Chapter 271 267: Karin's Chuunin Exam 5

It had been a few months since the disastrous mission to the Land of Waves.

Sure, they did complete the original mission of escorting their client to his destination, even though the client lied about the details and the mission was far outside the range of a C-rank.

They had also gone further and helped him build his bridge.

So, the mission itself had been more than completed.

What made the whole thing a disaster was what happened at the end of it all.

Just as the bridge was about finished, they got ready to fight against the elite Jōnin-level enemy Zabuza and his Chūnin-level helper.

They didn't know whether or not there would be others, so everyone was on edge, ready for a tough fight.

More so once the fighting began, and they realized that one of the enemies was someone they had met before, a person named Haku.

Not that that in itself made it difficult; no, what put them on edge was the fact that Haku possessed the rare Ice Style Kekkei Genkai.

Any shinobi with a Kekkei Genkai was someone worthy of taking seriously.

And yet, just as the fighting got started, it ended.

Three other shinobi showed up.

Sasuke had to admit that when he saw two of them, his heart skipped a beat.

One was a legendary black market powerhouse named Kakuzu, someone as strong as he was expensive.

In fact, he knew about him because Aiko had mentioned him when she talked about trying to pay someone to deal with Itachi.

Kakuzu was dangerous beyond dangerous, someone that even Kakashi-sensei would stand no chance against.

Someone far beyond even an elite Jōnin.

No matter how proud Sasuke was of his own clan and its Kekkei Genkai, the Sharingan, he wasn't stupid.

He knew that there were people stronger than him, far stronger, and Kakuzu was one of them.

But that wasn't the biggest shock of the day.

Kakuzu might be strong, but he wasn't as famous as the person he came with.

No, the one who was truly famous was her.

Kaguya-hime.

A legendary kunoichi who possessed the single highest bounty in the world; alive and whole, she was worth more than all the great Kage combined.

Though that wasn't why Sasuke cared about her; no, he cared about what she had done.

Not what she did to earn that bounty, but what she had done for him personally.

That night, when Itachi murdered the clan, there were two other people within the Uchiha clan's grounds.

One was a mysterious masked man who helped Itachi, another great enemy of the Uchiha clan.

And the other was none other than Kaguya-hime herself.

It was still unknown how she came to be there that night, and why she was there.

But whatever the reason, she helped them, helped the Uchiha clan.

Every one of them, save himself, was only alive thanks to Kaguya-hime; it was she who helped them escape.

They all owed her their lives.

The only reason he wasn't alone was because of her, and so, he too owed her far too much.

He had thought about how a meeting would go many times, how he would express his thanks for what she did, what questions he would ask her.

But meeting like this?

It wasn't something he could have prepared for.

The entire meeting had been shocking. The girl, Karin Uzumaki, had been shockingly powerful, but there wasn't much of a fight.

Kakashi didn't dare start a fight with two powerful S-ranked shinobi, and so, events had simply unfolded while they stood on the sidelines, watching.

They had captured Zabuza and Haku, using nothing but words and threats. Even someone like Zabuza had been unwilling to fight back.

Then came the massacre.

Gatō had arrived, planning to backstab Zabuza and kill them all, only for his little army to be wiped out faster than he could comprehend.

And from there, things just continued to unfold.

Inari appeared together with the villagers and Sakura, ready to finally fight back against Gatō and his tyranny.

Only for Gatō to be saved by Kakuzu, and then pay the man to slaughter the villagers.

It had been... bloody and cruel.

None of them had ever seen something like that before. It was... horrible.

It was a reminder that shinobi didn't care about who was good and who was evil, who was right or wrong, only about who paid them.

That they weren't heroes; they were paid killers.

It had taken a while for them to recover, particularly Naruto and Sakura, who were hit pretty hard.

Naruto had thrown up, and Sakura had passed out, and hadn't been able to walk for the next few days, too shocked to control her own legs.

It took everything Kakashi had to get the two of them to pull themselves back together.

After that, they took a small break from missions before they started once again.

And almost as if someone was playing tricks on them, the next few missions they took were equally messed up.

For one, they went to the Land of Snow to escort an actress, only for it to be revealed that she was, in fact, the princess and rightful ruler.

The simple mission had once more turned into a mess, as they helped her deal with her evil uncle and helped her become the Daimyō.

Then another simple escort to the Land of Waterfalls also turned into a mess, as they ran into an attempted coup by a Tokubetsu Jōnin who wanted to rule the village.

Time and time again, when they took on escort missions, they got themselves into huge messes; every C-rank mission they took turned into at least an A-ranked one.

