Tsuchigumo

What Is a Shinobi?

Naruto nervously clicked his pedipalps as he waited outside with the rest of his class. Today would be the day. The whole week was busy with written exams and physical evaluation. Naruto knew he can't hope for much with the written part. For whatever reason, he's just bad at thinking things the way Shinobi does. He mean; who has the time to calculate a kunai's trajectory in numbers? It would be more practical to gauge with his eyes and pray for the best! Not to mention, what others have years to learn, he learned them in only four years and two of that was catching up on reading comprehension!

For physical evaluation he had to be taken aside and do it away from the others due to his wider move sets. Gai personally came to test him. Naruto doesn't know whether to call it an honor or a horrific experience. Shikamaru and Sasuke just stared at him in sympathy. Naruto spent the rest of the day treating his sore muscles from having to grapple with Gai. The man was not being pretentious when he called himself a beast because he is one! Who give spiders muscle pain?! But it was an understandable decision. Naruto natural strength alone would challenge ordinary Shinobi. But with the things the Spiders taught him, Naruto's ability reached a new level that can only be challenged by the likes of Gai. With Gai, Naruto was forced to go all out and play the creative card because the man was an expert fighter and a war veteran. He has seen things! He has done things! Due to that, Gai didn't even break a sweat fighting against Naruto.

And Lee was well on his way to be just like Gai...

Just thinking about it made Naruto feel fatigue the weight of the Hokage Mountain...

Naruto looked up as Uchiha Sasuke was called in. He clicked his pedipalps nervously. He knew that he has three different Jutsu that he need to do. He was fairly good with Kawarimi and Bunshin. His mother fixed his Bunshin problem easy enough. He has Uzumaki quality chakra which would make using the normal Bunshin Jutsu impossible for him due to how minuscule the chakra used. Even though he has rather exceptional chakra control for a Genin his age, he wasn't challenged enough to really see his control. So she had taught him Kage Bunshin instead, making him promise to never teach the Jutsu, that falls under Kinjutsu, to the twins.

Having been the one Iruka sent to catch the bored twins whenever they have had enough of boring classes, because unlike him they're both blessed by Minato's brain, they will play hooky and cause trouble somewhere in Konoha, Naruto understand and shared her concern very well. So Konoha has gotten used to see the large spider boy hybrid chasing the Uzumaki Double Terror around Konoha, catch them with his silks, and bundled them up good before hauling them back to school...or the Hokage's office depending on what they did that day.

(Unknown to Naruto and noticed by Minato, that was actually the twins' idea on how to force Konoha to adapt to Naruto's presence, something that Iruka caught on and played along with)

So Naruto's strongest concern wasn't those two Jutsu. His biggest pet peeve would be Kawarimi. No matter what he does, he couldn't make the item he exchanged with any smaller. So he could only hope that Iruka would not fail him due to the fact that his log was larger than the others...

"Uzumaki Naruto!"

Naruto gulped, clacked his pedipalps nervously, and stiffly made his way into the classroom. An unknown Chuunin stared at him beside Iruka who only nodded as Naruto stiffly greeted his examiners. Iruka gestured for him to take his spot before them right on top of the 'x' mark plastered there by the teachers. Iruka chuckled at Naruto stiffness, "Relax, Naruto. Nothing's going to eat you here,"

The Chuunin beside him mumbled, "Nothing can eat him. Not with that size..."

Iruka laughed and introduced the man, "This is Yakushi Kabuto. He's recently made Chuunin and has shown an interest in teaching. So please don't mind him. Now!" He opened his papers, "I want to see you perform the...Henge!"