Chapter 1 - The Day After: Awaiting Results

The academy training field. A place known to every shinobi that had ever called himself a leaf ninja. But Akai knew it for a different reason. This was his proving ground, the battleground on which he had been fighting for his dream for the past eight weeks. Here he had struggled, with Iruka-sensei’s help, to master the skills of the shinobi, from simply throwing shuriken to moving from place to place in the blink of an eye, the technique known as the Body Flicker Jutsu. He had bled on this field more times than he could count in the past two months, and passed out from exhaustion a total of three times.

As Akai knelt on the edge of this field, he thought about how long and hard the road here had been. He thought about the daily pains he had during the first two weeks, as he pushed his body beyond its limits daily. He thought about the headaches, from getting too few hours of sleep because he was studying; about the two cracked ribs he had gotten when Iruka had invited Kiba to help him train, that Sakura had been able to fully heal in virtually two days; about the weekly letters he received from Izumi after the clan had left to continue traveling; and about they had helped him get threw Iruka’s training regime, which the chunin himself had admitted he would normally not even put a genin through, much less a mere student. But what Akai thought about the most, was the test Iruka had given him the previous day.

The test should have been easy, students four years younger than Akai passed it annually. It covered the shinobi’s most basic skills, things like physical fitness, strategy, weapon skills, stealth, and the infamous Shadow Clone Jutsu. Akai’s only problem had been that the test was designed for students with four or more years of experience, whereas he had been training and studying for only two months. He could not help but worry.

*It’s 0700 hours and Iruka-sensei is not here yet. I just know I screwed up something,* he thought to himself, *why else would he be late?* He looked out at the field again. “You have to stop this,” he said aloud to himself, “worrying is not going to help anything.” He then closed his eyes and forced himself to try and relax, to try and restart the meditation his worries had pushed him out of.

Snap. Akai heard the snapping twig somewhere off to his right just a moment before a shuriken flew past his face, a mere centimeter from his nose. If it had not been for the noise and Akai’s sharpened hearing and reflexes, it would have stabbed into his skull. On alert now, Akai heard the faint whistling noise of two more approaching projectiles, so he instinctively reached for the sheathed bokuto lying on the ground in front of him as he willed his chakra into his limbs. As soon as his fingers made contact with the wooden sword, Akai seemed to disappear, taking his weapon with him as two thrown kunai pierced the ground where he had been meditating.

When he reappeared in a tree on the other side of the field a moment later, he already had the sheath on his back and the bokuto held in his right hand. He immediately started scanning the trees on the side of the field he had just flickered from. His opponent was getting better.

*If it wasn’t for that twig breaking and my flicker jutsu,* he thought, *I’d be dead. Focus Akai. Your chakra reserves aren’t good enough yet to use that too often.* As he finished that thought, he saw a shimmer in the trees and quickly moved his bokuto in front of his chest, blocking the shuriken that had been aimed at his heart. *Bingo,* he thought as he watched a shadowy figure move away from the shuriken’s point of origin. The figure was moving away from Akai, on the ground at high speed.

Moving quickly, Akai used his free left hand to remove three small stones from a pouch on his belt. Leaping from the tree branch he was standing on, he twisted in the air to give the stones some extra momentum as he threw them in the direction of his attacker, even as he used his chakra to ignite the small slips of paper attached to them. He landed near the middle of the field with both hands on his bokuto and it held in a ready position. He looked up just in time to hear three small explosions and see his attacker leaping backwards into the field to escape the blasts. By the time the figure had landed with his feet on the ground, facing Akai with a sword drawn, Akai was already closing the distance between them. The attacker quickly shifted to a defensive stance and moved his sword to block Akai’s own.

Crack. The sound of two pieces of wood crashing into each other resounded across the field and Akai knew immediately that he was in trouble. His opponent was stronger, and was pushing Akai’s wooden blade back towards him. If he didn’t do something fast, his attacker would break his grip on his weapon, leaving him defenseless in close quarters. Then it occurred to him how his opponent was stronger, chakra.

