Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Naruto of the Mirage ❯ chapter 22 ( Chapter 22 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

The makeshift team had only a few days in which to get used to each others strengths and weaknesses, as the trip to Suna would take at least three days, perhaps more. They had sparred and hung out for those days, learning about each other and what had gone on in the two years since Sasuke and Naruto had seen the village. They had also been forced to complete some tedious D-rank missions, far less challenging that what the new trio were used to.

It was the last day before they would have to leave for the exam, and the new team was meeting with the Hokage to finalize the details for the trip.

“As I'm sure you're aware, you three will not be the only ones going to Suna. You will be accompanied by a small support staff, plus a jounin to act as your sensei. I will be joining you for the final round of matches; I trust that all three of you will make it. Your team leader is going to be Shizune, that way you will have a trained medic there, not that I don't trust Sand's medics, but I would rather have Shizune there than leave you three high and dry. Sakura will be accompanying you as well, this is going to be a chance for her to advance her learning, there are many rare medicinal plants, as well as older techniques, that might be outdated, but they are effective, for her to learn. For the first few days that will be all, but later, Hinata and Neji will be joining you; apparently the Hyuuga clan is vacationing to Suna.” All of this wasn't too surprising to the `genin', but the following news was.

“According to Jiraiya, Akatsuki may be starting to mobilize, and he believes that they will go after the Kazekage first. We do not anticipate an attack, especially when there is such a large gathering of shinobi, even if they are S-class ninja, they aren't foolish enough to attack a village when there are even more jounin there than normal. None the less, be on alert, and if something happens, Jiraiya is supposed to be hanging around the village to gather information, and for once he doesn't mean peep on the women's bath houses. He can handle that threat. However, for you at least, the most immanent threat is from Iwa shinobi, plus the cloud has sent a team this year. Iwa, I hope I don't need to explain, but that means that Naruto, you'll need to keep some of your…flashier moves to a minimum. Sasuke, ever since they failed to get their hands on the Byakugan, Kumo has begun to show signs that it wants any other bloodline it can get its hands on, so be careful! I don't need to tell you that, hopefully, but I've known you two for too long. You'll somehow end up going overboard doing something rather stupid and it'll come back and bit you in the ass if you don't watch it. Tenten, as for you, I'm hoping you can keep these two focused and down to earth during the exam. I know that you've gotten better since your first exam, so I'm not horribly worried, but still, watch yourself.” With that, the three left the Hokage's office, and went home to pack for the trip ahead.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

The three day trip had been uneventful, nearly everyone agreed that it was one of the more boring things that they had done in a long time. Upon arrival to the village, they checked into their hotel and took care of the last minute paperwork that needed to be filled out. They had all been forced to don far lighter clothes than usual, all three participating members opting for more loose fitting clothing. For Naruto and Sasuke, that meant t-shirts and shorts and Tenten just wore an outfit resembling her old apparel. Since Shizune and Sakura would be inside most of the time, they didn't have to change much, just opting for lighter colors instead of the darker ones that they usually wore.

The next day was routine for the team. They would meet up around nine and then head out to do whatever they were supposed to. Today it just happened to be the exam. Upon entering the waiting room, they noticed that the number of ninja participating was far fewer than in Konoha, even though there were more nations represented. Iwa had sent two teams, which wasn't a surprise; they were the closest major shinobi village. Rain had sent a few, Grass had a pair of teams, and even the Waterfall village had sent a team. The biggest shock was Kumo, which had also sent a single team, but they were the farthest village from Suna, making their presence a question mark for the Konoha team. For obvious reasons, Sound was absent from the proceedings and Mist had declined to enter a team, probably because water techniques would be extremely difficult to use in the desert.

