The First Step

"Duck, I'm always late-ttebare!" Haruto murmured to himself in a low voice, as he sprinted down Kumo's streets, the Academy finally in sight of his sparkling blue orbs.

Haruto leapt up, jumping as high as he could, landing, and then leapt again, resembling a frog somewhat (ominous allusion) in his motion. Leaping instead of running was simply a measure to bridge the distance quicker, and it worked. With a deep breath and a few more steps, Haruto found himself inside the Examination Room.

All heads turned to him.

"... I don't suppose the 'road of life' excuse is going to work, huh-ttebare?"

(OOC: Proctor requested.)

Haruto sweat-dropped as the class focused their attention on him. Some were snickering at him, others glaring, and there was that perpetual group of females looking at him with admiring glances that made him quite a bit uncomfortable. Haruto was a source of division for most of his class; on one end, he was both hardworking and intelligent, and kind, and that made some girls quite attracted to him. On the other, his strange shade of red hair - being of Uzumaki lineage - made other girls think he was funny-looking and strange. In his younger days he even used to hide his hair with dye and whatnot, but it was cumbersome to maintain.

Needless to say, his club of fangirls was small, but lethal nonetheless. In any case, it made a few boys resent him, hence the glaring lot. The snickering ones were just the kind that were always there in every class: the kind that lived to point fingers and laugh.

Then there was the Proctor for this Exam. Haruto was observant. Even from a glance, the Redhead could tell that the man was strong. It was evident simply in how lazily he carried himself. Only the really strong shinobi could be so care-free, especially in Kumo, where power was valued and sought after, and you could really only afford to look lazy when you were already at the top of the food chain.

A sudden thought occurred to the Redhead, about who his Jounin sensei would be if he actually managed to pass this exam. Would he be part of a team? He hadn't thought on that before at all.

“Someone likes to make an entrance, eh?”

“Apologies, Sensei,” the Redhead said quietly as he went on inside the Hall, ignoring the rest of his class.

“You’ve already got the class’ attention, it seems, so why don’t you go first? What’s your name, kid?”

Haruto stopped, turning around to look at the Proctor with surprised cerulean blue eyes. Realising he did not have any other choice, he gulped, swallowing his nervousness and began walking forwards towards the exam station.

“My name is Haruto Uzumaki.”

His chest rose and fell as he took in a deep breath, recalling why he was here. His father, Kuniharu Uzumaki. His grandfather, Takashi the Blue Fang. Not to mention, the lineage of Otsutsuki Asura, and those who perished in Uzushiogakure.

He had a lot of people he needed to live up to. It would be a long and tedious journey, but the journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.

Time to take that first step.

Haruto took in another deep breath, ignoring the fact that he was sweating now, all eyes being on him. He did not like being the center of attention, but he just filtered out their presence.

One hand seal flowed into the next. Ram, Snake, Tiger. Haruto felt the chakra flowing through his internal network, responding to each hand seal before escaping from both his right and left tenketsu points to materialise into his own image beside him.

“Bunshin no Jutsu!”

Poof.

As soon as the two puffs of smoke disappeared, Haruto stood in the midst of two perfect, equally red-headed, and equally embarrassed, doppelgangers, one at each side. Of course, they could easily be distinguished from the original due to not having any shadows whatsoever.

“Hope this works for you, Sensei,” the real Haruto said, as both clones waved at Kōmori.

The two then simply faded from existence. Haruto began to perform the hand seals for the second of his two assigned techniques, one that he personally found to be relatively more difficult than this one, simply because of the perpetual strain he felt as his chakra drained while he maintained it.

"Show off!"

One of the boys shouted in the exam hall, obviously jealous at his successful use of the Clone Technique.

Annoyed at the interruption, Haruto decided not to respond verbally. With the hand seal for Dog, Haruto began the first seal. With the hand seal for Ram, he felt his chakra fluctuate, escaping his tenketsu points before enveloping his entire body, the mental energy containing the image he had formed in his mind whereas the physical energy precipitated that image in the real world.

“Henge no Jutsu!”

With another poof of smoke materialising and then billowing away from around Haruto, he had transformed himself into the very boy who had mocked him. Only, instead of his normal clothes, he stood there in almost completely naked in pink underpants, with little red hearts on it. The kanji for 'Idiot' (馬鹿) was written in pink ink on his chest.

The whole class erupted in laughter, and the boy shouted in outrage, his eyes now small fireballs. "HEY!!!" But the laughter continued despite his embarrassed protests, his face becoming beet red, and he lowered his head in shame.

“So, Sensei? Do I pass?” the Transformed Haruto, completely ignoring the laughing class and his embarrassed critic, turned to Kōmori-sensei, the Transformation Technique concealing his palpitating heart and sweaty palms. Did he pass? Was he a Genin? The next few moments, waiting for Kōmori-sensei's answer, seemed agonising.


WC: 866
Claim:
Genin Rank
Lightning Element
Fuinjutsu Specialty
Anything else I'm supposed to get

Haruto approved and... the other guy approved as well