A genin is born !

Mission Central:

Sakuran was unsure if she even slept that night, day and night seemed to intertwine. So much depended on this, Kumajanai, her family's legacy, her parents and siblings' faith in her, her friends and let us not forget Jack, that weird old ferrymen with his jar of dirt. She noticed the colour in the air shift, morning was coming. She might as well get up now, and do something, anything.

She walked a little bit off the farm to her old training ground, hours spent here ... her heart was growing heavy. *SMACK* Sakuran slapped herself in the face, hard. This was not what she had trained for to be this anxious for an exam, who cared if she failed that did not matter because quitting was not an option. Touching her cheek, she winced and smiled slightly, it was going to be fine, she was going to approach this like any training exercise and hit with all she had.

Reinvigorated and with a spring in her step she went inside to make breakfast for the family, all who were surprised to find her up earlier then them. They noticed the red streak across her face and knowing her like they did knew what was up. Noone mentioned it and they had a good and fun breakfast together, they told her good luck and to do her best. She nodded in agreement and left for Uncle Maki, he was the one training Kumajanai and he wanted to pet him for good luck.

Arriving at her uncle she snuck around back, since they weren't farmers, they would still be sleeping, Kuma noticed her coming from a mile away however and his tail was fiercely wagging but he did not bark, he was smart like that. Sakuran entered the kennel and kneeled down giving him a head scratch "If everything goes well, when everything goes well" she corrected herself." Then today is the day you come home with me" she patted him and gave him some leftover bacon she took from home.

As she left the kennel, she got an image in her head of them walking home together, she smiled at him "You are right, I will be back later today." She quietly left and did her morning run to the ferry, it was a lot earlier than usual, but she decided to be there early and wait, something she normally did not like doing. Jack was standing on his boat waiting for people to ferry across casually smoking his pipe. "Look at that, awake at this ungodly hour, it must be exam day."

Sakuran nodded smiling wryly, there was no point hiding things from this man, he always sort of knew. "Yeah, I could not sleep, might as well go over now." Jack nodded "Nothing wrong with anticipation, you should know i have faith in you." Sakuran lit up a little. "Thank you, I'm just nervous, a lot depends on this." Jack nodded sagely "Smooth seas do not make skillful sailors." She laughed out loud, typical of him to throw a cliche in there. "Thank you, Jack. Talking to you always helps." With a firm nod he started sailing the ferry, the rest of the way they sat in silence enjoying the quiet ocean and the morning sun making it look otherworldly.

They docked and Sakuran thanked Jack again, with a determined step she walked over to school, her turn was not till later in the morning and dawn had barely broke, it did not matter, she wanted to be there. The janitor was still out cleaning the school, and the doors were open, she walked inside and when she found him asked if it was ok to wait inside, he did not mind at all, and she took a seat at the back of the room.

Time seemed to be different today, she was waiting in a trance like state, not nervous, not anxious, not anything much. Her teacher entered and asked if she had the wrong time in mind because she was only in the second group and the first was only now supposed to show up, she told her she wanted to be there, and the teacher kindly left it at that. She saw her first five classmates enter, each too nervous to acknowledge her and followed their progress.

Her classmates were doing all right, she thought the guy on the left could work on his Henge a bit more, but it was more than ok in her eyes. They received their grades and a paper, Sakuran was not sure how many succeeded but none of them looked devastated, she wondered if she would be ... Her time was close, maybe an hour or two. Time flew like it owed somebody money.

And like what felt way too soon she was called forward, she lined up with her classmates and listened to the explanation with undivided attention. She was fourth in the group meaning she had to wait again, she sat down with the other three classmates. They answered questions and performed their jutsus, this one did pretty badly but no one laughed. She guessed that the exams weighed pretty heavily on everyone, too much to make fun of each other.

As her classmates did their exam and sat back down she wondered how Shin was doing, too bad they did not have the exam in the same day, bet he is going to ace it, that guy will be a force to be reckoned with. Just two more and it was her turn, she still wondered why she was not feeling anything, not happy nor sad nor anxious, she just was. The guy finished and she had no idea how he did, the next one was a girl, she had been in her class for a while and was not too bad at Taijutsu either, she finished and Sakuran was next.

"Sakuran Hatake." the teacher said matter of factly. "Present." she said in a toneless voice. "I would like you to perform the Transformation jutsu for me by transforming in me." Sakuran took a deep breath and brough her hands together carefully making the dog sign like she had done in countless practice sessions before, pictured her teacher, pictured her as her teacher, gathered her chakra and at the moment she had gathered enough. "Henge no Jutsu" in a white puff of smoke she had copied her teacher exactly. Sakuran even adjusted her glasses in the same way her teacher did.

"Very good, you may dispel when ready and then we can proceed to the Clone Technique" Sakuran nodded and with that dispelled her jutsu. She assumed a shoulder width stance and brought her hands together in the ram seal and pictured five exact copies of herself standing in a line to her right and left. She gathered her chakra, feeling it course through her she picked the right moment when enough flowed true her to call "Bunshin no Jutsu."

In another puff of white smoke this time five perfect clones appeared on Sakurans left and right, each took a bow in turn to show proper controlled movement and after took a step back to illustrate its function. The teacher did not know which one to look at for a moment and decided to look at her notepad instead. "Very good Sakuran, you may dispel when ready and sit back down." She dispelled her jutsu and sat back down.

"I wonder if this was enough." she thought to herself obviously overwhelmed by her own mind. The last student was up but Sakuran did not even register what he did. The teacher concluded the exam and took a few moments to go over her results, did time always move this slow?  She told them all to get up and one by one called them out with a pass or fail and gave them papers to match, the moment was here.

"Sakuran Hatake." she got up and faced the teacher, "Pass. Honestly, I wish you were this proper every day in school. Good luck as a genin." and she smiled at her, overwhelmed she took the papers and sat back down, She did it, Mom and dad, Kaito, Akira, Mizuki, Emi, Maki, Jack and Kumajanai, she finally did it. A grin cracked on her face as slowly realization set in. And in truest of Saky fashion she lept from the chair, thanked the teacher and ran full bore home. She arrived at the docks and Jack could tell from her face she had good news, excitedly she told him all about it while they ferried the boat across, she even performed the jutsu for him before they landed.

When they did she ran home, quickly dropping her things and hugging her parents saying she passed and needed to pick someone up. She ran to Uncle Maki's and jumped his fence startling him, going straight for the kennel Kumajanai was nearly breaking down the door in shared excitement."We did it friend!!!"

[1500 WC]
+ 15 Chakra
+100 AP
1000 Tsuri Goshi
500 Feint

Reward: 2,000 Ryo / 10 AP & promotion to Genin/D Power Rank / 1x Ninja Headband of Kirigakure no Sato

Free jutsus at D-rank
Substitution Technique
Surface Walking

[Exit]