The rock ninja sneered at the three as they waited for the exam to begin, but didn't move. Sasuke and Naruto scanned the other teams, noting only four sand teams. The thing that stuck out most was the Kumo ninja. They seemed to exhibit classic `Gaara symptoms', standing at a distance from their third member. This time, the person that the other two members were shying away from, happened to be a blonde girl who had her hair pulled into a ponytail. She had dark eyes, with some marks around the far edges that seemed to elongate them. Her hitai-ate was tied around her forehead. She seemed to be slightly older than all of the other entrants, possibly around Haku's age. This set off warning bells to both of the boys, and even Tenten felt that something was off, but couldn't place it. The other two members of her team were far less interesting, one was tall and fit with brown hair and the other was shorter and had red hair. Both had swords strapped to their backs, but they weren't any of the usual blades that you would have expected to see. One seemed to be a nodachi, a very large sword that at least resembled a katana, but the other one, the red head, carried two butterfly swords.

“So…we're avoiding them, right?” Tenten asked, eyeing the blonde wearily.

“Sure, I think we match up pretty well, but let's avoid them, no need to risk serious injury.” Naruto summed up what he had been reading off the opposing team, and Sasuke backed him up. Naruto was a good judge when it came to reading the strengths and weaknesses of his opponents.

A door opened, revealing the large form of a Suna jounin, who ordered the assembled ninja into the next room. But instead of a written exam like they had before, there were only chairs, and another door.

“This will be the first exam of this chuunin exam. We will call your teams into the next room, where we will administer the test. Weather you pass or fail, you will exit through another door, where you will wait until we are finished testing. Communicating with other teams during any portion of this test is forbidden. We will begin with the first team from Rain.”

The jounin exited, followed quickly by the designated team. The room was soundproofed so that no one could hear, and because the door didn't have a window, no one could see what was happening either. After five minutes, the jounin returned and called back the next team, this time it was a Sand team. This cycle repeated itself many times over, until the Konoha team finally got called. They were the tenth out of fourteen teams to be called, with only the Cloud team, a team from Iwa, and two sand teams left.

When they entered the room, they were surprised to see a single table with a piece of paper on it. Around the room there were many other Suna shinobi, they would be watching the exam as well as the proctor. The team walked up to the table and looked at the paper. The paper was divided into small squares, ten squares to a side. Some of the squares had things written in them, like two points and three points; another square was marked as the starting point and another, the ending point. These two boxes were in opposite corners of the paper, with a small pebble on the starting square.

“This is your exam. It is seemingly straight forward, like many missions you will participate in, yet there are a number of hidden perils. Only one person may move your token at a time and only one space at a time. For each square you land on, you will be awarded one point, except for the marked spaces. They are bonuses that will be added to the one point you already would get. You may or may not decide to land on these spaces, much like secondary and tertiary objectives. There are also some hidden squares that have negative or positive consequences on them and you will not be notified should you land on one, until we have tallied your score. Weather or not you pass this exam will be decided on a rubric, a part of your score is determined by how many points you earn, but another fraction is based on criteria that only we know.. You have two minutes to look over the board before you must make your first move.”

The three Konoha ninja just looked at the paper with blank faces. Internally, however, Naruto and Sasuke were cursing. They weren't very good at strategy like this. Luckily, Tenten was good at more than just throwing weapons around.

“Ok, well it's obvious that we want a high score here, to help our chances when they grade us, but that still doesn't help us when it comes to figuring this out. What if one of the criteria is quickness? By landing on too many bonus spaces, we will be drawing out the `mission', but if we take the shortest route, we gain the fewest points. So we have to do this in a way that is short, but fruitful.” She analyzed the situation perfectly, pointing out the flaw in the obvious course of action. The boys just nodded, knowing by now, that the weapon mistress was good at these kinds of things.

Tenten looked over the paper once more. The bonus squares were arranged so as to create a lane between the start and the ending. It was straight, short, and devoid of any bonuses. The three point bonuses were farther towards the corners than the two point squares, so to get them would take more time out of their mission. The second obvious solution was to move towards the two point bonuses and then follow along the edge of the lane to the end. It would be longer than the lane, but give more points. However, in her years as a ninja, Tenten knew that those were the areas that were most likely to have traps hidden in them. The outer route was probably the safest, but would take up the most time. She needed to find a balance!