Timing himself carefully, Akai quickly pulled back on his sword for just a moment before swinging it forward once again, catching his opponent off guard. This time though, he also willed his chakra into the blade of his bokuto just as he made contact, causing it to shatter his opponent’s weapon and continue, striking his opponent in the chest and sending him flying backward. Akai took a deep breath as his opponent and the shattered bokuto burst into clouds of smoke. It had been one of his own shadow clones. Akai took another deep breath as he heard someone step up behind him.

“Bravo, Akai,” said Iruka, clapping his hands as Akai turned around to face him, sheathing his bokuto, “but I must say you take the parable, ‘your worst enemy is yourself’, to the extreme.”

“Good morning, Iruka-sensei,” said Akai as he made a short bow. “Please pardon my not waiting for you, but I thought it might be good to do some training while I waited.”

“No need to worry,” the teacher responded, looking his student in the eyes, “I know you were probably pretty anxious for me to get here. I’m not surprised you wanted to do something.” It seemed to Akai that his sensei was trying to avoid mentioning why he would have been anxious, something that added about a hundred more butterflies to his already uneasy stomach.

“Well, Iruka-sensei?” he asked, failing to keep the worry out of his voice. Iruka just stared back at him with his sensitive eyes and Akai braced himself for the worst.

“You passed,” Iruka said finally, and it took Akai a few moments to register what his teacher had said. When it finally sank in, though, his heart skipped a beat. He had made it.

“You came close,” Iruka admitted, “but given that you were only preparing for two months, I’m quite impressed.” He smiled at Akai as he held out a blue headband with a metal plate, emblazoned with the leaf symbol of Konohagakure. Speechless, Akai took it from his hand and held it for a moment, testing its weight in his hand. However, he did not put it on, something that Iruka noticed.

“Is something wrong, Akai?”

“I’m not ready for it yet,” he said bluntly, still holding the headband. “I’m not a genin until I pass a test from a jonin. That is what Lady Tsunade said.” He held the headband out for Iruka to take back. Iruka, on the other hand, closed Akai’s hand around it.

“Even if you haven’t earned the right to wear it,” he said quietly, “you have earned the right to have it.” He pushed Akai’s closed hand back towards him. “And about that jonin test…” Akai quickly looked up at his sensei, as Iruka pulled a sealed scroll out from behind his back. “This was sent to you by Izumi.” He held the fist sized scroll out for Akai to take.

“Okay,” Akai said slowly, wondering what a scroll from his sister would have to do with getting a test from a jonin. Iruka did not fail to notice the confusion on his student’s face.

“She said that it’s from Grey-Wolf.” At the mention of his first sensei’s name, Akai immediately stopped staring at the scroll and instead stared at Iruka.

“Grey-Wolf?!”

“Indeed,” Iruka responded. “She said that the clan ran into him on the road again, injured as it were. When she, your brother, and your parents told him where you were, he apparently asked that they send this to you. According to Izumi, he was gone the following morning, just like the last time.”

As his teacher finished, Akai looked at the scroll once again. It had a nice, ornate seal on it, but otherwise it seemed entirely unremarkable, save that it was made of a heavy grey parchment. On closer, inspection though, he realized that what seemed like a second, smaller piece of parchment was rolled up tightly inside the first.

*What could this be?* he thought to himself. *Grey-Wolf wouldn’t send me just any old scroll.*

“What does this have to do with a test?” he asked as he looked back up at Iruka. Iruka smiled, as if he had been waiting for Akai to ask.

“Lady Tsunade has already examined the scroll,” he stated, “and she thinks that it should be a sufficient test for you.” He paused and noticed Akai’s confused look. “Don’t worry. She told me that you are to report to the Memorial Grove at sundown tonight and open the scroll there. She said that the test would be revealed to you then. I am not to give you any training today so that you have time to rest. Is that understood?”

“Yes, sir, Iruka-sensei.”

“Good, then I will be at the grove at midnight to check on you.” With that he turned as if to leave, but stopped and faced Akai again.

“Good luck.”

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