will he get lucky today? (I mean the exam lol)

Kotonaru sat bolt-upright in bed, hit his head on the ceiling, and flopped back down on the bed, dazed for a bit. A few minutes later, his mind returned to him and he realized, today was the day he was going to take his genin exam. He groaned. He had completely forgotten, overslept, and was in danger of missing the exam altogether. He scrambled out of bed, discarding his pajamas and throwing on clothing as he ran out the door, not bothering to put on his usual jacket, his headband, or bring his practice weapons. Heck, he didn't even have breakfast, or more correctly brunch. Hopefully his stamina would hold up today, but you never could be sure. He tended to be low energy physically, for a shinobi, as he was the quieter type in general. Not that he did not have a sense of humor, it was just that there were other people who did not understand him at all.

As he sprinted as fast as he could for the academy, his thoughts wandered a bit. Last night he had fallen asleep reviewing the two jutsu he absolutely needed to pass the genin exam. He had practiced both dozens of times, all through the night after dinner, running out of stamina and collapsing. Fortunately he had already changed but that didn’t matter much now. He had practiced a long time, for several hours, and he fervently hoped that between that and missing his morning meal, that he would not be too tired to perform the jutsus he needed, properly.

Kotonaru walked quickly through the hallways of the academy, looking for the testing room. He had practiced his basic skills, getting plenty of exercise every day. He had also learned both the Clone making jutsu, and the jutsu that let him transform his appearance. Hopefully that was enough, and there were not other requirements that he had to fulfill, as he did not really have anyone to help him learn other, specialized jutsu. At least not yet. Some of the other people in town seemed pretty friendly so hopefully he could make a few allies, and teammates. He preferred being on a team since he was alone now for the most part...

After wandering the hallways for some time, he finally found the place for the genin exams, within the academy. There was a short line this testing day, and one by one, the potential genin walked in the door. Some took longer than others, some leaving with a bounce in their step, others, not so much, having to repeat at least 1 semester. Stepping into the line, Kotonaru hoped fervently that his meager skills would prove sufficient for the task. He knew the jutsus he was required to fairly well, but he had not been able to learn any other jutsu in this short time period.

One of the wanna-be ninjas was taking unusually long, and while he was quiet about it, Kotonaru was starting to get antsy. This was probably a result of his nervousness. He did not have the massive chakra pool that Uzumaki Naruto had had, even when he was an academy student, that had allowed him to make actual shadow cloned. Nope, he sure did not, he was only able to make the regular clones. Hopefully hard work and dedication would help him as it had helped a seemingly useless ninja become one of the most powerful ever to walk the land. Well, hard work could for pretty much everyone. While the other students just stood in line, Kotonaru silently began doing pushups, situps, jumping jacks, any exercise really, in an attempt to train his body while he waited.

Finally it was his turn. The next test taker was called from inside the room. Kotonaru decided to try to prove his skills with a little initiative. He formed some handseals, using some of his chakra to first make a clone that looked like himself, and then transform into the appearance of one of the teachers at the Academy. With his appearance changed and a clone of himself formed, he entered the room.

He loudly proclaimed to everyone in the room, without looking who might hear him – “The young student Kotonaru Haruto would like to take the genin exams!”

Hopefully the proctor would think this was funny, the other wanna-be genin in line certainly did and could be heard from the hallway, having seen him prepare everything. If the proctor was not amused, at least he was going out with a bang!

After his rather unusual entrance, he would wait a few seconds for everything to sink in, then he would dispel both of his jutsu, apologize for the unusual entrance, and explain that he wanted to show that he could actually use the jutsu required for graduation, and it was rather spur of the moment in fact, what he had did.

Old Retsu Yamichi, the old rat as many of his students called him in hushed voices, was proctoring the genin exams in Konoha today. Retsu looked to be older than the grand village of Konoha itself as each wrinkle in his face seemed form a ravine. In fact it was often jokingly rumored that one could estimate Retsu's age by counting the wrinkles on his face, much like a tree. Along with age came patience for some things and downright disdain for other things. Oddly enough one of the elder's largest pet peeves was being interrupted. As it turned out Kotonaru's grand entrance was rather poorly timed as Retsu was in the process of putting the finishing touches on his written report for the last genin hopeful.

Luckily for Kotonaru Retsu did not have much of a temper or he would have outright failed the boy right there for lack of respect. However, luck was not completely on the genin hopeful's side as instead of reacting to the student's show Retsu's gaze never left the report in front of him. As a result he never saw any of the boy's theatrics, rather unfortunate. Instead the old man ignored anything Kotonaru had to say, instead he elected to put the finishing touches on his report. Upon finishing it he put it in a pile on the desk in front of him and then pulled out a empty form. Without even looking at the boy Retsu spoke as he always did: slow and steady, despite him not already disliking this kid, "The young student Kotonaru Haruto should learn some respect." Pointing over to the empty space in front of his desk Retsu continued, "Please perform the clone and transformation jutsu. Oh, and after, please perform fifty pushups." And like that Retsu fell silent and waited, his hazel eyes watching, nay hoping, for even the slightest mistake.

{800 word post detailing your test, complete it and you pass, don't and you fail. Good luck.}

It was only after Kotonaru had burst in and tried to make a grand entrance that he realized he had chosen one of the worst teachers in probably the history of the academy to burst in on, albeit unknowingly. Still, he should have at least asked one of the genin leaving the room to see who was the proctor. Some of the ones who had been hanging around after taking their test had started laughing upon hearing Kotonaru form the examination room, they must have known already what would happen. The “old rat” as many students thought of him, was unusually quiet, while he was not outspoken, he was serious, and generally rather strict. Normally he would have been careful and entered quietly and carefully, but something weird had come over him today, maybe it was because of the weird looking mushroom he had for dinner the previous night.

