Hey guys, this is the first chapter of a story I hope to finish. .. Some of my friends have an idea of how short-term I am, but I really hope to be dedicated to this story. Reviewsextra motivation, so review quick, both with criticism and compliments, tyty. Second chapter mite take awhile, I am in junior year after all.

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Chapter 1 - The Graduation Exam -
"...and let me remind you all once again, the exam requires you to make use of one Henge no Jutsu, one Kawarimi no Jutsu and a technique of your own..." The teacher stood at the front of the classroom babbling on the morning of the exam.

A boy sat in the far corner looking outside the window. There was no point in hearing the teacher one more time when he had received the instructions the first time. Three jutsu, two of which were set, one of which he had come up with on his own. As the exam was a maze, he found some stupid tracking jutsu that he didn't want to use anyways. He even forgot the name of the jutsu, but he just had to know the seals. He was just that kind of person.

Unabara Enkai abruptly turned around from his daydream to a seething teacher with his ruler on the table. He was so glad that this was exam day, his teacher was always so short-tempered. He continued to stare nonchalantly into his eyes. A pair of laid back, ice blue eyes faced the seething monotonous black eyes in front of him. Enkai finally replied.

"Yes?" He sighed once.

"Why are you not listening and DAYDREAMING IN CLASS? UNABARA-SAN PLEASE EXPLAIN!!" Enkai sighed again.

"It's the day of the exam, and I've got to rest somehow, in any way before the exam. This looks like the time to do it."

The teacher looked speechless for a moment when the bell rung. He then retracted his advance on Enkai and asked all the students to file out of the classroom. It was time for the exam. Not that he cared, he'd pass anyways. So he just ambled along until Uchiha Kasai, a childhood friend and classmate-since-first-year caught up with him.

"Hey, Enkai. Good job fighting back baka-sensei back there. One of your finest. I've never seen him so speechless"
"Haha, don't worry, Kasai, everyone's out to get him. Did my face look realistic enough?" Enkai had turned into a completely different person. His large ice blue eyes had opened to their full extent now, instead of the half-closed, dreamy state that "baka-sensei" had rounded on. Enkai's hair was white with a grayish tone to it, he had no idea why, but it was like that for as long as he could remember. He had Far Eastern features but had retained large ice-blue eyes. His hair was spiked to the back, his bangs swept to the right. He wore a blue t-shirt that had nothing on it except the separate necklace he had on. The necklace had two ice-blue beads, like his eyes, and a tooth in the middle made of ivory. The string was black. He wore a pair of khaki shorts with a kunai holster and shuriken holster that the store down the street from his home had been kind enough to offer.

Enkai wasn't a talented fighter, but he was above average, in a way. He wasn't physically bad off either. He was around 5'5 at 12 years old, which isn't bad considering how the rest of his class except for a handful of boys, including Kasai, were around 5 feet. Nara Shiranaika took this especially hard. He was only 4'11 after all.

Enkai also had muscular arms, as far as muscular is for a 12 year old. He didn't boast about it, but he did notice that those who were tall didn't have muscles, and those who were short had fist power to reckon with. Again, these descriptions referred to everyone save Kasai, for some reason. But he had only been looking at the guys. He wasn't interested in girls yet. He wanted to improve his jutsu, but he wanted to do it his own way, treating school like nothing, saying it deprived learning jutsu of the pleasure of self-exploration and initiative spurred entirely by your own motivation. Thus, he slipped into a time of decay, where education ruined his chances at learning jutsu by himself.

Kasai was slightly different. He came from the prestigious Uchiha clan (or it had once been, since Sasuke's older brother massacred the clan and then Sasuke killed him and married an outsider to start the clan.) He had a twin brother who kept to himself a lot, but that never hurt Kasai's ability to socialize. Kasai had his bangs separated so they went down the sides of his face, and left his forehead exposed. His hair also was spiky at the back like his father's. His eyes were completely onyx, his face constantly bursting with expression (a virus, that most people caught and didn't care to defend against, thought Enkai). Kasai had, as opposed to Enkai, a white t-shirt with the Uchiha crest on the back, his collar in the regular Uchiha fashion. He was about Enkai's height and still growing. He didn't have muscles as toned as Enkai's, but he had speed at a higher level than Enkai's, being able to form a Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu in less than a second. His close to midrange combat wasn't bad either. He had his father to teach him jutsu, whereas Enkai did not.