“Ok, were just going to have to find a balance between speed and points. Traps would most likely be laid just outside this lane here, so I would avoid that route. Do you guys have any ideas?” She wanted their input before moving the piece.

“What if we did a zigzag pattern?” Naruto suggested, indicating his proposed route, between one edge of the lane and the other.

“No, that just increases our chances of hitting a trap.”

“What if we zigzagged between the edge and the two point squares?” Sasuke piped up.

“Maybe, but that does increase our time greatly.”

The boys continued to ponder the map, while Tenten kept staring at the paper, daring it to give up its hidden answer.

“Here's what we're going to do.” The beginnings of a plan seemed to jump into her head. “Let's say that the start and stop points are hidden shinobi villages. That would mean that the area, lets say within two squares in any direction, should be safe from other ninja and traps. Outside that it's a crap shoot, so we don't want to take any risks. What if we move to the bonuses that are the closest to the `villages', but then stick exclusively to the lane, zigzagging to increase our score?” Her team had no better ideas, and their time was up, so Tenten made the first move, sliding the pebble up one square. Sliding it up once more, she landed on a two point bonus that was just outside of the lane. Noting that none of the jounin seemed too pleased with slow movements, she moved back into the lane by sliding one space right. She slid over two more spaces, before she reached the edge of the path, and then moved up one space. Something felt off though, like there was some fundamental thing she wasn't doing. It actually began to eat her up inside as she move up another space, once again contacting the boarder of the cleared lane. Not wanting to leave out her teammates, she handed off pebble moving duties to Sasuke, who followed their plan and moved over two more spaces. He moved two spaces up, plus another one to the right, before handing off to Naruto. Seeing the end in sight, Naruto moved another space over, to the edge once again, but then moved off the beaten path onto a two point bonus. Being only four spaces away from the end no matter what he did, Naruto just moved right, to the edge of the grid and then up two more spaces, before he too handed off, back to Tenten, so she could finish what she started. One last move up, and the team was finished with the first part of the exam.

They stepped back and let the proctor do his job, adding up their scores and conferring with the others.

“You accumulated 22 points for your movements. This was out of twenty-five points, any more and you would have failed, for taking too much time. To that, you are awarded a further fifty points out of fifty for teamwork and another forty-five out of fifty for leadership. That gives you 117 out of 125 points, so far. You did correctly assume that we were judging you on speed. You get four points, out of a possible five, for your speed. That gives you 121 points, out of a possible 125. You have qualified for the second exam.”

They smiled, happy to have passed this rather interesting test. They exited the testing room to find another waiting room, filled with all of the teams that had gone before them. They were all sitting silently, remembering the warning about communication and not willing to take chances. Naruto just moved to an unoccupied corner of the room and waited for the first exam to end. The final four teams came through, one by one, followed shortly after by the instructor.

“For those of you who failed, you do not have the correct mindset for a chuunin. For those that passed, you still have more challenges before you. Those of you who passed, wait around, we will begin the second exam in a short time.”

The teams that failed filed out of the room, heads held down, many still not sure why they failed. There were a surprising number of teams that had failed, and as hard as their first chuunin exam had been, Tenten, Sasuke, and Naruto all felt that this exam had been harder. In all, only six teams were left, including the Konoha trio, the Kumo team, had passed, along with both Rock teams. Only one of the Sand teams had passed, along with one of the Rain teams. When all of the failing teams had left the room, one of the jounin that everyone recognized from the observers, stepped forward and cleared his throat.

