Haruto gave his class a cursory glance. Everyone was here and most of the top graduates he had named appeared more or less ready. The only anomaly was that Sasuke was actually sitting alone for once. Wait, why was Sasuke sitting alone? The blond was not the only one to notice as more than a few of the guys appeared perplexed as well. Kiba, of course, tried to establish himself as alpha of the pack, and failed spectacularly.
Haruto looked around again before smiling. Due to the recent use of practical exercises, the seriousness of becoming a ninja was finally dawning on everyone. Even Sakura and Ino paid only scant attention to their crush, having taken the seats above the Uchiha.
There's hope yet. It made the blond feel a lot better, knowing that the girls were capable of actions other than obsessing over their crush.
The Special ANBU agent recalled following the two girls once when they had been assigned to train with Sasuke. Predictably, the giddy girls had chased after their crush. Equally predictably, the Uchiha left them in the dust when he disappeared to train by himself. The great surprise, then, had been what the girls did after. They had not cried or whined, not much at least. Instead, they had picked a quiet location and trained for the rest of the day.
It had not been the most successful training session he had ever witnessed, but given their youth and normal proclivities, Haruto had been very impressed by their efforts. True, they had faltered with ninjutsu and had made only moderate progress with some weak genjutsu, but they had displayed great tenacity in taijutsu. Their forms, stances and movements, particularly Sakura's, had been much better than what he had assumed. For one thing, both girls rarely telegraphed their movements.
Wonder why they never fought so well in class. Haruto had seen the two top kunoichi spar and it had been downright pathetic. Still, their martial arts would never become their strong suit. While they certainly could become proficient martial artists, it remained to be seen whether they could hold their own against very skilled fighters. Such a scenario did not seem likely. Like him, the girls were short and possessed shorter limbs, which translated to less reach, but unlike him, they possessed less than stellar physical constitutions.
To Haruto, however, those issues were minor concerns. The presence of individual initiative in both girls greatly alleviated Haruto's doubts and forced him to reassess certain things. Sure, they still possessed numerous critical and potentially fatal weaknesses, but all newbie ninja did. Their future sensei, the famous ninjutsu copycat shinobi and former ANBU captain, would surely help them eliminate or at least minimize those flaws.
"Next up, Haruto Uzumaki." The blond blinked. He had been so engrossed in his thoughts that he almost missed his name being called.
"You're up, dead last," Sasuke offered helpfully.
"I'm not ranked last anymore!" Haruto declared instinctively as he marched up to his instructor. Iruka gave his favorite student a faint smile. Despite his poor showing at the beginning, Haruto had steadily improved to become a capable ninja student. Had he started out along with everyone else, Iruka was sure that he would be at the top of the class by now.
"Use the Bunshin no Jutsu to create three clones." Iruka knew this was not Haruto's best technique, but he had every confidence that his student would succeed. He was right. The blond skipped away with his new forehead protector securely fastened to his head.
"That was quite impressive. And the cloning technique used to be his weakest technique," Mizuki stated.
"Yes," Iruka agreed. In his happiness at his student's success, he missed the darker undertone in his assistant's voice. Mizuki's slip, however, was not missed by Haruto.
The spy is angry. The blond quickly concluded that the man must have been hoping for him to fail in order to use him. Haruto decided that he'd best be extra vigilant today, just in case.
"The idiot actually passed."
"Shut up, Sasuke."
"Don't tell Sasuke-kun to shut up, Haruto! But good job on passing." Though quick to rush to her crush's defense, Ino was nevertheless genuinely pleased that her classmate passed.
"Ah, congratulations, Haruto-kun," Hinata whispered shyly.
"You are troublesome, but I'm glad you passed."
The undercover Special ANBU filed his thoughts away. For now, he would enjoy the rest of the afternoon with his friends, semi-friends, and rivals.
