Chapter 106/107 - Arc 7 - We're Ready Kakashi, The Chunin Exams Start Now! - Revealing Insights, Iruka's a bad teacher?/Making a scene in front of everyone

Double feature today, thank you for your patience.
Technically these chapters where I'm using canon as a structure are easier, but they're still a lot of work because Sakura's so different from canon at this point. They all are to some extent but it's huge with her. Gaara's cute as always.

Have fun!

------------------------------------------------------106------------------------------------------

Finding Kakashi in front of room three oh one, she’s struck with an odd feeling that only gets a little more powerful with every moment that passes them by. He looks rather bored, his headband might even be pulled lower on his face than normal, and if she had to guess his expression without the chart she’d say he couldn't care less about what’s going on in front of him and he’s experiencing the world in slow motion. He always looks a little like that, so that’s not surprising, but that he’s here at all is enough to have her mind whirling. She doubts he’s here to tell them they did a good job for coming to a ‘mandatory’ test, which means he has an actual reason to be here and is following through. Does he feel obligated to them? That’d be new, he put up a good show their first few weeks but for most of their time together he’s been kind of aloof and lazy.

That’s not to say he’s never tried, and to be fair it’s probably partially her fault. At some point she realized she learns really well on her own so she cut out the part of her schedule that involves him and replaced it with physical training with Gai. Still, she wouldn’t have made that discovery and cut him out if he was ever teaching her so who knows. If he put even half the effort he puts into screwing with them into teaching them new techniques, she’d be a Jonin by now.

“You’re all here, now you can formally register for the Chunin Exam. If one of you had decided not to come, you would have all been disqualified, that’s what I meant by mandatory.”

“Why not just tell us that?” Sakura asks, “you knew we weren’t going to skip it.” Her foot stomps the floor below her with, and she feels good about how much vibration she causes to run through it into the immediate vicinity. It's well built, this entire facility is, but she’s getting so much stronger that she can physically feel the difference in her abilities just by being a little petulant.

“All three of you have a few reasons you might not have wanted to come. I did not want you to feel compelled if you decided those reasons were more important. And I knew you wouldn’t come just because I said so.” She shares a look at her two teammates, and can’t help but notice they’re just as confused as she is. What reasons?

“I can’t think of any for me.” She points out, “Sasuke needs to advance in rank for his goals, and Naruto… huh, do you have any reasons, Naruto?”

The boy looks away from them, hands resting in his pockets in a very Kakashi-like way, “there are more important things I could do with my chakra and time,” he admits, “I almost didn’t come.”

“What?” She blinks at her brother, what’s that supposed to mean?

“You said to prioritize my Chakra use, and Business Naruto explained to me what efficient application of resources means. The best way to spend my chakra while here in Konoha is to make clones that further the cleaning business, and send caravans to Wave to further boost the economy and manpower.” He admits sheepishly, a little tinge of red to his cheeks, and despite her walking in front of him; he can’t help but look further away from her.

“How much have you done that?” She asks, looking at him in a new light, one that reveals so much. How long have his priorities been shifted completely to her? One might think the business is about him but it’s clearly not. Last she checked he had enough money to indefinitely live with their Genin stipend providing for luxury, and they’re not even charging him rent. These two facts led her to believe he’s quickly stockpiled too much money for a Genin to spend.

She’s been under the impression that every extra Ryo he collects that doesn’t immediately go into the business or something cool around the house goes directly into his savings. “I knew Wave was progressing too well…” She bites her lip when he refuses to answer her question. “Naruto… how much do you actually have saved up?”

“Then there’s that I’m not ready for this.” Naruto continues despite her. His gaze looks around her like she doesn’t exist, focusing on their teacher’s lone eye. The man stands stoically and says nothing to her brother, letting him talk.. “I’m strong, sure, but Sakura has shown me that the ninja world doesn’t rely on just strength. People will die in this exam, I might have to kill someone. I know I’ll have to kill someone at some point, but shouldn’t that be when I can return from the mission and get support from my family? I’m not ready to do that when I’ll be stuck in the woods for who knows how long? Are you, Sasuke?”