“Ok, since there were so few of you to begin with, the normal second test would just be a waste of time. Your test is going to be in the same spirit, but with a good twist. You will be lead to a remote location that we have prepared. Somewhere in this location is a structure and inside that is a file folder. Inside that folder is some information, which you need to some how return to us to pass. This will not be as easy as you think. To aid you in this task, we will give everyone here the same information; the only difference will be the structure of the building you must infiltrate.” The older ninja handed out a manila envelope with the briefing in it to each of the teams. You may not open those until you reach your area, and only then will your exam begin.”

Each of the six teams was lead out of the building and along the streets of Sunagakure to a pretty barren part of the surrounding desert. They had been split up upon entering the arena of sand and wind, so the other teams were far from their minds as they opened up the folder to read their mission briefing.

Objective: To obtain the information of folder 7699 from outpost 5.

Intelligence: Outpost 5 is an off site laboratory for the Sunagakure weapon smiths. The file is kept in the filling cabinet in the main office. The office is staffed at any time by one jounin level ninja, as well as three to four chuunin. The file itself is nondescript, so as not to draw attention, but it has a seal placed on it to prevent duplication by means of chakra. This file is checked upon by the jounin at the beginning and ending of every shift. The noted disappearance of the file will force the station to become locked down by means of some seals as well as some traps placed by the Kazekages themselves.

Time limit: One day…….Your time began when you started to read this message.

NOTE: This is to be treated as a real mission that you would have received from your own village.

Once more, Tenten began to strategize while the boys found the map of the area and facility.

“Ok, first off, we can't kill any of the people in the building; it's a Suna outpost, so killing them would draw too much attention. The most obvious time to attempt to steal the information would be at a shift change, but since the folder is checked at the beginning and ending of each shift, which would give us very little time to copy the document manually. Does it say how long the shifts are?” Tenten was looking at the written information, as opposed to the maps.

“Let's see…you'd think so, that's pretty standard information for an extraction….ah, here it is. Shifts change…EVERY HOUR! What the heck kind of time frame is that?” Naruto began to grumble about the shifts, while Sasuke continued to look over the information.

“It seems that they have five ninja there every hour between nine pm, and nine am. From there on out, it's only four ninja. That doesn't help us though, first off, it's right in the middle of the day, and secondly the sun would be rising in our faces if we stole the information that early in the morning. Obviously that blinds us, but it also casts our shadows back towards the building. That's too easy to follow; we'll have to go later in the day, or at night.” Sasuke's black eyes darted over the various papers strewn about on the ground as he listed off his points of contention.

“You're forgetting that right now, it's barely noon, and it's at least a five hour run to the outpost. That means we'll have to have the folder by, let's say, 6am, so that way we have time if one of us gets injured. It'll have to be a nighttime extraction, but if we made good time, we might make it in time to hit the seven o'clock guard change. That way, even if they notice the document has gone missing, we'll only have four ninja after us initially, as opposed to five. Now, once we get there, we'll need to stake the area out, and hopefully find an entry and exit point.” Once more showing that her brain was more than just used for hurling weapons, Tenten outlined her plan, making sure that they would know what to do in the interim until they reached the building. The three left quickly, hoping to make good time on their way.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Indeed the team did make good time, sighting their target right around five pm. Wanting a bit more cover, the team decided to wait until nightfall to make their move. They used their time to scout around and try and spy on the guards. Eventually a plan began to form, and all that was left to do was wait.

Time seemed to creep by at a snails pace, but eventually it grew dark enough that the team felt secure in moving in. Each member of the team transformed into a member of the passing Sand team, hoping that the guards wouldn't know which team would be coming for them. Walking in the front door was the next order of business, and it too went off without a hitch. The first test came when they saw the desk where a pair of chuunin sat. When the pair looked up to inspect the newcomers, they say the swirling tomoe of Sasuke and Naruto's sharingan. Under their hypnotic influence the guards fell asleep, hopefully for a while. There were still two more ninja, a chuunin and a jounin, that needed to be taken care of, but the team was prepared.