The second thing he noticed was that the proctor was still writing on some paper, a pile of what appeared to be forms covering the desk. His breath stopped. Surely, the proctor had not just decided already whether Kotonaru would pass the genin exam or not! He had only managed to make his entrance in a rather uncharacteristic fashion, and considering who was proctoring the test, this was not likely to be in his favor. His heart pounding away in his chest, threatening to burst out, he was incredibly nervous as he watched the proctor make the finishing touches to his report before adding it to the pile.
The words “The young student Kotonaru Haruto needs to learn some respect.” Floated over into Kotonaru’s ears from the proctor’s direction. Kotonaru gulped, nervously fidgeting and shifting his weight, hoping to escape with just a minor scolding. Normally he was one of the good kids, but everyone was generally punished equally. Increasingly terrified with each passing second, he tried to stammer out an apology, hopefully the punishment that was coming would be lessened slightly as a result.

His jaw nearly hit the floor though, when he heard the proctor then say “Please perform the clone and transformation jutsu. Oh, and after, please perform fifty pushups.”

Wait a minute, had the proctor not decided to punish him? That meant… that either he truly did not notice any of Kotonaru’s unusual theatrics, or had decided to be unusually nice for once, and give Kotonaru a second chance. He felt the life return to his body, as if a heavy weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He had messed up once, he would darn sure that he did not waste this second chance he had gotten purely by luck, it seemed. Almost immediately after the proctor had finished speaking, Kotonaru saluted and said “Yes sir! Right away sir! I apologize for my earlier actions, I will take care to not make the mistake again!”
After all, he had just been given a second chance, and he was sure as heck gonna make sure it did not go away.
He quickly walked to the spot in front of the proctor’s desk as indicated. Then he got nervous. At first he had psyched himself up the previous night, and been in too much of a blind panic and hurry almost until he walked through the door to the exam room, to be worrying about whether he would fail or not. He would not fail. He could not fail. He had practiced the two jutsu hundreds of times in the last week, preparing for this one precious moment that could determine the fate of his entire ninja career. Academy students were not allowed to go on missions so he had to graduate and soon. The rent was coming up soon and he could only slow down the landlord for so long.

He took a deep breath to steady his nerves. Then, he raised his arms and made the handseals slowly, after reviewing the steps countless times in his mind. It really did not help his concentration knowing that the proctor had his full attention on Kotonaru and all of his actions now. Any slight misstep or mistake and Kotonaru could well fail the entire Academy semester. This guy was that strict. He slowly made the handseals, attempting to block everything else from his mind but visualizing the chakra forming another 2 versions of himself. Ram… Snake… Tiger… he focuses really hard, his eyes closed, and a poof of smoke appeared. Slowly opening his eyes, he glanced side to side, to see that he had made two clones that had the same exact appearance and dress, down to the hair. He breathed a sigh of relief, and after making sure that the proctor had seen him make the clones, dispelled them. A puff of smoke erupted from each about two feet away on either side.

Now for the transformation jutsu. Kotonaru calmly let his arms to his side, and closed his eyes for a moment, reviewing everything he needed to do the jutsu. He formed the handseals one at a time… visualizing the image of the academy teacher he had visualized earlier, which had happened to be the “old rat” himself. Keeping in mind the most up to date map of all the crevasses on the old man’s face, Kotonaru relased the chakra he had been manipulating. A loud “poof” sound effect occurred, again, this time there was only one cloud of smoke, centered on Kotonaru. When the smoke cleared, in Kotonaru’s place would be the exact likeness of old Retsu Yamichi. He had the part in his hair, the maze of wrinkles on his face, and the clothing he could see correct. Kotonaru could only see his teacher and examiner’s upper body from the other side of the table, so he had changed his pants to look like the ones that he normally saw the examiner normally wore when instructing. He even had changed the eye colour to be the same.

After holding this jutsu long enough for the proctor to have looked over everything sufficiently, he released the jutsu. “Now for the pushups.”

Inwardly he groaned, carefully keeping his face devoid of emotion so the proctor would not notice. He had exercised a lot the day before, and his arms still ached. Hopefully the proctor would not ask for more if his pushups looked satisfactory. He did not wish to have to do more exercises. He knelt on the floor, then put his weight on his hands, kicking his feet out so that he was in the pushup position. Checking everything, especially his arm position, to make sure everything was correct, he started pumping out pushups, counting out the repetitions quietly. Due to his shorter stature and lack of bulk, most exercises including this one were easier than for others who were otherwise the same strength. The difference in leverage could make quite a difference apparently. While 50 pushups in a row (as he assumed the instructor wanted them, if not he needed exercise anyway) were not easy , they were hardly undoable. He knew of plenty of civilians who could do 50 pushups in a row too, though not all of them actually did… actual pushups. Kotonaru finished the pushups and stood up to face the proctor again, ignoring the ache in his arms and shoulders.

“I have completed the assigned tasks Master. Is there anything else you would like me to do at this time?” Anyone listening could hear the capital “m” as he spoke.

Retsu's face did not change once, but the form in front him was filled out rather quickly and was crammed with notes by the time the boy had finished taking his exam. On principle the old man would have rather liked to fail the boy for disrespect. Alas, that was not something he could fail someone over, shame really. Thus, once the boy had finished Retsu spoke in a flat emotionless voice, "Very well, you pass. You may go pick up your headband from the jounin outside." With that Retsu fell silent, which hopefully prompted the boy to leave in a rather quick manner. Unfortunately Retsu's day was far from over.

{You pass the genin exam, good job. +20 stats and one free spec.}