Graduation (2)

"#21, Uzumaki Naruto!"

The blonde jumped up at the sound of his name being called, "YOSHA! It's finally my turn, dattebayo!" He ran into the arena and even before Iruka prompted him to challenge anyone, the Jinchuriki pointed in my direction. Or rather, he was pointing at the boy sitting next to me.

"I challenge Sasuke-teme! It's time for me to take your number one spot!" Naruto exuberantly declared.

A moment of silence passed by before many of the students gathered here burst into laughter amidst jeers and mockery.

"Know your own limits deadlast!"

"What a joke!"

"Take this seriously ya moron!"

"You think you can defeat Sasuke-kun? In what universe, baka!"

Naruto's eyebrow twitched and shouted, "Ah shut up! Just see who will be the one laughing after I defeat Sasuke-teme!"

Iruka simply shook his head at Naruto's challenge, "Naruto! You only have three chances to challenge someone. Don't forget that if you lose, you will drop down a rank. You understand that right?"

The blonde merely grinned in return, "Heh, losing hasn't even crossed my mind, Iruka-sensei! Just watch me kick that teme's ass!"

I turned to Sasuke next to me, and the Uchiha coldly stared ahead, appearing without much concern over the challenge. But I could see his fists tightening at Naruto's proclamation. He looked at me and scoffed, "Pfft, what an idiot."

Naruto have always had a tense relationship with Sasuke ever since the Uchiha defeated him in their first spar on the first day of the academy. The blonde was desperate to prove himself superior to the publicly recognized strongest taijutsu practitioner in our year, while the raven haired avenger only got more and more annoyed at Naruto's constant provocations in what he perceived as delusions of grandeur.

Though I always tried to mediate his temper, Sasuke frequently got more heavy-handed in his beat down of the blonde as compared to other students. This only further motivated Naruto to try again next time with greater tenacity than before.

Iruka frowned at Naruto's claims, but rules were rules so as the instructor he had to oblige Naruto's challenge regardless of how foolish it was. "Fine then. Sasuke, come down to the ring."

Said Uchiha stood up and cracked his neck. Before he could move however, I stopped him. He looked down and I said, "End it as quickly as you can. Don't waste energy on him when you have two more challenges after this."

"Yeah I got it."

I nodded and released my hand on him.

Sasuke made his way down to the ring and looked at his opponent with a frigid indifference.

Naruto grinned in response, "Everyone's going to watch me beat you into a pulp, Sasuke-teme!"

My cousin simply ignored the provocation, not even bothering to get into a stance. Which only further incensed his opponent but before he could continue, Iruka cut in.

"Fighters ready?"

"Ready to beat him up!" Naruto answered with fighting spirit.

Sasuke nodded but continued being unconcerned over the approaching duel.

Iruka acknowledged their answers and yelled out "Hajime!"

As soon as the instructor started their duel, Naruto rushed at Sasuke, a fist cocked back and ready to slug it into the Uchiha.

Sasuke scoffed, sneering at the slowness and ineptitude of his opponent. He waited for Naruto to approach before smoothly sidestepping the wild swing and landing a solid straight punch on Naruto's jaw with deadly accuracy and efficiency.

After years of training with me, Sasuke was leaps and bounds ahead of everyone else in class in terms of spatial awareness, timing, and fight IQ. All of which earned through literal blood, sweat and tears. The difference in experience between Sasuke and Naruto was as vast as the distance between the heavens and the earth.

I ignored the guilt over uplifting the Uchiha genius so far above the true protagonist of this world and watched as Sasuke continued his merciless assault on the boy. The Uchiha unleashed a combo while fluidly parrying and effortlessly evading the desperate attempts at counterattacking from the jinchuuriki.

A jab to the throat, a right hook to the liver, and a high kick to Naruto's temple saw the boy launched backwards. Sasuke jumped on the downed boy and finished the fight with two more punches before Iruka pulled him off Naruto.

Unlike the more harmless spars we usually fought in at the academy, for this taijutsu competition, the fighters were allowed to pull no punches and attack even if the opponent went down. This was to reflect a more realistic portrayal of fighting hostile enemy combatants in the real world. The fight was only stopped if one side yielded, knocked out or if the referee decided that the fight was over since one side could no longer defend themselves.

"Winner by technical knockout, Uchiha Sasuke! Sasuke will retain his rank, and Naruto has been demoted to #22." Iruka declared while turning to the downed blonde to check on his injuries. Mizuki who was next to a giant board with the list of names and our respective ranks shifted Naruto's name plate down a spot.

However, Iruka's concern was unneeded as Naruto jumped up seemingly no worse for wear.

"Huh? What happened? Iruka-sensei! Why did you stop the match!?"

The chuunin frowned and chided, "I told you all at the start, if I see that you can no longer defend yourself then I will use my best judgement and step in to stop the fight."

"But, but, I had him on the ropes Iruka-sensei!" Naruto complained.

"Enough of your nonsense, you lost. Now you have two more chances to issue a challenge or you can pass and remain in your current rank. What will it be?"

Naruto gritted his teeth but answered anyways, "Fine! Then I challenge Sasuke again!"

Iruka frowned again, "Weren't you listening when I explained the rules? You can't challenge the same person twice if you lost the first time. And if the challenged student loses, they're not allowed to challenge the person who beat them again."

