(1st of July, year 55 AK)
Yuta, Itachi and Hikari entered the tower and walked into a big hall. On the opposite wall hanged a big frame with a big piece of paper inside with something written on it, they approached it.
'The text? I remember something about it from the anime, but my memories about it is quite vague...' Yuta thought, as he looked at the board and read,
'If qualities of Heaven are your desire, acquire wisdom and knowledge to take your mind higher.
If Earthly qualities are what you lack, train your body in the fields and prepare to attack.
When both Heaven and Earth are opened together, the path of peril will revert to the righteous path forever. This [BLANK] is the secret way. . .
. . . That guides us on from this place today.
-Third'
...
'Writing a whole glorified poem in which you basically tell the wannabe Chunins to train harder? Nice one, Hiruzen...' Yuta thought sarcastically, 'And you even signed the text, the three characters at the bottom, 三代目, it literally translates as Third Generation Head.'
'Heaven here referred to mind and Earth to body, and the text is about achieving balance. Well, somehow, I feel being personally targeted by that, huh... And there is a clue to open both scrolls at the same time to solve the missing part...'
As Yuta was still thinking, Itachi already moved and pulled two scrolls, Heaven and Earth and handed Yuta the Heaven one.
Then Yuta and Itachi looked at each other briefly, Itachi gave a quick nod, and they opened the scrolls next instant at the same time.
Yuta looked at the contents of his scroll, there was a sealing formula inscribed in it, with a big character for Human in the middle, and the next instant Yuta sensed a significant chakra fluctuations from the scroll and realized that the formula is being activated.
"It's a summoning formula, throw the scroll." Itachi said calmly and without much urgency and both of them thrown their scrolls away, and as the scrolls landed, the big puff of smoke burst out of them, and as the smoke cleared, the man in Konoha's ninja attire was revealed.
After that the man introduced himself and congratulated them with completing the second phase of the Chunin Exams. He was quite surprised by the time they've completed it and appeared somewhat shocked, but still, he continued with a long explanation of the true meaning behind the test, the scrolls, the text on the wall, and all that.
"We get it, can we move on already?" Hikari was the first who's patience ran out, as she asked with annoyance.
'Not a smart move, Hikari.' Yuta thought as he was patiently listening to the whole explanation even though he already knew most of it and figured out the rest on his own before the explanation even started, 'Each of us being constantly watched and evaluated during the whole Chunin Exams, even Itachi was patiently listening without showing how bored he truly is right now, and I'll bet he figured everything faster than I did. Although I truly doubt someone as strong as Hikari, no matter how she behaves, could possibly be failed and not promoted to Chunin right away after everyone sees her strength in the finals...'
'In the original story they talk a lot about the "true qualities" of a Chunin, about that the most important for a Chunin is to have a good leader qualities and things like that, and although it was somewhat true, the strength always comes first.'
'But still, there was events from the original story when Chunin Exams happened, where Naruto, Sasuke, and even Neji, when all of them had shown a remarkable level of strength, none of them was promoted to Chunin, but back then Hiruzen died and "Konoha Crush" happened, so it's not an indicator, I guess.
'Although, later on when Tsunade becomes Hokage, she promoted Shikamaru, but not others, so I'm still not a hundred percent sure that just strength, if it is not straight on the Jonin level, would be enough to guarantee the promotion. But still, if they wouldn't promote all three of us, the strongest participants by far this time, then no one deserves a promotion at all...'
Although Yuta was almost completely sure that all three of them would be promoted no matter what, he still remained on his best behavior to appear as a professional ninja worthy of a promotion. He was very interested in being promoted to Chunin, after all, Chunins get more rights in the village, more clearance and access to restricted intel, the rights to assemble and lead teams, to accept missions up to B-rank, they could accumulate merit and exchange it for jutsu, and have much more influence and respect and things like that.
If Genins are basically solders, Chunins are officers and squad leaders, where Jonins are generals and elite high ranked officers and platoon leaders in this power structure.
Solders don't have the rights to choose anything and do what their superiors are telling them to do, no questions asked. All the access to important information they possibly have – is only what their direct superiors are telling them and nothing else.
While Chunins, as officers of the village, have access to the restricted archives with a lot of intel, thought that intel is not something too important or secretive. It was the information that is restricted from the public, but not too important, since it was possible for the spies to get access to it. There are multiple thousands of Chunins in Konoha, some of them could be spies from other hidden villages, it is impossible to catch them all.
It is the world of ninjas, after all, and there is a constant struggle between five big organizations, the major hidden villages, that lasts for more than fifty years at this point, and they are not holding back on espionage and subterfuge at all, rather it is the specialty of ninjas.
All of that Yuta understood less from his knowledge from the original story, but rather more from his own observations in this world and from the talks with Shisui and occasional hints from him about how things work in the village.
Yuta used to ask a lot of questions to Shisui in his free time about things like, how to get access to more jutsus in the village and stuff like that, but Shisui rarely answered such questions directly. He wasn't withholding information from Yuta either. He was dropping slight hints in conversations, expecting Yuta to pick it up and to figure out the rest, it seems to be just the way he operates. Or, Yuta suspected, it was the way every high ranked ninja operates in the village.
At first Yuta was frustrated by this, but later on he understood Shisui's intentions, it was never to withhold information from him, it was rather for his own training of the ability to pick up slightest clues and figuring out things, sharpening Yuta's mind further in the process.
Back to the present, after Hikari remarked with annoyance, the ninja who was lecturing them about the meanings of the second exam stopped and sighed, as he said, "Fine, we can end it here. You can go upstairs now, there you can rest and wait, but you are not allowed to exit the tower until the five-days period ends."
'Five days of doing nothing, huh... I like the sound of that.' Yuta thought half-jokingly.
They walked up the stairs, Yuta saw there was a big open area with benches, tables, open areas, bathrooms on the side, but nothing much beside that.
"Well, at least it's a bit better than camping in the wild, I guess..." Yuta commented unenthusiastically.
Itachi simply walked to the closest bench and sat down. It seems he was intending to do just that – sit down and wait passionately for the whole five days...
"This is going to be as boring as it gets..." Hikari said with a dead inside voice.
Then she glanced at Yuta and said a bit enthusiastically, "Hey, Yuta, we have to do something to entertain ourselves..."
--- author note: I know what you were thinking, you dirty-minded reader, she is nine, god dammit...---
"How about some training with genjutsu? I could be your target if you want..." Hikari continued.
"No, thanks." Yuta replied with a deadpan expression, "We will be fighting in the finals against each other, why would I practice my genjutsu on you right now? So you could learn everything about it beforehand?"
"Tsk, you are boring..." Hikari replied with an irritated voice and walked to another bench.
'Well, I do need some rest, with the mental exhaustion after working on that stupid genjutsu trick for who knows how long inside my mindscape, I feel I'm about to sleep for at least 24 hours straight.' Yuta thought as he walked to another bench in the corner and laid down on it, putting his pouch under his head and using it as a pillow.
Soon he was fast asleep.
Afte a good long sleep, Yuta finally woke up feeling rested and full of energy.
He sat up on the bench and saw that both Itachi and Hikari were asleep not far away on the benches, just like Yuta was sleeping a moment ago. There was still no one else in the area.
Yuta stood up and walked to the window, it was a middle of the night.
'I slept for the remaining of the day and the half of the night, about fourteen hours, huh...' He thought while looking from the window over the massive forest below, the moon in the sky was dimly lighting the scene, 'What should I do now? Resting and sleeping is nice, but I already feel an urge to do something productive...'
--- AN ---
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