Will of Fire: Kakashi Hatake

Chapter 5

"No way."

Akira picked her head up and looked at Yuhi, who was staring straight ahead of them.

"Look, it's the center building!"

Somaru and Akira both snapped their heads around to look across the clearing. There, peeking through the trees still some ways away was indeed the center building.

"We're so close, we can make it before nightfall!"

The sun had slowly began to set on the team as they had been walking. But in the last rays of sunshine, they were almost there.

With a burst of energy, the three of them jumped into the trees and started making their way towards the building. Akira didn't sense anyone else around them, much to her relief. None of them were in fighting condition at the moment.

They crossed over a small creek in the air, then landed in a clearing just outside the building. They walked around the building until they found the set of doors with the number four on it. They pushed them open and crossed the threshold.

Inside it was warm and the walls danced with warm torchlight from above. The setting sun behind them cast their shadows long across the floor. It was a single room, with a tall ceiling and another door at the back of it. Above the door, a long tapestry on the back wall with faded writing on it waved in the slight breeze that was let in from the open doors behind them.

"Now what?" Yuhi asked quietly.

"Let's open the scrolls." Akira said.

Somaru gave her a strange look. "Why?"

"That's what the tapestry says. Heaven and earth together lead the way forward for the path of the shinobi. I think we have to open them."

She pulled their original heaven scroll out of her pouch, and Somaru pulled out his earth scroll that he had fought Teku for. Yuhi watched anxiously as they pulled them open. She gasped when they fully opened them.

Akira and Somaru both jumped and then glared at her. "Sorry! Sorry." She exclaimed, raising her hands up in front of her chest in surrender.

They looked back down at the scrolls. "They're empty," Somaru said, confused.

Akira frowned. All that for an empty scroll?

A puff of smoke appeared beside them. All three genin jumped and drew kunai, expecting another attack. But the person that stepped out of the smoke was none other than their sensei.

"Isamu sensei!"

Akira, Yuhi, and Somaru lowered their weapons in relief upon seeing their jonin sensei.

"Great job you guys! You have passed the second part of the chunin exams! I'm proud of you!" Isamu smiled brightly at all of them.

"What happens now sensei?" Yuhi asked.

"Now, you guys rest until the other teams show up. There's so few of you, I expect it won't take the full five days for the rest of them to arrive. Especially since you took out two of the sand shinobi teams."

Somaru's jaw dropped. "How did you–"

"Did you think we weren't monitoring you guys? We have to watch how the exams go to evaluate you, you know." Isamu chided.

Somaru blushed and rubbed the back of his head. "Yeah, right."

"You all did great work out there. Now come on, let's get you to your rooms so you can rest okay?"

They followed Isamu through the door at the back of the room, which opened up into a circular hallway that they assumed span the whole building. They turned left, and walked down the hallway for a bit, then turned right down another hallway. This one ended in a staircase, which they climbed to find themselves in a much more open hallway with rooms lining each side.