Chunin-Exams (1) – Part 21

[One day as Konohamaru and his friends play ninja with Naruto]

“Konohamaru, I’ve shown you how to defeat your stubborn sensei, right? Did you learn to do it?” Naruto asked.

“Yes!” Konohamaru said.

“Okay, let’s do it together, okay?!” Naruto shouted, excited.

“Oiroke no Jutsu!”(x2)

Soon, they both appeared as naked versions of their female twins.

Sakura saw this when she randomly walked by and shouted: “Naruto! Don’t you know that the one you are transforming into is your own sister?!”

She had long stopped hitting Naruto … but, this time, she judged it only right to hit him. How could he show his own sister’s naked form to the whole world?! She’d tell Naru about this later …

Team 7 had grown even closer after the truth was out. And so did Sakura and Naru. They were very close already, not yet like sisters, but they studied medical-ninjutsu together almost daily, so they spoke to each other a lot, furthering their friendship. By now, Sakura had become completely fine with Naru’s relationship with Sasuke. She still had some fondness for him, but it wasn’t to the point that she’d say she is still in love with him.

Naruto stopped his jutsu and his face paled: “Shit … I did not even think about it that way. Sigh … how do I even explain this to Naru?”

Konohamaru and his friends continued playing around while Sakura and Naruto watched.

At some point, Konohamaru wasn’t paying attention to his surroundings and he ran into a boy in black clothes and some kind of bandaged thing on his back.

He had purple tattoos or markings on his face and on his head,  he wore some strange hitai-ate whose cloth ended in something that reminded everyone present of cat ears.

“You little shit … that hurt!” The young man with purple marks and clothed in black said, as he grabbed Konohamaru’s shirt and lifted him into the air.

“Just let him go. You’ll probably have to pay for this later …” The girl with blonde hair next to him said.

“Let me go!” Konohamaru screamed.

“Sigh, just let him go, okay? We were playing around, there’s no need to make it difficult on him, okay?” Naruto said, asking the young man wearing a hat that looked to have cat ears attached to it.

“Before that guy comes back, I’ll have a little fun. There’s no harm in that, right?” The young man with the purple markings said.

“Hey, you should really let him go.” Naruto said, his face getting serious.

“Oh? And what if I don’t? Will Konoha’s Genin show me what they can do, huh?” The young man taunted.

“Sigh … just let him go. Ninja from a foreign village should know not to behave like this in Konoha.” Naruto said, not wanting to start a fight when it could end with just an apology. Naruto did not want to fight the man, he left like it would become huge trouble if he did. He decided to try solving the problem with words … but if he hurt Konohamaru for real, then he wouldn’t hesitate anymore … he would destroy that boy.

“Well … who cares. I just really like crushing little boys that don’t know who to not offend. After I’m done with this child, I’m coming for you, blondie.” The youth said.

The black clothed man pulled back his fist in order to punch Konohamaru.

Naruto noticed this and started to make a hand sign for his shadow clone jutsu in retaliation.

However, before either of them could do anything, a stone hit the youth’s hand. Konohamaru dropped to the ground and ran back to his group.

The youth held his hand and winced in pain before looking at the spot from where the stone had come from.

On the street, Naru and Sasuke stood, holding hands. They had been leisurely strolling through the village, looking for something to eat. They usually trained together and improved along each other.

Of course, Naru used her shadow clones to quicken her training.

She had offered to teach them to Sasuke too and he took her up on that. He, however, did not use them too much. He mostly just used them to train his weapon fighting skills. He did not have enough chakra to do anything more with them.

At some point, they had come across this street and saw the black-clothed youth threatening to hit Konohamaru.

Sasuke took a stone from the pathway and threw it at the youth, thus freeing Konohamaru.

“Shit … more kids. Alright … come, let’s fight.” The youth said.

“Eh? Who is this? His chakra … seems … familiar.” Naru thought, as she looked at a nearby tree branch, upon which a red-haired boy stood.

“Kankuro. Stop. You are a disgrace for our village.” The red-haired boy said.

“G-Gaara.” Kankuro stiffened and started to sweat instantly.

“They started this …” Kankuro said.

Gaara only looked at him indifferently: “Stop. Or I’ll kill you.”

Then, Gaara turned towards Sasuke and Naru and said: “I’m sorry for the trouble that he caused.”

Sasuke looked at Gaara’s eyes and said to Naru: “His eyes are filled with bloodlust.”

Naru nodded before asking Kurama through her telepathic bond that they established after he was finally able to interact with the outside world through the larger gap in the seal: “Kura-nii, the thing inside of him … it’s a chakra beast, right?”

“Yes. That’s Shukaku, the one-tails. He is usually rather childish and murderous. He dislikes the fact that Bijuu are seen in a hierarchy of power that is connected to their tail number. Do you want to meet him?” Kurama asked.

“Yea, kind of. I’d like to at least talk to a different Bijuu at some point actually. So why not this one? But that can wait for later actually, Sasuke is hungry.” Naru said to Kurama.

Gaara dropped down from the tree and dispersed into sand, before directly reappearing on the ground beside Kakuro and the blonde girl.

