𝐁𝐀𝐂𝐊 𝐓𝐎 𝐁𝐀𝐂𝐊 | 𝐍𝐚𝐫𝐮𝐭𝐨 [HEAVY EDITING]

𝟐𝟏 | 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐡𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐧 𝐄𝐱𝐚𝐦𝐬: 𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐎𝐧𝐞

Despite my confidence in facing the Chūnin Exams, I'm... really not. Not a single bit! Just how many people are participating in them?! This is way more than what I saw come in the other night! Most of them are foreign Shinobi, so it isn't like the majority is from the village, though it would have made sense. And apparently? Our class is called "rookies"? Well, obviously! We just graduated from the Academy! Why did Kakashi-sensei think it was a good time to throw us into something like this?! We have no business challenging the more experienced Genin that are here with us.

A few things had happened in between our group in between then and now.

When we'd finally arrived on the third floor, the true third floor, Kakashi-sensei had been there to greet us. It took a moment, but I'd done a headcount and found that including us, there's over one-hundred and fifty participants here – three times as much as I'd seen entering the village from the other night. Somehow, us and the rest of us "rookies" ended up in a big argument that had gotten the attention from all the other participants. Then, another Leaf Genin – his name is Kabuto – who'd already taken the Chūnin Exams six other times shows up and takes out a strange stack of orange cards that supposedly shows the statistics of each Genin candidate.

The competition's going to be tough, for sure, but what's really making things worse is Naruto's inability to stay quiet long enough that he ends up swearing up and down that he'd "beat every single one of them". I really did admire his confidence – at first.

Out of nowhere, a team of Sound Genin suddenly fly out toward us from the pool of Shinobi a-and attack Kabuto?! He lands a few feet away from us, coughing up blood.

"Kabuto!" Sakura and Naruto run over to his side to help him to his feet. I follow behind them, blocking the path between him and those other Shinobi.

"Not such a tough guy, after all, I guess," the one in the front muses. He wears some kind of fur coat, and underneath it, a large shirt that reminds me of cow hide. "Maybe that's why he's on his seventh try."

"Why did you do that?" I demand from him. But all I receive is a laugh before the air in front of me distorts itself, as though it'd been an object to be moved, before I find myself on my hands and knees, choking and gasping for any kind of breath I c-can find—

"Kari!?"

Distraught, I still manage to feel the pair of arms wrapped around my own from behind that help lower me down onto the floor – Sasuke. He presses a firm hand against my back when I've started coughing, a fit that rattles my chest.

"Put this in your info cards," a different voice says. "The Genin of the Sound Village will be Chūnin when this is all over, guaranteed!"

"All right, you pasty-faced degenerates – pipe down!"