AN:
I will do a double release, if we hit 50 power stones today.
...
Naruto had never seen so much open space in one place before – or such a uniformity in color. As far as the eye could see, fields of golden sand stretched into the distance. The horizon was not straight, but humped with faraway dunes, and the intense, constant heat from the sun caused refractions in the air.
Sunagakure (Hidden Sand) was not, in the strictest sense of the word, hidden. Neither was Konohagakure (Hidden Leaf), for that matter – the huge overhanging mountain with the busts of the Hokage carved into the cliff's face was a dead giveaway. But just like how Konoha was isolated by dense forests and mountains, Sunagakure's location was secured by the sheer extremity of its geographical surroundings.
They had had to endure endless sandstorms and scale treacherous rocky cliffs for several days to reach the village. If any ordinary person or ignorant ninja had attempted the journey, they would surely have fallen long before the village's clay buildings came into view.
When Naruto and his team finally arrived at the gates of the village, they were directed towards a desert space encircled by a barbed fence. Inside were dozens of huge pieces of rock that jutted out from the sandy ground. As soon as the gate to the lot screeched open, he felt at least several dozen pairs of eyes immediately turn to glare at them.
Naruto had never seen such a large gathering of foreign ninja together in one place. Just judging from the hitai-ate of the nearest genin, he could tell there were at least four other villages here, including Amegakure (Hidden Rain), Kusagakure (Hidden Grass), Takigakure (Hidden Waterfall), and of course Sunagakure (Hidden Sand). Naruto shifted; the tension in the air was tangible.
"Ick, this place is disgusting," he overheard a genin from Takigakure complaining. "I've got mud all over my sandals."
"Let's hurry up and pass this stupid exam so we can go back home," her teammate grumbled.
"Confident, aren't they?" muttered Rai, from besides him. He, like the other two, were wearing thick cloth cloaks to protect them from the sun. He looked musingly around. "I wonder who the others from Konoha will be? I heard from my brother that some rookies are actually taking the exam this year."
"They must be really talented then," said Mayu uneasily. Her eyes darted around. "I know I definitely wouldn't have been ready for it when we graduated. I don't know if I'm ready now, actually..."
With a shake of his head, Rai squeezed her arm comfortingly. "You'll be fine. You've got me and Naruto backing you up."
Mayu's face remained pale, but she nodded.
While it was too early to say for sure, Naruto could already tell that the exam was not going to be a pushover; the other villages would have sent their best genin teams, and competition was going to be fierce. The question was, what kind of trials would they face? Different villages hosted the exam every time, and the tests were always different.
However, he had known this from the very beginning, and they had trained with this in mind. So long as Mayu didn't freeze up, Naruto felt reasonably confident that his team would be strong contenders. They would be able to weather whatever the test threw their way.
Probably.
"Nervous?" asked an unfamiliar voice from behind them. Naruto turned around. The approaching boy was wearing the hitai-ate of Konoha, but Naruto had never seen him around before. He looked several years older than them, with long hair tied back in a ponytail and a pair of circular glasses perched on his nose. "You're from Konoha too, aren't you?"
"Well...yeah," said Rai, tapping his own hitai-ate meaningfully.
"I'm Kabuto," he said, ignoring the cheek. "This is your first time taking the exam, isn't it? Is it your first time in Sunagakure too?"
"Yes..." Mayu gulped. "Is it obvious?"
Kabuto smiled. "Yep! You remind me of how I used to be."
"Is this your second time taking the exam, then?" asked Naruto.
"Nope...this is my fourth," he admitted. "This exam is held twice a year so this is my second year. It's my second time here in Suna as well."
Unable to detect a lie from the boy's tone of voice or his body language, Naruto felt himself losing interest; he doubted anyone truly competent would fail the chūnin exam twice, let alone three times in a row.
A glint of gleaming metal caught his eye, and turning slightly, Naruto saw the familiar leaf hitai-ate again on another boy. He was pale with long dark hair, and had the unmistakable clear eyes of the Hyūga clan. He seemed calm, though his fidgeting teammates looked a bit more nervous. Naruto looked him up and down; the Hyūga clan was rumored to be one of the strongest in Konoha. He wondered how the boy before them would measure up.
Mayu must have followed his gaze, for she commented, "They must be one of the rookies from the class after us. I don't recognize them."
"Yeah, they are," said Rai, perking up and turning away from Kabuto. Pointing at a girl with Chinese-style buns, he said, "The girl's Tenten. She's a weapons specialist like me; her dad used to train us together when we were young."
But before they could go over to talk to them, several clouds of swirling sand suddenly appeared at the entrance to reveal a group of Suna chūnin and jōnin.
Naruto gave them their full attention, quickly taking note of their standard Suna attire. At their head was what appeared to be their leader: He was very tall, towering over much of the other Suna ninja, and had two red markings on the side of his face. Half his face was covered by a turban-like head gear with a sheet hanging down, and the remaining half was contorted into a hard glare.
"Thank you all for waiting," began the man, looking around at them sternly. "My name is Baki, and I will be your examiner for the Chūnin Selection Exam's first test. You will now all be assigned a team number, in order of your arrival here." There was a murmur of uncomfortable assent. The chūnin examiners began to walk around, giving out plates with numbers on it.
Kabuto returned to his team, and Naruto and his team waited patiently for theirs, as they had been the second to last to arrive. Finally, when the chūnin arrived at their number, they received the number 79. Right after the Amegakure team following theirs received their number, Baki gathered their attention once more. "If you will look around you, you will notice the slabs of rock that have been placed in the field. Pick one, and gather around it with your team."
After a moment's pause to process the information, Naruto and his team walked over to the nearest rock. The others surrounding them all hurried to do the same.
Each rock was about two meters wide, with another two meters radius separating the rock from the nearest surrounding rocks, making space rather limited between each team. Squinting his eyes against the sun, Naruto craned his neck backwards to look up at the rock. It was easily over five meters tall.
"The field has been divided into twenty sections, with four rocks of equal height in each, and a team surrounding each rock. Your objective is to protect your rock and keep it above ground level. There are five ways to fail this test. One, if your rock reaches ground level, your team automatically fails.
Two, if, by the end of the time limit of one hour, your rock is at a lower height than any other rock in your section, your team will fail. Three, if you physically touch any of your opponents or their rocks, your team will fail. Four, if your whole team is deemed unable to proceed with the test, you will fail. And five, if you kill any of your opponents, you will automatically fail."
"What? So how do you pass?" hissed Rai.
Naruto had found that while Rai had many talents, swiftness of mind was not one of them. "Basically, we have to protect our rock from the other teams, and only one team out of every four, at the most, is going to pass. We'll have to attack the other team's rocks using jutsu or projectiles so that they're at a lower height than ours."
He looked at the teams of their adjacent three rocks, and saw that they too were sizing him up. One team was from Kusa, and the other two were from Suna. The deck was stacked against them; the teams from Suna were going to be operating in their natural environment.
They probably knew everything there was to know about sand and rocks, and would be using this knowledge to their full advantage. Furthermore, it looked like this first test was going to be entirely a physical challenge, which would be problematic considering their team's strengths.
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