Her raven haired teammate sighs, and gives Naruto a look that transmits a message that Sakura genuinely can’t see. They’ve developed a language of sorts in the time she wasn’t with them, and she’s clueless to what it all means. In part she’s annoyed, but mostly she feels helpless.

“You killed those bandits in Wave.” Sakura points out, “sure they weren’t real people but…”

“It’s different, Sakura.” Sasuke explains with a remarkably soft tone.

“Is it?” She has to think and at their nods, and for once her thought isn’t centered around her. Or maybe it is, but it’s directed at them in a way she’d like to do more.

That’s not just some filler statement, he really means that. To them there is a difference between killing some fake human shaped bandits and killing a real person. There shouldn’t be, but there is. They never internalized the Academy teaching the way she did. For her the rules were the rules, and the rules say an enemy is not a person. The rules say an enemy is an object that threatens her life, threatens the life of her teammates, and threatens the village’s goals. The difference between a civilian and an enemy is night and day. She could slaughter hundreds of those with hostile intentions while barely giving it any thought but if Konoha asked her to kill a civilian… She’d probably end up back in interrogation when she refused.

If there isn’t a difference for them, that means that everyone is a civilian to Naruto, everyone matters. Every life is precious, everyone deserves to see it through whether they stand in his way or not. To him, Inari and Hanabi and Meogi and Udon are the same as the rival Genin they will probably have to kill today or tomorrow or maybe the day after. The difference hardcoded into her from a young age doesn’t exist for them, the distinction that makes everything so easy, is missing. How do her idiots function at all?!

Is this what Kakashi meant when he said their judgment is supposed to feel good? That whatever broke inside her brian didn’t break in them and that’s a good thing?

It doesn’t feel like a good thing. It feels like they’re going to go through so much pain that they don’t have to, and that sucks. She’s furious at the concept, and she wants to leave the exams to go kick the shit out of Iruka for not making sure they internalized the proper lessons like she did. How dare he?! She shoulda broken his damn arm when he found her in the woods!

“I can’t promise you won’t have to kill someone in there.” Sakura says, steeling her features and looking into Naruto’s eyes with fierce determination. She lets her gaze linger there for a second before flickering her vision to meet Sasuke’s. They both deserve to know what she thinks and feels, she needs to be open and honest with them if she’s going to expect them to follow her into this. “But I can promise that I’ll be there for you, and if it comes down to a choice of who does what must be done, you know that my blade fights for you…” She shakes her head at that, that’s not open and honest, that’s garbage. That’s telling them to stand behind her while she does all the work, that’s stupid.

Sasuke won’t respect that, and neither will Naruto. She forces herself to put on a confident smile that she barely feels, and shrugs her shoulders while meeting their dual gaze with intensity. “I will always fight for you. We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. If you really don’t feel ready, we can arrange your first kills on some real bandits and come back next time. Being a Genin isn’t so bad, I could do it for another six months or even another year.”

She didn’t realize that taking every real kill up to this point had such an impact on them. How much has she cost them? “No. We’re here, let’s do this.” Naruto throws a fist into the air, shutting her down nonchalantly while Sasuke chuckles.

“Let’s go.” Sasuke nods, only sparing her another glance before turning to face Kakashi with a real confident smile that puts hers to shame.

“Sakura, Naruto, Sasuke… I’m glad you came.” They can see his smile in his eye, it’s more pronounced than most of his expressions up to this point and settles inside them well, “I’m proud of you all, standing together like this. You’re ready for this, no matter what, I believe in you. Go prove it to everyone else that you’re amazing.”

------------------------------------------------------

Standing in her plate armor stained red, her blood red hair flowing behind her dramatically, and her black sword sheathed confidently at her side, she looks much more like a samurai to the onlooking crowd than should ever be at a ninja exam. That’s not what’s important, what is important is that her teammates wince and freeze while she looks out at the other contestants. There’s easily another hundred applicants here, maybe even more. “Is it gonna be a battle royale?” She gasps, “that’s awesome! Naruto, we get to fight all these people!”