Enkai had stepped into the exam arena chatting to Kasai about Nostale, an MMORPG that they and they only played. They did hear the instructions and wishes of good luck by "baka-sensei" and the two other teachers who joined him. He had also mentioned something about the Hokage, but it registered as "blah, blah, blah, Hokage, blah blah blah" to Enkai. Kasai was raring to go after looking at the arena.

The arena was a recent expansion to the Academy after Rokudaime Hokage-sama initiated a new graduation exam. The arena itself was a large stadium, enough space for a fight in the flat area below and seats able to hold 10,000 people at once. It was truly a magnificent place. Although the interior design lacked innovation, Enkai thought, it was where they would have to carry out their exam. So let's rumble.

To do the exam, the class would be split into temporary cells of 3. If the cells could work together well, and all of them fulfilled the requirements, then they would pass and be sorted into their genin teams as such. As "baka-sensei" and his two "cohorts" as Enkai referred to them as, called out the names for the different cells, he heard that he would be put into the same cell as Kasai and another girl who's name escaped him. He might have heard it before, but she obviously did not make herself known to the class. Her name was Suzume Koyuki and she stood in the far corner as Enkai found her. She wore a pretty flashy uniform. She had a brown scarf, brown hair and a woodland-type green shirt and black shorts. Same kunai and shuriken holsters as Enkai's, but all the vendors in town sold the same type of holster, so he didn't pay attention to it as much. Her face was fair complexioned like most females, but there was a silent and hibernating resiliency that nobody seemed to want to try and penetrate anyways, so she stood in the corner closing her eyes and crossing her arms. Enkai scratched his chin for a moment and made to talk to Kasai again when he heard Koyuki's voice from afar.

"You better not drag me down. I intend to pass this exam."

Her voice made Enkai jump for a bit that he didn't reply. But when he turned back around to face her, she was gone, instead now sitting in one of the seats in the stadium by herself as the other shinobi-in-training scattered to watch the first run.

Speaking of what was being run, the test seemed to be an obstacle course only seen from the seats. The obstacle course stretched from the stadium out into the training area adjacent to the stadium and the academy. The training area had a bit of grassland for rest, and it then lead off into a forest where the end was seeable but not easily attainable. The students had a time limit of 12 hours. Since it was 7:00 am right now (Enkai checked his watch and then checked Kasai's to make sure) they had until 7:00 that night to finish the exam, depending on when their run will start, which will start 15 minutes in between. There were 7 cells, and (Enkai had a sneak peek at "baka-sensei's" cell sheet) they would be starting last.

To burn time until they would start their run, Enkai told Kasai to join him and greet Koyuki, for cell unity purposes. Kasai agreed, and walked over with Enkai to the silent Koyuki, who had her eyes tightly shut. She didn't greet them when the boys sat down.

"Hey, Koyuki-chan, whatsu-" Enkai began. "First of all, do NOT refer to me with -chan. Second of all, Uchiha-san, there are pebbles in your sandals. I suggest you remove them before it harms the success rate of our mission. Third of all, this is a temporary cell, so I do not intend to enjoy an icebreaker with you two. Did I answer all of your questions clearly?"
Enkai shut his mouth. Every single one.
"Aw, how did she know? I was planning to leave them alone until the mission actually begun!" Kasai proceeded to take out the rocks.
"I have a good sense of hearing. Deal with it."

Enkai surmised that Koyuki wasn't a very friendly person, and decided to just sit with her while she meditated. Enkai saw her keen sense of vision however, and intended to put it to good use in the mission, together with Kasai's strong style of combat, to make up for Enkai's lack of useable jutsu.

In less than a minute from those thoughts, they were called down to the starting line, watching the second-to-last group dash off into the forest.

"This is it, students. You will go through the obstacle course beginning here in the stadium and ending at the other end of the forest. The object in the forest is to get through the blockade of ninjas situated in units around the forest, and to defeat 8 of them, most of which are genin, 3 of which are chuunin. The exam only requires the defeat of one chuunin, but extra marks are awarded to the cell that defeats all three. As proof of victories, you will hand over these scrolls-" he pulled out a scroll marked "one" and another marked "two" in kanji. "-which both types of ninja will carry. Chuunins will carry the "two" scroll, and Genin will carry the "one" scroll. Head out!"

With that, the three man cell meant for destiny scrambled ahead.