The blonde stomped his feet in a tantrum, "Grrr, what kind of bullshit-"

"Naruto! Don't waste everyone's time! Will you challenge someone else or not?"

"Hmph, fine! If I can't challenge number one then I will challenge number two then!" He levelled a gaze at me and pointed, "Shinji! It's time for me to take your spot as rookie of the year!"

With that proclamation, laughter once again broke out amongst the spectators as my own supporters jeered at my challenger.

Iruka face palmed, "Naruto… sigh, I don't even know what is running through your head at this point, but whatever. Shinji, come down."

I shrugged and complied, passing by Sasuke who was walking back up to our seats. The Uchiha smirked at me and cheekily parroted what I instructed him a minute ago, "End it as quickly as you can. Don't waste energy on him when you have two more challenges after this."

"Yeah, yeah, shut it."

I made my way down and faced the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki. I felt bad but I wasn't about to let Naruto take my rank. But I could still show some mercy and not utterly humiliate him by ending it as quickly and as painlessly as possible.

My relationship with the boy wasn't as fraught with hostility as the one sided rivalry between him and Sasuke. Although I always beat him, I was also always gracious in my victory, so the boy took little offense at losing to me.

Iruka turned to the both of us and asked, "Fighters ready?"

"Ever ready, dattebayo!"

"Hai, Iruka-sensei."

"Hajime!"

Naruto once again repeated his strategy that had been utilized against Sasuke – run and swing while banking on the chance his enemy would foolishly stand there and take it.

I didn't want to hurt the blonde too badly, so I took the initiative to meet him in the middle. With ease, I dodged his first punch and took hold of the outstretched wrist. Using his momentum against him, I pulled Naruto and threw him to the ground. Upon doing so, I quickly snaked my arm around his neck and pulled him into a rear naked choke hold.

I tightened my grip around his throat and waited for the eventual submission… which did not come as Naruto continued to futilely resist. He struggled against the tight hold I had, trying desperately to pry my forearm away from his vulnerable throat, but it was ultimately a futile attempt.

As the seconds ticked by and the oxygen continued being withheld from his brain as a result of my chokehold, soon enough the struggling slowly weakened and then came to a near stop. But before I actually choked him into unconsciousness, I took it upon myself to release the boy who slumped on to the ground - nearly unconscious but still breathing.

Iruka was just a step away from pulling me off but breathed out a sigh in relief when he saw that I willingly released my opponent on my own accord.

"Winner by submission, Shinji Ikari! Shinji will retain his rank, and Naruto has been demoted to #23." He crouched down to inspect Naruto, checking for signs of consciousness before the boy gasped and instantly sat up.

"What happened? Did I win?" He asked in confusion, which only invited more mockery and laughter from the audience.

Iruka shook his head, "Nope, you got choked out and fainted."

"So… I won?" Naruto asked with the disorientation associated with nearly being choked into unconsciousness.

"Nope, you lost… again."

"Urgh damn it, I got one more try right?"

The chuunin sighed in exasperation, "I mean, yeah, but I wouldn't-"

Naruto jumped up and now pointed at Hinata, "In that case, it's time for number three!"

Iruka face palmed and shook his head in defeat. If Naruto wanted to continue his foolishness then as an objective chuunin instructor cum referee, he was in no position to stop him.

The fight was similarly over in just a few seconds, with the Hyuuga Heiress accurately disabling Naruto's tenketsu points and removing the boy's ability to move properly. Seeing that Naruto could no longer fight properly, Iruka called the fight and declared Hinata the winner, to Naruto's protest unsurprisingly.

I was surprised to see the girl defeating Naruto with such ease and without any hesitance given what I knew of her infatuation with the jinchuuriki. But she probably figured that Naruto would only be offended if she took it easy on the boy and let him win on purpose.

With all three chances to challenge a higher ranked student used up, Naruto was now stuck at rank #24, being demoted down three times consecutively. Good news was that all the students below him could no longer challenge anyone else, so there was also no way for him to be demoted any further.

Similarly, upon seeing how easily we dealt with Naruto, even if he was considered to just be a deadlast, the other students were too fearful to challenge Sasuke and I. However, Hinata was a different story. Even if her fighting style was frighteningly efficient and deadly, she was still seen as 'just a girl', and therefore she received two other challenges from the other boys.

Which infuriated Kiba, because since Hinata received three separate challenges, he could no longer challenge her in order to get her #3 rank. And he was also aware of the disparity between him and the top two students, so he had no further chance to move up in rank. Shino declined to challenge Kiba, making a rational decision to avoid the possibility of being moved down a rank if he lost.

And with that, the taijutsu competition ended with no further surprises. The final ranks:

#1 Uchiha Sasuke

#2 Shinji Ikari

#3 Hyuuga Hinata

#4 Inuzuka Kiba

#5 Aburame Shino

#11 Akimichi Choji

#19 Nara Shikamaru

#24 Uzumaki Naruto

#27 Yamanaka Ino

#30 Haruno Sakura

#32 Kaori

Of course these numbers only represented their taijutsu grades and was not representative of their overall grades. For example, even though the physical portion of Sakura's grades were relatively low, her theory results were as good as mine, nearly full marks, which pulled up her average by a fair bit. And though Naruto's taijutsu grades were pretty okay, everything else of his was near or at the bottom, including the next part of the genin exam, the ninjutsu exhibition, which pulled his overall grades to deadlast.