Naruto looks rather ill all the sudden, maybe it’s the conversation they literally just had, but it shouldn’t be because she’s clearly joking. There’s no way the Chunin exams are that lethal, the villages would never have any ninja to field if every single person that came to the events was killed. That he’d take her seriously for even a second is ridiculous.

It would be cool though.

“I am excited too.” A deep and gravelly voice says beside them.

“What the-” Her whole team jumps, and her eyes dart to the side. Standing there at her side like he’s always been there is Gaara, looking very happy to see her. His red hair is slicked back, which doesn’t look great on him but the effort is nice. She appreciates normal effort from a boy who’s idea of romance is trying to murder his sister for her. “When did you um…”

“I’ve been here since you came in.” How long ago was that?

Does it matter?

“Ah, well um, cool. It’s good to see you.” She swoops in for a hug, if nothing else to end the awkwardness that has taken over her.

“They’re glaring at you, do you want me to kill them?” Gaara’s question lingers in the air for a second, and she looks over to see that pretty much the entire exam is in fact glaring at her. She leaves the hug to stand proud, and pat Gaara’s shoulder.

“No, please don’t. I feel like that would cause an incident.” Nevermind that Naruto and Sasuke would probably never forgive her if she set him on a wave of people like a flowing nightmare when she had the power to stop it. She needs to learn to be more considerate to her teammates, that means not letting the violence happen needlessly when words will work.

“Sakura, you’re here!” Then there’s that her friends are here, sifting through the crowd.

“Don’t hurt her, she’s very important to me.” Is the only thing Sakura has the time to say before she’s aggressively jumped at by a very enthusiastic blonde. Sakura moves with the momentum of being tackled and finds herself admiring how her friend’s ponytail flows behind her with every movement. She’s holding her best friend up with both of her arms, spinning, and meeting Ino’s bright smile with one of her own. “Ino! I haven’t seen you in a while!”

“I know, you hid in the woods!” Ino laughs melodically while still held aloft in the air. Sakura finds her friend is a little too light, and a simple look down reveals that Gaara’s helping her with a floating bed of sand. He’s such a good friend, and so is she. As an act of good friendship she will make an active effort to not tell Ino that the sand she’s halfway floating on is covered in corpse matter. “I tried to find you like ten times until Haku told me to stop bothering. He said you were fine and would come out eventually…”

“Since when do you do what Haku says?” She finds she’s quickly dropping Ino - Gaara’s got her - so she can wrap her arms around her shoulders instead, and pull her deep into a hug. “I’m so glad to see you, I guess your team got in too huh? How do Shikamaru and Choji feel about this?”

“I had to force them.” Ino admits with a little bit of a girly giggle that doesn’t fit the setting too well.

“Ah, that tracks.” It seems Ino’s teacher was upfront with them about it being a failure if they don’t all come. Either that or Ino just figured it out and was forceful enough to make them comply.

-----------------------------------------107--------------------------------------------------------

“Why are you taking this?” Shikamaru asks, his footsteps taking him over to the grouping that’s now starting to amass at the front of the classroom. Choji’s shortly behind him with a bag of potato chips, a special Akimichi brand too, they make the best snacks and product placement is important for big events like this. Even if he didn’t like the chips he would probably be eating them here to get lots of sales from all the onlookers. “I thought you agreed with us and didn’t like doing needlessly troublesome things.”

“This isn’t needless, I want to do this.” Sakura answers swiftly, finally working to set Ino down with a look to Gaara who quickly and decisively takes the hint to help drop her. “There’s a lot I can get done with Chunin status, and it’s not like I have anything better to do besides study. I’ve felt kinda cooped up recently and I’m pretty excited to have the opportunity to go around and kick ass for once. You know I got scolded for a kill I didn’t even do on my last mission? Here I’ll get praised, especially if I actually do it. Hear that Gaara? No kill stealing, find your own enemies.” The redhead beside Sakura nods understandingly at her.

