. But unlike Naruto, he wasn't kind, welcoming, or in any way merciful.
Naruto shuddered. The Chuunin Exams are gonna be tough, all right.
[—]
"Yo."
Naruto looked up as Kakashi issued a greeting. On top of one of the pillars on the bridge, stood the silver-haired sensei. He slowly began climbing down, using the chakra technique that the three were well accustomed to by now.
Naruto smirked. If he had seen that a few months ago, he would've been shocked out of his mind. It was funny how much things changed in such a short amount of time.
In fact, if he never got his system—the Genin shook his head. There was no point in thinking about useless 'ifs' and other make-believe circumstances. The fact was he got the system, and he was stronger because of it.
"Well, it was pretty obvious by now. But you're in the Chuunin Exams. Congratulations," Kakashi said without a trace of enthusiasm, rubbing the back of his head.
He gave the three of them each a piece of paper. "These are your applications."
Naruto looked at his own application with interest.
Chuunin Exam Application
Name: Naruto Uzumaki
Sensei: Kakashi Hatake
This application proves that you are hereby nominated for entering the Chuunin Exams after your confirmation after the successful completion of a B-rank mission assigned to your team.
Naruto looked at his sensei with confusion. "Why does it say the word confirmation? Shouldn't we already be in the exam?"
"You were merely nominated for the exam. If you don't want to enter, you don't need to show up. If you want to, sign the paper and turn it in tomorrow at Room 301 tomorrow."
Naruto sneaked a glance at Sakura. He couldn't put it past her or blame her if she tried to skip the exam. The look of conflict on her face was transparent enough.
Maybe some motivation would do.
"Don't worry sensei! All of us will be there tomorrow. You'll have three new Chuunins on your team to keep you safe," Naruto said humorously.
Sakura's head raised at the mention of "all".
"I'm sorry, Naruto, to burst your bubble. But I don't see any of you becoming Chuunin," Kakashi deadpanned, jumping onto the flat surface of the bridge.
"Eh?" Naruto asked, baffled at his sensei's easy admittance.
Kakashi raised a hand to block Sakura' and Sasuke's questions. "At a maximum, only one or two shinobi become Chuunin each year, and that was before this whole 'International' business started. The other villages wouldn't send any regular shinobi to represent them—they are going to send the best of the best of their Genin. There's a lot more competition this time around, with a variety of techniques you've never seen before. You can overestimate yourself if you want, but underestimating your opponent is even more dangerous."
Sasuke hummed slightly in agreement.
"Some villages are making legendary shinobi become Jonin just to teach some Genin for the exams. Rumors say…well, you'll see once you start the exams. That's all for now."
Naruto yelled before the Jonin could leave. "Wait, sensei!"
"Hmm?"
"What do you need us to do to become Chuunin?" Naruto asked desperately, eager for any kind of knowledge to increase his chances.
Kakashi was right. With the number of Genin attempting the exam, there was bound to be more people like Gaara out there. Hell, even Kurotsuchi was a monster! Rookie Genin were fighting against people who had a year more of experience.
"The only thing you need to do is improve tremendously, and I mean at a very fast rate."
Ha…
Hahahaha….
"Heh."
Naruto couldn't stop the chuckle from escaping his mouth. Kakashi and the rest of Team Seven looked at him amusedly.
Improve? At a fast rate?
If there was one thing Naruto could do quickly, it was improving.
[—]
Naruto looked at his stats idly as he stood in front of the door of Room 301.
Name: Naruto Uzumaki
Title: "Stormbringer"
Occupation: Genin of Konoha
Level: LV10
HP: 100/100
MP: 100/100
Chakra: 2000/2000
STR: 10
VIT: 12
DEX: 9
INT: 6
WIS: 4
LUK: 2
Current Skills:
[Shadow Clone Jutsu Lvl 4]
[Shadow Extraction Lvl 1]
Class: Necromancer
Attribute Points: 0
His increase to level ten wasn't a huge surprise. Having fought Zenki and doing multiple quests on the side, Naruto received a whole lot of experience from those situations alone.
And that was without even mentioning the increase in his stats due to the amount of training Kakashi had put him through.
Learning two jutsus was certainly an experience to thank, for it had helped his chakra control and his discipline, which somehow worked to help him level up faster in his opinion.
When he leveled up twice, he had put his points in strength, intelligence, and dexterity. He ignored vitality considering the number of times the number grew due to his personal training, though that number decreased the last few weeks.
Intelligence clearly had the biggest effect on Naruto's mindset, which was why he focused on that next. It didn't particularly change his personality per say, and neither did it suddenly give him the vocabulary of a seasoned author. However, he found himself suddenly able to better articulate the words he already knew, as well as change how he thought of things.
As he thought of the things flying freely in his rather occupied head, his deduction skills were tingling.
Currently at level three, the skill wasn't very useful. Or rather, it showed how little he actually tried to deduce things.
But Naruto trusted his gut feelings.
He looked over at Sasuke and Sakura, who seemed to come to the same realization as him.
Sasuke smirked. "It's the wrong floor, isn't it?"
"Seems so."
The genjutsu started to fade away, revealing the sign to be '201'.
Naruto sighed. How would that manage to trick a Genin at all?
And so they went to the floor above. The walk wasn't particularly long, but neither was it really pleasing.
Team Seven quickly made their way into the real Room 301.
Into a room completely jam-packed with shinboi. Naruto didn't recognize a single person. The stares of each of the Genin quickly focused on the incoming Team Seven, who tried their best not to wilt at all the attention.
Sakura failed completely, blushing in nervousness. Which made sense, considering she wasn't really used to it all.
Sasuke, as the only Uchiha left in Konoha, was also used to the attention.
Naruto was used to it for…darker reasons. As the container of the Kyuubi, he received a lot of looks in his days, which were usually bad rather than good.
Wait…was that?
Short, black hair, and regal attitude?
Kurtosuchi was in the exam, along with her teammates, Ubuki and some random person he didn't know. But how? They had completed the mission and the Iwa team hadn't, meaning the Iwa team effectively failed their own task.
Thus, they shouldn't be in this room right now. Naruto thought, as he watched the girl talk animatedly with her team.
She was a Princess, however, it wasn't entirely impossible that her family pulled some ropes to get her into the exams. Or that there was some sort of backup test for teams which happened to fail the qualifying exams.
But it didn't matter. The only negative that came out of this was that there was one more tough opponent in the exam.
Of course, there was Gaara. Even in the presence of the rather large crowd, he wasn't easily missed either. Partly due to his flaming red hair, which stood out like an apple hanging on a tree.
Iwa
Suna.
Kumo.
Kiri.
It certainly was an International Chuunin Exam. It also made absolutely zero sense considering a lot of these villages were currently not allies, and even worse, hated each other to the guts.
And even worse, Iwa was present inside of Konoha itself.
"Naruto-san!"
Naruto tried not to groan as he heard the familiar voice.
Rock Lee stood proud as he shouted out to Naruto, letting everyone else in the room hear in the process. "I challenge you to a duel!"
Why did it have to be me?!