This time, Tenten and Naruto transformed into the two incapacitated guards, while Sasuke kept his form of a Suna genin. Naruto picked Sasuke up, as if the Uchiha were knocked out, and they proceeded on their way down the hallway. There was only one more desk, and as they rounded the corner at the end of the hall, they could make out the form of the jounin sitting there, doing her paperwork.

Sensing the presence of the team, the jounin looked up, and saw the form of the `injured' genin. She didn't even take the time to verify the identity of the two chuunin, until they passed by her desk. She immediately felt the difference in their chakra, and tried to stand to stop the pair, but was brought down by another sharingan induced hypnosis. Not wanting to take any chances, Naruto hit some points on her neck that would make sure she stayed down for a while.

Having nothing else to do besides copy the file and watch for the other chuunin, Tenten and Naruto moved into the side room where the file was located. They quickly located the target, and swiftly pulled it from the cabinet. Naruto let out a whistle, upon seeing the seals placed over the file.

“They weren't kidding when they said you couldn't copy it by means of chakra. You can't even take the thing out of the building without breaking two seals, plus another two on the door, probably above the frame. Whatever is in here, they must want to keep badly.”

“But then how are we going to get it back?” Tenten asked. “The point is to test our reliability, and we shouldn't go looking through a file that they want that badly, so how do we finish this?”

“First off, they never said we shouldn't look through it, unlike the test back in Konoha, so we're just going to have to copy it by hand, but we'll have to break another seal on the folder, which would normally take a bit of time, but since I'm here…” Naruto had the tendency to praise himself too much when it came to seals, but then he had the right too, he was far more advanced than 99. 6 percent of the world when it came to sealing.

Quickly severing the seal that held the folder shut, he pulled out a blank scroll of his own, as well as a pencil he kept on himself for occasions such as this. Looking over the file's contents, he was surprised when it turned out to be a profile of his team. He showed it to Tenten who just shrugged, so he continued to copy the file down, at least until he reached the information on himself.

Mitarashi Naruto- Age 15 rank?

Mitarashi Naruto is the only biological son of Mitarashi Anko, special jounin of Konoha. He is the human container of the Kyuubi no Kitsune, as it was sealed into him by the Yondaime Hokage. Not much is known of him until he became a genin. At his first genin exam he defeated Jounin Sabaku no Kankuro, a Hyuuga and the current Kazekage, Gaara-sama, showcasing an impressive display of thee different bloodline abilities. Sharingan (believed to be implanted, based on scarring around the eyes), Hyoton (Unknown), as well as the Sandaime Kazekage's signature ability, satetsu. (See note below) He has also shown an impressive ability with seals, having performed a five point seal in order to disrupt the chakra of Shukaku, during the invasion of Konoha.

NOTE: Naruto's ability to control the satetsu is believed to be directly inherited from the Sandaime Kazekage by way of Orochimaru and Akasuna no Sasori. Sasori is believed to have killed the Sandaime and taken his body, while Orochimaru is believed to have used the DNA in various experiments in hopes of recreating the satetsu.

NOTE 2: The theory that Naruto is a descendant of the Sandaime has been confirmed via blood sample, obtained by Sabaku no Kankuro. Genetic relation: Son.

The pencil dropped from Naruto's hands. Sure he had suspected that his father was the Sandaime, but to see it, confirmed by DNA, was another thing altogether. Unlike the rest of his family, Naruto had never had someone he wanted to get revenge against. Sure he had sworn to harm whoever had caused his mother the mental anguish she had suffered, but spending those two years with her, had shown the boy a side of his mom that was strong enough to fight her own battles. Now he had someone he needed to extract vengeance against. Akasuna no Sasori. The man that had killed his biological father, and even if he had never known him, Naruto felt some kind of connection. It was strange, really. He had never known his father, his mother hadn't even known him, and yet here he was, standing in the middle of a building during the middle of the chuunin exams, and he felt the sudden urge to find this scorpion and kill him for what he had done.

“You ok?” Tenten asked as she looked back from Sasuke who was keeping a look out for the other chuunin.