“Being cooped up is good, Sakura.” Shikamaru sighs to himself, before shaking his head towards the floor. “It means you don’t have to do anything. And killing is hopefully avoidable, that’d be a real drag…”

“I hadn’t thought of it like that… Ooh, you shoulda come and made a fort with me in the woods! I bet you would have loved that.” Sakura beams, finally letting go of Ino to wave a hand up in the air at him, her hand quickly moving from side to side in front of her smiling face. She’d look incredibly innocent for a second if not for the glowing red eyes, “we should make camping plans sometime! You can bring your whole team, yes that does mean you Ino.” She looks to Ino to make sure she knows she’s invited and not feeling left out.

“I’ll think about it.” The quieter boy groans. His forehead protector is wrapped around his arm for some reason, which Sakura can’t help but quickly try to decipher. He knows these things aren’t for show right? They’re meant to protect your skull from a stray kunai. She taps the one atop her head, she kinda wishes she’d gotten a helmet now that she thinks about it, she guesses Haku thought she’d look better without it when he ordered the equipment and she just never thought about it to get one herself. A helmet would block some of her senses though so maybe it’s for the best. She quickly maneuvers her thoughts elsewhere, lest she get self conscious about not thinking of putting the protector elsewhere so she could wear a helmet.

“Ah, it’s the idiot trio!” Naruto gasps as they stop talking.

“That’s not…” Shikamaru groans.

“I’d beat you senseless for that but Kakashi already did it plenty.” Ino snickers. “That’s probably why your brain doesn’t work, you got medical attention from an actual hospital after all that, right?”

“Ah, idiot duo, sorry. Habit.” Naruto scratches the back of his head at the blonde girl’s chiding.

Sakura’s eyes catch Hinata, Kiba, and Shino as they approach, focusing in on them just in time to hear Hinata talk. “H-hello!” Hinata’s breath hitches on her first letter. Sakura’s never seen her stutter, but hitching like that is pretty normal for her. It’s like she loses confidence at the start of her sentence and then locks in immediately after through sheer grit and force of will. She appreciates the Hyuga heiress being able to do stuff like that, it must take a lot out of her. She’s never been so outgoing she’d struggle through when her voice wasn’t working very well, if that happened to her she’d probably just run away and live in the woods for a bit or something.

A quick look behind Hinata reveals team Gai did in fact get here first despite the distractions and slow downs. Neji’s over there watching them, while Tenten and Lee are trying to do anything but look at them. She quickly waves to her roommie, and then focuses back on Hinata. She was half expecting to see Haku for some reason, since she’s seeing literally everyone else, but that’d be absurd. He’s not even allowed to be a ninja yet, let alone try to get a promotion to Chunin without a team. Though she hears the Hokage was so generous and easygoing in their first meeting that she wouldn’t be surprised to find out he has special treatment.

“I’m glad you made it, Hinata.” Sakura greets while Naruto continues fighting with the ‘idiot trio’ and Gaara latches onto her side like it’s the place to be. She can’t help but be comforted by his presence, it’s nice and warm and they are about to be in danger so she can be forgiven for enjoying having a protective shield around her. Too bad they’ll have to separate soon. She hopes he can stay in Konoha a little bit after the exams, she’d love to introduce him to Ino more formally and maybe watch some movies together on the couch as a trio. “Kiba too, I see you brought Akamaru.” The puppy barks in greeting as he’s noticed, sitting atop Kiba’s head with an enthusiastic wagging of his tail.

“I see you didn’t bring your dog,” Kiba says with a thoughtful frown which immediately grabs her attention, “you didn’t think he’d be useful?”

“I figured he’d draw too much attention, I plan to bring him into the next part of the exams though.” Sakura explains, “you’ll get to see him, probably. I don’t know if we will meet up during the rest of the exams.”

“I look forward to it.” Kiba grins. Hinata quickly swerves around her to go fuss over Naruto, who’s still arguing somewhat loudly, and Sakura bumps fists with Kiba. “How far do you think we can go? All nine rookie genin are here.” Good for Hinata, she hopes that girl can make headway sometime, she needs more friends and so does Naruto. Maybe she can push them together sometime, what’s a sister for besides helping her brother make friends? She’s clearly good at it, everyone seems to love her even when she’s not trying.