"Stupid brat just had to pass the exam," Mizuki cursed, fuming and panting as he ran through the forest with the forbidden scroll held tight in his grasp. He had been hoping to trick the Kyuubi brat into procuring the scroll for him, but the blasted demon had defied expectations and actually passed the exam. As a result, the chuunin had been forced to expend precious time, energy, and chakra to penetrate the Hokage's office. Now, all of Konoha was out hunting for him.
"Going somewhere, old friend?" An infuriated Iruka stepped out.
"Iruka!" the silver-haired man sneered.
"You traitor! How could you turn your back on the village?"
Mizuki glared hatefully at his onetime friend. "I do it for power! Something people like you can never understand. You and those other demon-lovers will be the downfall of this village!"
A shocked Iruka looked at the other man in disgust. "To think Haruto actually respected you. He came to me earlier today, saying how sorry he was for all the pranks he played. He said he wanted to apologize to you as well before he graduated, but I told him I would do it for him. I wonder what he must think of you now. Friend or not, I will stop you."
The traitorous chuunin, however, stood there in profound shock.
Fucking brat! Mizuki's widened eyes were the size of saucer plates. The stupid demon somehow set him up. No wonder the patrols were already alerted to him. He had thought that he would have more time to get away.
"Stupid brat. The monster should have been killed years ago. No matter, I will escape. You can not stop me, old friend."
From high up in the forest shadows and under the cover of branches, Haruto Uzumaki watched the scene unfold. The blond had been shadowing the traitor silently, hoping that one of the dispatched hunter groups would overtake the chuunin, thereby eliminating the need for him to personally intervene. Unfortunately, his academy sensei ended up intercepting the fleeing ninja instead.
Minutes into the battle, the hidden ANBU had a frown on his face. This match was not going in Iruka's favor. The scarred man was reluctant to seriously hurt his childhood friend, while Mizuki was not constrained. When an oversized shuriken lodged itself into Iruka's backside, Haruto decided to intervene.
"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" Dozens of solid copies of Haruto appeared beside him. About half a dozen charged the surprised Mizuki as he was about to deliver the fatal blow.
"What? Who are you?" The chuunin barely managed to fend off the first assault wave. He eyed the approaching swarm of ANBU with fear. Haruto ignored the question.
"For having reneged upon your sworn shinobi duties to Konohagakure and the Hokage, and for the charges of high treason, I'm here to terminate you. Prepare to meet your maker."
Though skilled and quite powerful for a chuunin, Mizuki had never been trained to deal with mass assaults composed of fully solidified shadow clones. Five minutes later, the man fell to the ground in a bloody heap. The actual ANBU had not moved a single muscle.
What amazing power. A prone Iruka thought as he watched the battle in stunned silence, mesmerized by the elite ninja's ruthless efficiency. But when the ANBU moved forward and raised his sword to deliver the coup de grace, the chuunin spoke out.
"No, wait! He is already defeated!"
Haruto halted his downward strike. "Chuunin instructor, the traitor must be punished for his crimes. You, of all people, should know that."
Of course he did, but Iruka could not just sit around and let his former friend be killed in cold blood. The wounded man tried unsuccessfully to rise.
Haruto frowned from behind his mask. He did not like doing the deed, but he knew it was necessary. It would've been disastrous for Konoha had Mizuki escaped with the scroll and whatever intelligence he might have acquired. As the ANBU prepared to strike the traitor down once more, several more figures along with a large dog arrived on the scene.
"Alright, stop where you are!" the female leader commanded as her allies formed a semi-circle around the masked man with the sword.
Haruto sighed as he eyed the group. They were not ANBU as none of them wore a mask. So much for remaining hidden.
"What is an ANBU doing here?" one of the others asked in a suspicious voice.
"I'm afraid that's classified. I was, however, able to neutralize the threat." Haruto motioned towards the bloody body of Mizuki.
"Stop him from killing Mizuki!" Iruka croaked. The disguised blond groaned.
"Iruka! What happened?" One of the other members quickly moved to render the injured man medical assistance. The others tensed as they refocused their attention on the masked stranger. It was not unknown for infiltration nin of other villages to disguise themselves as indigenous ANBU members.