“Yeah…I mean, I'll be fine, just give me a minute.”

Tenten looked at the boy who had once defeated her. What she saw was something she hadn't come to associate with Naruto. Sadness and anger were splayed across his face, and by the whiteness of his knuckles, it had spread across his body.

“You sure? Is there something I can do?” She was more worried about her teammate, no her friend (and maybe more than that, if she could have he way) than the exam right now.

“I'll be fine, I'm sorry to make you worry, it's just something that I need to process for a while. I'll finish this up and let's get out of here.”

Sure enough, one minute later he was finished copying the folder's contents, and the team was on their way, making sure that the conked out guards would awaken before the next shift started, so as not to attract attention. The sprint back to their starting point was long and tiring, but they were surprised to find that they were the first team back. They were dismissed for the day, and told to return at noon the next day for the third exam.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Naruto just couldn't get to sleep, no matter what he tried to do that night. Finally around 2:30 am, he just got up and decided to walk around the village. He walked through the town, wondering what it was like when his father was alive, what kind of a Kazekage he was, and how he compared to the Hokage that he had grown up idolizing.

“I should have known, my chakra nature is wind, and that's really rare to find in Konoha, even if you are a genetic experiment.” He mumbled to himself as he kicked a small pile of sand, scattering the particles into the night air.

Somehow in all his wanderings, both mental and geographical, he had come to stand in front of the Kazekage's office, which still had a number of lights shining brightly from the top.

`I wonder if Gaara's still up?' He thought and decided to climb up to find out.

Walking up the stairs, he was disappointed in how many doors there were and how…plain it seemed. He could rationalize the doors, with so much sand blowing about, they must be needed to keep it out, but the lack of windows was another thing all together. Finally he came to a door that had the title, Kazekage, engraved on a small brass nameplate tacked to it. He was about to knock, when the door just opened up, granting him access.

Gaara was seated at his desk, buried behind piles of paperwork, but not as much as Tsunade was, or even the Sandaime.

“Naruto-san.” Gaara's voice was deeper than he had remembered, despite just having met with him a week ago.

“Kazekage-sama.” Naruto replied out of instinct, not quite having adjusted to the shock of the last mission yet.

“Please, there is no need for such formalities between friends.”

“You sure? I thought that one of the perks of being a Kage was that everyone had to call you -sama all the time.” Naruto joked, trying to force his mind to `normal'.

For a while, Gaara was silent, just working on his work and Naruto just stood there, looking around the office, trying to imagine what his father would have looked like in it. It was harder than it looked, considering that he didn't even know what his father looked like.

“So, can you tell me why you are staying up so late? It's not like you have to remain awake anymore, so why not get some sleep?” Naruto posed.

“It's just a habit. I used to spend the night by myself, and although it hurt at first, I eventually grew to enjoy the time I spent at night. Everything is much quieter and cooler at night. But that doesn't matter anymore, since Jiraiya-sama fixed my seal. The real question is why aren't you sleeping?”

Naruto sighed and closed his eyes, deep in thought.

“We just completed the second part of your exam, and I must say, pretty ingenious of you to pose information on our own team as classified information.”

“I suppose it is, but you still haven't answered my question, if you passed, then you will need all of your strength to pass tomorrow.” Gaara still hadn't raised his head away from his paper work.

“No, I suppose it doesn't. I'm just shocked. I had always wondered who my father was, if Kaa-san knew him, or if he was still alive. When I got older, I began to suspect that it was the Sandaime Kazekage, but to see it written down like that…it just became so…concrete, like there was no longer this possibility that he was still alive out there somewhere, there was no more mystery left in my search. It's just a lot to process at once, and I've never been good at handling large stuff like this.”

“I'm sorry for you to have to find out this way, when we were gathering the data; we assumed that you knew about the Sandaime.”