“Let’s go. Kankuro, Temari, we aren’t here to play games after all.” Gaara said.

“Right.” Temari nodded.

They all turned around and started walking away.

Before they could walk away any further, Sakura calmly asked to satisfy her curiosity: “You are ninja from Sunagakure, why are you here?”

She knew that they must have had some reason that was permitted to by the village, otherwise they wouldn’t be walking around in the open like this.

“You don’t know? We are here for the Chunin-Exams … here, my acceptance letter.” Temari said as she looked at Sakura in bewilderment and held up her permission letter to attend the Chunin-Exams.

“Chunin-Exams … how come we didn’t know they were to be held in Konoha this year?” Naruto asked his teammates.

They shook their heads, signifying that they also didn’t know.

The three Genin from Suna turned around and had just started walking again when Sasuke called out: “What’s your name?”

Temari turned around, pointing at herself: “Me?”

“No. The guy with the gourd on his back.” Sasuke said, looking at Gaara.

“Sabaku no Gaara. And you?” Gaara said.

“Sasuke Uchiha.” He replied.

They looked at each other for a while before Gaara turned to look at Naru: “Who are you?”

“Naru Uzumaki.” She said. She had chosen to use her nickname as her official name from now on, she liked the way it sounded more than her birth name. It was simply cuter~.

Gaara nodded and walked away with Temari and Kankuro beside him.

Just as they were gone, Naru sensed someone else in a farther away treetop.

She looked at the spot and saw three ninjas from a different village: “Sound?”

She asked herself, but soon turned her focus back to Sasuke, he was way more important than some random weaklings from a different village.

“Let’s go eat something. Little fox, what do you say about dango?” Sasuke asked Naru while stroking her soft cheek.

She smiled and nodded.

Afterwards they just walked off, leaving the others to themselves.

Naruto, however, shouted: “Can Sakura and I come too?”

“Sure.” Sasuke said, not minding it too much that their teammates came along.

Soon, they all sat on a bench, eating dango sticks.

“Aaaah~” Naru said as she motioned for Sasuke to open his mouth so she could feed him.

Sasuke obediently opened his mouth and soon chewed on delicious dango. It was something that his brother had also liked before.

At the thought of his brother, like always, his mood turned slightly sour.

He still needed to complete his revenge … he needed to work harder. Thank god Naru was there to train with him, it really helped him grow stronger quickly. Though, she couldn’t teach him more advanced jutsu, as she herself didn’t know any either. And, honestly, she didn’t need them anyway.

He also needed someone to help him train with his Sharingan. Sadly … their sensei was not around most of the time, wherever he was, he was not with them. And when he was there, he just randomly gave them some tips, but no new jutsu. Did he even really want to train them?

Naru noticed his racing thoughts. She moved to hug his arm, pressing her chest against it, which caused him to focus on that instead~. His mood turned for the better and Naru was satisfied. She decided to rest her head on his shoulder, all the while continuing to feed him some more dango~.

Naruto watched their interaction with a smile: “I also want to do that to be honest … sigh~.”

“Kit. You should really try to get to know Hinata better. You always tell me how cute she is, why don’t you at least try to get to know her? And, actually, all the times that I saw her look at you, she might actually like you too? Just try to get to know her first, then you’ll know for sure whether you like her or not, okay? Just stop nagging about wanting to do this and that … while not actually doing anything!” Kurama was fed up with his constant complaining about also wanting to be in love and be loved like that.

Sakura was happy that her two friends were in such a secure relationship, she had not once seen them fight yet. It was bound to happen though, right? She only knew that she’d be there for Naru if she needed help! She knew that she couldn’t exactly give her any advice on what to do, but she could at least be a shoulder to cry on!

 

…

 

[Later that day]

“Okay Team 7, thank you for coming here so quickly. You have been chosen to have the opportunity to take part in the Chunin-Exams that are being held in Konoha this year. If you agree, then please sign these forms and come to the Hokage’s tower to hand them in tomorrow.” Kakashi said, quickly handing them a sheet of paper each and disappearing again.

“Sigh, do we go?” Naruto asked his friends.

“Sure, let’s try.” Sakura said, having gained more strength across the past few weeks. She was steadily growing stronger and faster. Ino, her old rival, was no match for her by now. That, she was sure of.

“Little fox, want to join?” Sasuke asked, looking down at Naru who was holding his hand.

“Mhm~” Naru nodded, clearly knowing that he also wanted to join as his excitement showed in his eyes.

Sasuke looked at Naruto and nodded. They all signed the paper and Sakura soon left the three of them alone.

“Let’s go home?” Sasuke asked the two of them.

They had actually moved into one apartment after coming back from the Land of Waves. It was much bigger than the apartments they had lived in before and each of their bedrooms had their own bathrooms, so it was highly convenient too.

At some point, Naru had asked if Sasuke was lonely, since she knew that he lived alone … and, to his surprise, he couldn’t say that he wasn’t … and Naru noticed that, so she decided to get a bigger apartment together with Sasuke and her brother.

After that, Sasuke’s home was warm and filled with love. Totally unlike the coldness it held before.

 

…

 

A/N: Yes, they are living together! But they all have separate rooms! No lewd stuff yet!