Naruto : Struggle Of Childhood

Preliminaries

"Remember this, Taiki," Hinata said looking away a little bit, "When you don't tell people what's wrong, they worry. Fuzzy is a big problem, but it's not as big of a problem as it could be. Let's talk to him about this later, and then we can figure out what happened. It's probably completely natural. It looks like the seal is designed to let out a little Chakra anyways."

"Thanks, Rei." Naruto grinned.

The others exchanged bored looks as Hinata blushed a little and Naruto looked a little confused. The looks were pretty obvious: this guy is so oblivious that it's disgusting.

Morning was not a welcome thing. Naruto hadn't wanted to wake up after the effort from the meeting. He was tired, and the team in the room to his right was very, very loudly celebrating their success in the Exam. Naruto had a feeling that it was the Sound team that he had fought, but didn't bother to see if he was right.

Naruto slept later than usual, but dragged himself up in time to catch breakfast before he missed it. It was a rather sorry breakfast, only a bowl of rice and some fish, but Naruto had long since learned not to complain about food when placed in front of him for free.

He was surprised when the Chuunin who was guarding the door for some reason that escaped Naruto told them that they would be summoned into the Main Room, which seemed to be were the orientation for the Exams was held, at noon. That would be the official end of that part of the Exams. Naruto would rather have it end at a better time, but he supposed that this way, he could rest and prepare himself for whatever was going to happen during the next part.

Mostly, Naruto ended up playing shogi with Sasuke, Neji didn't want to play with him, since he couldn't really think of what to do with himself. If the next part involved fighting, he would just have to make sure that he didn't use any techniques that may be recognized as coming from Konoha. That was a problem, since most of the best techniques he had were either variants of the kage bunshin or things taught to him by Jiraiya that were very memorable, like Rasengan. Naruto would be limited, but then again, that limit would probably make him look like just another Genin with slightly above average skills. That was what he wanted.

Naruto wasn't the best shogi player in the world, and Sasuke managed to have his ego stroked a great deal before the bell to announce the noon meeting finally came. Naruto sat up with a sign of relief. Sasuke glowered a little as he packed up the board.

"Awful timing," he muttered.

"Only for you," Naruto sighed, "I was getting tired of watching you destroy me over and over again with that same stupid smirk on your face like this was something new. You know that I can't play this game all that well."

"Then think and don't talk," Sasuke said rolling his eyes, "I've seen you come up with good strategies before."

"Only on the field," Naruto replied, "This is completely different."

"Only in your head," Sasuke said.

Haku stuck his head into the room where the two were.

"Are you ready?" he asked, "I heard someone say that the people who show up late get disqualified."

"What?" Sasuke growled, "I didn't hear that!"

"Well, come on," Haku said motioning them, "Just leave the board. I don't think that anyone would want it anyways."

Naruto, Sasuke and Haku ran down the hall toward the door that Naruto had thought led to the orientation room. He was right. It was a large, stone room with a computer that seemed to be there to announce something. There were balconies that all surrounded a large clear area at the base of a statue of two hands performing a seal. There was already a large group of teams in that clear area. All three of them took their places with their respective teams. Sakura gave a reproving look to Naruto and Sasuke, and Neji and Kimimaro both hissed something at Haku who looked apologetic and glanced over at Sasuke.