She’s not sure when she became good at making friends, maybe it’s really just a matter of being friendly? She understands that a lot of girls can’t be nearly as friendly as her, they have to worry about their safety, especially around ninja guys. She is strong enough she doesn’t have to worry about that around anyone but Lee, and she’s pretty sure Lee’d be bashing skulls in for her, he’s not a problem. He’s an anti-problem, a solution? Lee’s a guy problem solution.

“I’ll be making it all the way to the end of this, you?” Sakura smirks.

“You betcha, nothing can take me down.” The wild haired boy smirks right back at her, sharp teeth and even sharper gaze focused on her. “We should work together if the chance arrives.”

“I’ll look for you if I can.” She agrees evenly with him, “unless it’s competition, then I’ll actively avoid you. No need to take our own village out of the fight.”

“That’s what I’m thinking.” The boy looks at Sasuke, “Are you sure your team agrees? He’s glaring at me.”

“He glares at everyone.” Sakura shrugs.

“Well, if it comes down to fighting him, we’ll win.” Kiba grins with all his teeth, “we won’t lose to the likes of those two.”

“Unfortunately, you’d have to get through me.” Sakura points out, her hand landing on her sword “and I have the means to reattach your limbs when I’m done with you, so I won’t hesitate to take them off.”

“Wha-but-um-” Watching everyone but Gaara take a large step away from her is a feeling, for sure, she kinda wishes she knew what causes stuff like that. “You too, Sasuke?” She asks, looking at the boy who suddenly looks quite disturbed. “Too far?”

“Way too far…” Naruto gulps.

“I thought it was eloquent.” Gaara’s words of approval only help reinforce just how bad that must’ve been.

“Sorry…”

“And now I know what to talk about at our next session.” Ino claps to herself in the background, she’s so wholesome. It’s nice to have her best friend rooting for her.

“You should be a little quieter.” A voice catches their attention, and her gaze moves to a silver haired man approaching them. He’s covered in mostly purple, and has glasses on which is odd. Konoha is pretty good at eye transplants, he shouldn’t have eye problems as a ninja.

[Kabuto Yakushi; Special Jonin Solo Elite]

That’s unsettling. There’s technically two different displays her Scan ability gives her. One that’s mainly meant for allies and normal people, it gives her a good idea of how dangerous they are, tells her a bit about them, and even provides some info on their bounty book entry if they have one.

Then there’s one which is for bosses, and those that are very specifically only meant to be enemies. It’s not perfect, Haku also appeared as a boss fight at one point and that worked out pretty well, so it’s not conclusive and she’s not about to go making accusations over bad data, but it’s pretty indicative that something’s wrong.

The problem that really catches her eyes is the rank of the boss fight. This Chunin exam participant doesn’t just rank as a Special Jonin - a rank given to those that are technically Jonin in one or more but not all categories - he ranks as a solo elite.

That means two or three, maybe even four Special Jonin should be required to beat him.

They’ll die, they’ll really die. Why is he here? What the hell?

Spy? Spy. Definitely a spy. But for which country? He has a leaf headband so she bets it’s not the leaf! Does it matter? She’ll alert someone when she can, for now, there’s no reason to think he wants to hurt them. Well besides her system giving her an enemy card for him. That’s concerning right? Haku should not be her standard, Haku’s awesome and unique and probably the only enemy card she’ll ever get that’s friendly. Maybe she should report him directly to Ibiki, but when is she going to see Ibiki? He just seems like the perfect person for this kind of concern.

“You guys are the ‘rookie nine’ fresh out of the academy, right?” The man keeps talking despite her obviously conflicted expression. Hopefully he doesn’t grasp she’s onto him, but then his gaze is focused on her so he clearly does! Shit, shit, shit, shittt! “Carrying on like that with cute faces… man…This isn’t a field tri-” He’s cut off when Gaara’s sand spills out, and flares towards him.

“Gaara no!” She tackles the redheaded boy, making the sand fall to the ground. The special jonin has already backpedaled right into the crowd before she looks up. “That woulda been bad…” She groans from atop the boy on the ground.

And now every single person is staring at them for an entirely new reason, including his siblings who have complicated expressions about something they’re not bothering to share, “shit.”

“Shit?” Gaara asks.

“Shit.” She confirms.