“There's no need to apologize, Gaara. I said that I suspected it; it's just the finality of it, is all. Every time I close my eyes, I keep trying to picture what he looked like, what I am supposed to look like. Kaa-san always described me has having her eyes and brown hair, but that doesn't help me much. I can't even imagine what he looked like, and yet I have this want, this urge to go avenge his death.”

Gaara stopped writing and looked at his friend, his first and probably best friend.

“If you want, I can show you a painting of the Sandaime, I'm sorry, but his things have long since been lost or destroyed. All that remains of him are his painting and statue.”

“Yeah, I'd like that.”

The two exited the office and headed to the room where the council of Suna would meet. Along the wall were statues of all the previous Kazekage's, from the Shodai Kazekage, who had a mask over his face, just like Kakashi-sensei wore. To the balding Nidaime, who only had hair falling down his back. Then he came to it. The statue of his father, the Sandaime. He had spiky hair that fanned out in front and fell down in back. He had a strong face and flat jaw line, something that Naruto actually thought he shared. The statues were all the same height, so there was no way to tell if he was tall or short, but he seemed like a man who was confident in what he did, and could do it well.

Gaara directed Naruto to a door at the far end of the room.

“This is the closest thing to peace than the Kazekage can get, it's also where we hand the paintings of those that have come before us.”

When he stepped in, Naruto could feel a sense of calm that persisted throughout the room, it was quiet, but had numerous windows that gave a view to the busy streets below. Hanging on the wall were four pictures, each of a man wearing the same blue and white robes. His gaze was drawn to the third portrait. Indeed, the man had a dark brown hair that defied gravity in front, and bowed to it as it receded down his head. His skin tone was darker than Naruto's, but it was obviously a tan. Though he couldn't see too many similarities, Naruto still found a connection between them.

“I don't know how much more you care to learn tonight, but there are a couple of things I wish to discuss with you before your examination.” Gaara broke the moment, but it was needed. Naruto knew that he easily would've sat in that room all night, just staring at his father's face.

Once back in Gaara's office, Naruto sat down and took the water he was offered.

“Seeing as you are his son, you are automatically considered a citizen of Sunagakure. Any time you wish to enter, you can, no questions asked. Secondly, you are entitled to all the information we have on your father's death. It shall be provided at the end of the exam. Unfortunately, all of the Sandaime's possessions have been lost or destroyed, so I cannot pass them on to you, but you and your mother are entitled some money for the widows and children of deceased ninja, should you so desire. That is all of the official business, though I do have one more thing to ask of you.” Gaara went down his mental list calmly, but when he came to the final item, became a bit hesitant.

“Oh, and what would that be?”

“As the Kazekage, I would like to make you an honorary shinobi of Suna, not because of your heritage, but because of what you have given me and my family. You wouldn't be forced to take missions or any other responsibilities of a normal shinobi, but you would be allowed more freedom if you returned here.”

Naruto was a bit struck. He had never thought that he might be given the opportunity to become a shinobi of two different nations, even if one was honorary.

“So I would be able to come and go as I please? I'm assuming that I wouldn't need to pass a chuunin exam again, right?” Receiving a snort and a nod from Gaara, Naruto continued to contemplate the decision. “Yeah, I'd like that. Even if I am a Konoha shinobi, it's nice to think that I'm somehow living up to him, even if it is only this.”

He took the Suna hitai ate that Gaara offered him, and looked at the shiny metal.

“It's been a long night, Naruto, you need to get your sleep, or else you might not make it through the third exam.” Gaara was trying to get back to his work, something he found hard to do around the half blond.

Realizing that his friend was right, Naruto pocketed his new headband, and thanked Gaara for showing him the painting of his father before leaving. By the time he got back to his room, the clock read 4:00 am, he had spent an hour and a half just walking and talking with Gaara. This time sleep came easily to him, not some fleeting object that dangled out of reach like before. Tomorrow was the final test of these chuunin exams, and if he didn't get a month to prepare, it wouldn't surprise him. But no matter, he would be ready for whatever, or whoever came his way.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA