Konoha's twin dragons

Chapter 18

Chunin Exams part II

Naruto was ecstatic now; he couldn't believe his own eyes. He was a genin little over 6 months ago and here he is now, standing in an arena full of crowd for the chunin exams to begin. Sure, Naruto by far is the strongest shinobi in his village after old man hokage; in terms of talent and strength that is. To be honest he and Sasuke are on an equal footing if Naruto doesn't use his Mangekyou. Most of their skills were pretty much equal in terms. Whenever they both had an all-out taijutsu spar, it would always be a stalemate. If Naruto wins one fight, then Sasuke would win the next one. That is how it goes. However, Sasuke himself knew that fighting Naruto with his Mangekyou is just a one-sided battle. Naruto would emerge victorious any given day and time. But despite all of that both of them were eager today. Afterall today would be the day they both would be testing their strengths against the best genin opponents the nations had to offer.

'Finally, the showdown begins!' thought Naruto as he assembled with his team along with other genin from respective villages. In front of them stood the Tsuchikage. Honestly the man was more-older than his jiji. He had his back completely hunch. Naruto though knew more than that, you can never see a person and determine their strength. He might be old but he wouldn't be a kage if he wasn't strong. That is what he thought upon seeing him for the first time during the first stage of exams too.

"Congratulations to each and every genin present in this arena. You really are the best genin from your village and hence you have a duty toward your village. As you all know chunin exams are conducted in order to display a village's military strength and the potential its younger generation is having. And hence your duty here is to fight to the best of your abilities and hold your nation's head high as you are its pride. Without further delay let us begin the tournament." Said the Tsuchikage, who finished his speech and set the exams into motion. Upon his speech finishing the whole arena roared as the crowd in there, shouted in excitement and started to prepare themselves for the showdown. However, many Iwa shinobi who came to witness the tournament, were setting their eyes on a familiar blond ninja and recognised him immediately. And they all had only one feeling. 'Its that bastard Yondaime's son!!!' a collective thought screamed in majority of their minds, who witnessed the third great shinobi war. Be it jonin or chunin.

Also, the Iwa jonin who heard rumours about Roshi being defeated by a team from Konoha; a team lead by Kakashi if rumours were true, were still seething in anger. They were seeing that masked jonin from Konoha sitting along with his fellow jonin next to him. Of course, being one of the students of Yondaime Hokage didn't help him much either. Everyone who recognised him were giving him daggers of cold glares. Kakashi didn't pay much mind though he knew it was like this. He was a shinobi after all. Even after all these years the bad blood between Iwa and Konoha still exists. Moreover, he was the third great ninja war hero too. He might not be as famous as his sensei, but with his sharingan during the third great shinobi war, he was giving quite the run for money to his Iwa opponents on the battlefield. Konoha had their fair share of Prodigies, and the coming generations are already having two of them as we are speaking. Kurenai and Asuma along with Guy were also having a collective expression on their faces and ignored the glares.

Right now, Kurenai and guy were little sad that their teams didn't get past the first stage. They simply couldn't finish in the top 4 teams that would be contending in the final stage. Guy upon knowing his team failed to clear the exams cried a lot and then vowed to train them thrice as harder and that he shall stroke their flames of youth much higher and will make them splendid shinobi. During the entire conversation except for guy and Lee everyone had sweatdrops on their faces. Lee being a clone of guy just shouted any phrase that came to his mind about youthfulness and said that, 'He would do his best and work even harder from that day on.'