When Death Tries To Greet You

9.

    Obito was resting on the bench above the bridge at his team's usual meet up spot, when three slips of paper were presented infront of him.

   When his eyes adjusted, he noticed that there was blonde spiky hair behind the papers.

"Good morning to you too, Minato-sensei..."

    He drawled out the words lazily like a Nara, looking at his sensei like he had just told him cows were flying. He'd pay to see that, by the way.

"Do you have any clue what these are, Obito?"

   Obito rubbed his chin in fake thought, even though he had no fucking clue what the papers were.

"The coordinates to your secret ero novel stash?"

   The reaction Minato gave was enough to send Obito on his back laughing. The man stuttered incoherently, backing away and blushing ferociously.

"Obito! I am your sensei, you shouldn't group me with crude things like-" Obito cut him off, still laughing, "Like how your sensei reads ero novels too, eh?" He doubles over now, holding his stomach and shaking. Minato glares at his student, and looks at the time.

"What are you doing here this early anyways? You're always late, should I be concerned?"

Obito rose an ebony eyebrow at him. "Nah, I just figured we'd have a super badass mission, since we've been on a leave so long."

Minato grinned mischievously, "Well this is even better. You'll see soon, when the others arrive."

A couple of hours passed before his teammates showed up one bye one, each drowsy with sleep grabbing at their consciousness.

Obito's eyes searched for the blonde girl, and when he didn't see her, he voiced his concerns. "Where's Naruto?" Minato shrugged, and closed his eyes. He felt a small, subtle wave of chakra flow over him, and realized that the man was searching for her.

"She's asleep, let's go wake her. She'll need to be here to hear this."

His team, begrudgingly, followed the man to Naruto's house. Obito motioned for them to wait outside, since he didn't want her to be spooked by multiple presences in her house at one time.

He shook her softly, before shaking her a little roughly when she didn't respond. She opened her eyes, groggily mumbling jumbled words and curses.

"Whazzat?"

Obito pulled her up, and shook her gently. "You need to get up, Minato-sensei has an announcement for us. It's important he said"

The effect is almost instantaneous. The sleepiness in her eyes vanish, and she's up and alert. She rushes and throws on her training clothes, her pouches and brushes her teeth. Obito follows behind her in close steps.

"Quickly, we don't want them to be waiting forever, you know."

She mumbled out a response, the coherence of it being drowned out by toothpaste. Naruto spat the toothpaste out, and grabbed Obito's arm walking out the door quickly.

"Hey guys, sorry. If I had known there was an important team meeting today-"

Minato cut her off with a dismissive wave, "It's really alright. This was last minute. Anyway, I have three slips for you. It's the chunin exams, I figured that you guys would be excited to go?"

The team stared at the blond man, like he'd grown two heads. Rin spoke first, "Yes, sensei! Thank you, that would be wonderful." Kakashi looked as if he couldn't care less, and Obito gawked.

He broke out into a smile, "Yes! Thank you sensei!" Minato returned his smile, nodding.
Kakashi, though, spoke up on something Naruto had been wondering herself. "But what does this have to do with Naruto?"

Minato rubbed his hands together playfully, before telling them. "Since Kakashi is already chunin, we need a genin replacement. Since Naruto is already well acquainted with the team, she'll do well to be our third genin."

Naruto nodded, honored honestly, for him to have included her in this. She would take this opportunity to scale the ranks, and become influential quickly. There was a lot of work she had to do to save this world. Naruto looked at him, eyeing him closely.

"When do we start?"

Minato rubbed his neck anxiously, an action she could relate to, before he replied.

"Well..." He looks at the sky, calculating the time. "In about two hours."

"This evening, Minato-sensei, really?!" Team Seven was fuming, and Kakashi was indifferent. Though he seemed a bit irked too.

"Listen guys.." Minato tried, before Obito cut him off. "You have to tell us beforehand next time!"

Minato nods, not really sure when there'll be a next time for this situation. Sweat dropping, he hands them the slips of paper.

"Sign your names, and then head over to the academy when you're ready. It's where the first part of the exams are being held. Remember to have wit, but not reveal all your tricks. Try not to draw too much attention to yourselves, there will be many people after you already because of me being your teacher."

They nodded, and Minato disappeared in a burst of leaves. Cool shit.

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When Team Seven, minus Kakashi, arrived at the academy, there were hundreds of ninjas there. Headbands from all over the world, all in this little building. It made Obito nervous, he scaled his eyes around hundreds of forms, estimating their power.

He would defend his team, with his life, if that's what it came to be. They walked to the room, 301, which was the room for the written exam. When they entered, the proctor told them that the seats were assigned, and split them up across the room.

Obito looked at both his teammates wearily, as the room began to fill up with other ninjas. He traced his forehead protector as the proctor explained the first exam.

—————————
Naruto had caused a scene, a big one. So much for not drawing attention. Turns out, the final question was if you had the courage to fight for your team and keep going, and not to literally answer. He wasn't even sure if any of the questions needed to be answered.

Naruto had shown that to everyone, when the proctor practically laughed at her blank paper. She had answered no questions, and only put down her name. Obito bit his cheek, and glanced at Rin.

Her form was rigid aswell, and he silently cursed. They had barely made it out of this test, and it was only supposed to get harder from here.

Obito just hoped that he and his team could take whatever this exam dished out.