"It's alright, Hayate. He helped save me from Mizuki so I think he's with us."
"Yep, Kuromaru confirms that he's definitely one of us," the female added. The big black dog barked in agreement. The group visibly relaxed.
"Sorry about that," the leader apologized.
Haruto shrugged it off. "Being cautious is a good thing."
The tough looking woman laughed while the others smiled. "Spoken like a true ANBU. We are grateful for your assistance." Here, the female glared at her dog, who whined pathetically. "My partner lost the scent chasing after some cat."
"Glad to be able to help, Tsume-sama." Haruto gave a curt bow as he acknowledged the clan leader. Of course, he did not have to, but thought it was the polite thing to do. Tsume was surprised, but nodded in acceptance.
"I'm curious as to whom we owe our thanks for having saved our friend here," Hayate asked after making sure that Iruka was ok. This young ANBU intrigued him and Hayate was pretty sure he had never seen him before.
"I'm curious as well. No offense, but you people aren't usually the friendliest or politest bunch. Or so Hiashi-sama keeps telling us at the council meetings," Tsume drawled casually. Everyone except for Haruto chuckled at the dig against the overly proper leader of the Hyuuga clan.
"My codename is Genji. I'm a Special Liaison to ANBU and am currently attached to Captain Tenzou's team." Recognition appeared in several of the people present.
"So you're the new kid," Tsume stated with a wide grin.
Haruto frowned. "Excuse me?"
"There's a lot of buzz about some new prodigy in ANBU; one that, according to certain people, makes Itachi look like an academy dropout in comparison."
Haruto was stunned. He was being talked about? And in such positive terms? Despite the mask, the other ninja apparently read his disbelief and were having good fun with it. That was until a certain scarred chuunin made a connection.
"Wait, you are the one who wrote that-that paper?!" Iruka cried out suddenly.
Haruto was puzzled at first but quickly deduced what this paper was. Smiling, he nodded. The chuunin spluttered incoherently before settling on the question of why.
"Some of the others in ANBU had observed problems with the academy's training regime over the years. I merely lent voice to those concerns."
Iruka scowled darkly but did not refute the ANBU's argument. Hayate smacked his friend's shoulder playfully.
"Don't mind him. He's just angry that you made his job harder. He had a particularly difficult class. But I agree with a lot of what you said. I have some experience proctoring the Chuunin Exams. I recall how much trouble some of our genin teams had with the previous exams because they were ill prepared."
Haruto found it remarkably easy to converse with the adult ninja and they, in turn, found his openness and depth of knowledge to be surprisingly illuminating. Finally, however, Tsume decided that it was time to "get the show on the road" so to speak.
"While you're a most entertaining company, Genji, I'm afraid we need to report back." Tsume hoisted Mizuki over her partner's back after making sure that he was not suffering from life threatening injuries.
"Shouldn't the traitor be dealt with promptly?" Haruto asked.
The implication hung in the air. Iruka was about to protest but Tsume spoke up first. "Normally yes, but I believe the Hokage would like to have him interrogated first."
Haruto paused before nodding in acceptance. Why didn't he think of that first?
"I assume you can deliver the scroll back to the Hokage-sama?"
The ANBU nodded as he accepted the scroll from the dog woman. Tsume looked curiously at the elite ninja before her. Only by standing right in front of him did Tsume Inuzuka realize how short he was or how young his voice sounded. Of course, Itachi was only thirteen when he became an ANBU captain and this guy was said to be his better.
Soon after, Tsume and her group went one way while Haruto went the other.
"So was he really as good as Yuugao said? He looked and sounded awfully young," Hayate asked his friend.
"Better. He stood there not lifting a finger while his clones defeated Mizuki."
"Are you sure?"
Iruka nodded grimly. His own abilities were solid for a ninja of his rank, but Mizuki had deftly defeated him; yet the young Special ANBU had defeated the traitor with just clones.
"Yes, I'm sure. There were so many clones and all of them were shadow clones."
Tsume gave a loud approving whistle. "The kid is good, that's for sure."
The others all agreed.