But while those two also revealed plenty of the darkness of the world, they also showed them that they could make a difference.

Something that really helped Naruto and Sakura fully recover.

And it was because of this that Kakashi allowed them to take part in the Chūnin Exam this time around, despite only having been Genin for less than a year.

Normally, it would take at least two years, and even then, it wasn't guaranteed you would be allowed to enter.

But the team had proven themselves to be ready for it, and Sasuke knew that.

He was ready.

So was Naruto, even if he wasn't the most intelligent.

And surprisingly, Sakura had also turned around and become a lot more serious in her training; she still lagged behind the other two, but at least she was no longer that stupid fangirl she had been at first.

And so, when the day came, they headed to the Academy together, with dozens of other Konoha shinobi.

While they all wanted to take part, the Chūnin Exam was far from an easy one, and many would fail.

So they were all tense as they entered the building, waiting for the room to be opened, ready to begin.

Sasuke himself felt rather confident, which was only natural.

As a prodigy, he was always above others, though he had never let himself become complacent.

Instead, he had pushed himself ever since he was a child, wanting to catch up to Itachi, to surpass him, and get his revenge.

He knew he was still far from that level, but he was getting there.

And this exam would be the first step on that path.

Naruto, on the other hand, was beyond confident, boasting to everyone about how he would not only pass, but become Hokage.

It was foolish, but also in character for the blond. That he had the power to do so, Sasuke didn't doubt, but having the power and the right personality were two different things.

Still, Sasuke was certain that Naruto would be one of the strongest shinobi in the future, if not the strongest.

Though given that the first test was going to be a written one, something he had learned from Aiko, he was a little nervous that it might trip him up.

He could only hope that Aiko was correct when she said that only skilled shinobi and total idiots would be able to pass.

Because Naruto fit one of those two categories perfectly.

Sakura was also confident, for her own reasons.

She was an Academy graduate, and an excellent student at that, so she was confident that she would be able to deal with the test easily, which meant that she wouldn't need to rely on the two boys.

It was a good mentality to have; it showed that she was determined not to hold them back, which made Sasuke respect her a little more.

But then, all of their confidence was shaken the moment the door opened and they saw the large crowd in front of them.

"What is going on here?" Naruto asked as they got closer.

"Hey, can someone tell me what's going on?" he shouted at the back of the crowd, only for the people ahead of him to turn around and shoot him a glare.

"Don't shout like that, this is important!" someone grumbled at him.

"What's the deal? We are here to take the Chūnin Exam, but there is someone blocking the door," another said, but Naruto wasn't listening.

"Damn it, move out of the way. We don't have time for this. I have to become Hokage; I can't be late!" he shouted, pushing ahead of the other two, trying to get to the front.

Sasuke instantly knew something was wrong.

No way someone would be blocking the doors, and the numbers didn't match either. While there were still a large number of shinobi around, he didn't see the Sand trio anywhere.

And after running into them the day before, he was keeping an eye out for them, so there was no way he simply wasn't seeing them.

Which meant they must have gone ahead.

"Hey, Sasuke-kun, isn't this the wrong floor?" Sakura asked, pulling out her form and looking it over.

"Huh? No, it says the test is on the third floor, but this is only the first," Sasuke said, before he realized just what was going on. "Wait, this must be part of the test," he told the others, a smirk appearing on his face.

He was going to ace this stupid test.

"Right, we have to find the real location then." Sakura nodded, catching on just as fast.

While Naruto didn't seem to understand at first, he quickly realized what was going on. "You mean this is like a puzzle? Damn, those guys can't even see through something so simple." He laughed.

Sasuke didn't answer right away. Instead, he simply activated his Sharingan and instantly realized what was going on. A genjutsu had been placed to trick people into seeing the wrong number on the door ahead.

Making them believe this was the right place.

The fact that the people here couldn't even see through something that simple made it clear that these teams stuck here weren't ready to become Chūnin.

"It's a genjutsu; we have to take the stairs over there," he said discreetly and pointed with his eyes.

Naruto, however, clearly didn't realize that he was trying to be discreet, and didn't want to alert the others to the trick. Instead, he just laughed loudly and ran to the stairs.

"Ha! You guys are all idiots, the exam is up there. There's nothing here, just a genjutsu!" he shouted as he reached the stairs, before running up them.

This caused quite a stir, and several of the Genin in the crowd turned to look at Sasuke and Sakura.

Sasuke was going to say something, but before he could, he felt a powerful chakra approaching at high speed, the same one he had felt the day before.

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