The exam was definitely a notch, maybe two, higher this year. The Second Hokage did this intentionally, both to test his great niece and nephew, and also to make sure this year's students were the cream of the top.
With the war still ongoing, and their villages best fighter and pillar gone, both morale and strength had greatly decreased. Tobirama had hoped to fill the gaping hole in their defenses with a strong, new generation. While it might have been better to release a horde of genin to overwhelm the other four nations with sheer numbers, he decided it was better to have a group of talented ninjas instead.
What he didn't anticipate was that most of this year's applicants were indeed quite talented...
---
Akira was ready for the exam. Honestly, he didn't even really need to prepare, or so he thought. Tsunade wasn't particularly worried either. They were both already extremely talented with their Senju bloodline and coupled with their competitive spirits to be stronger than the other, made them stronger than Tsunade in the original timeline.
And if you let them fight together, they could overpower a group of chunin all by themselves. They had something you could call 'twin's telepathy', they knew exactly what to do without saying anything, Tsunade could simply nod, and Akira would instantly know what to do.
They had a close bond no matter what, from birth they were never separated, though it was mostly Akira teasing Tsunade, and her responding with beating her twin up. When they were babies, they refused to be taken to another place or even crib without the other twin. They would throw a tantrum and scream so loud, the entire neighbourhood heard it.
When they became toddlers, they always ate together, while Akira would wipe Tsunade's mouth with that little white handkerchief their mother gave him. It didn't matter what they did, they were always together. Even when they grew old enough to start training, they trained together more than they did individually. They were so coordinated that they even started to put pressure on their own father when sparring.
Their bond was unbreakable, and either twin would be damned if they let the other get so much as a scratch, Akira especially. The twins didn't know it, but they loved each other so much, that if one ever died, their heart would be shattered into a million pieces.
---
Hundreds of applicants, ranging from as young as four to as old as six. Around slightly more than one-third were from clans, and the rest were civilians. Simply put, there was a diversity of children waiting for the exam proctor to arrive.
Akira had a natural habit of sensing the danger level of anyone nearby. If the danger level was rated in the same system as shinobi, low E-rank would be a toddler just learning to walk, and high S-rank was someone on Hashirama's level. Akira had never met anyone before who was higher than a S-rank. Well, not a lot of people in the past and future were as strong or even stronger than him.
But, two people on the rank could have vastly different strengths. So, if he made an estimate, most of the children here were a high E-rank with a few exceptions for clan members and the occasional civilian.
Scanning through the crowd, Akira made a mental note to himself to make sure he would stay out of certain people's way.
'E-rank...E...yikes, that guy's a low-E-he's not gonna make it- E...D...wait, D-rank?!' Akira thought in surprise, eyebrows lifting up slightly.
Squinting through the crowd of small children, he found the apparent D-rank, a very low D, but a D-rank nevertheless. When he found the owner of the rating, he was shocked but not shocked
at the same time.
The owner had long black hair, unnaturally pale skin, and sharp golden eyes, which resembled a snake's. If you didn't look carefully you might just mistake him for a girl. Naruto sure worked its wonderful ways with making boys look like girls.
The person in question was none other than our beloved and lovely snake sannin, Orochimaru. Right now, he was nothing like the future sadistic pedophile, but he still had that cold, malicious glint to his eyes.
Orochimaru, noticing a gaze on him, looked straight at Akira's direction. Taken aback slightly, he shifted his gaze to the front and faked an impatient expression. Tsunade, who had been standing next to Akira, noticed where his focus was on.
Tsunade, almost exactly the same way as Akira did, squinted at Orochimaru, before noting his remarkable strength, especially for a civilian. While he was a very low three, most of the others were low twos, some even being ones.
Once again, Orochimaru noticed a gaze on him, turning towards Tsunade, who exactly like Akira, shifted her gaze and faked an impatient expression. It was a comical sight, anyone with eyes could tell they were somehow related, probably twins with how similar they looked and acted like.
The future snake sannin, however, was not amused. He simply thought, 'Why is everyone bothering me today? First was that white-haired idiot and now those two annoyingly similar twins?'
Tsunade and Akira, as if hearing his thoughts somehow, straightened up and glared like there's no tomorrow at Orochimaru.
Said boy took no mind of this, infuriating the two even more.
'Now I know how Tsuna feels every time. I kinda feel bad. Just a little.' Akira thought irritatedly.
Tsunade had similar thoughts, 'This reminds me of when I'm with Akira...'
After that particular encounter, the rest of the time before the proctor arrived was pretty boring. When the proctor did arrive though, both Akira and Tsunade who were previously annoyed, were surprised to say the least. This shinobi wasn't exactly young nor old, but when the average mortality rate was thirty, he was quite old as he appeared to be around thirty years of age.
This wasn't what surprised the two children; it was his strength. He was at least a special jonin in rank, one that Akira was sure he couldn't take down with Tsunade, let alone himself. The gap between them wasn't as big as the ones Akira had all his life in his abnormal family, but it was still big enough.
It puzzled everyone why the Hokage would select such a strong shinobi to be the proctor of a mere entrance exam, when he could be out there on the battlefield, even if he couldn't take out whole legions, every bit counted.
"Good afternoon everyone. My name is Tokuda Kazuki, a special jonin, and I will be the proctor for this year's academy entrance exam. Please follow me to the exam's venue."
Tokuda's tone was short, stiff, and a little irked, if you listened carefully. He wasn't exactly happy that he was stuck babysitting a bunch of snot-nosed brats, while he could be on the frontlines fighting for his country. He would have shown more obvious displeasure if not for the exam details provided by the Second Hokage.
The exam format was drastically changed from the years before, and all the content was multiplied two times harder. Tokuda doubted that many of these ignorant children would pass, and he thought most of them would be the clan members. But the results of this exam would shock many privy the knowledge of this change.
As soon as the words 'special jonin' left Kazuki's lips, a wave of initial disbelief rippled through the crowd, as the term jonin wasn't a rank easily achieved. This let many wonder why such a shinobi was here at an academy exam. Disbelief soon turned into realisation, and all children followed the special jonin as fast as their stubby little legs could.
The venue was a field marked with white chalk track lines, and it was quite large. The applicants were all gathered in a huddle, waiting for Tokuda's instructions.
"The first phase is very simple. All you have to do is keep running until you drop. The passing distance required to run is not disclosed, to make everyone show their true strength for evaluation." he instructed.
Akira was confused. If he remembered anything, normal academy exams gave the children a fixed distance to run. But he didn't linger on this thought anymore, as the examiner gave the cue to start running.
The field was quite large and long, each lap was 2km, and no one knew what was the passing requirement so they just ran until they dropped, just like Tokuda said. Most civilian ninja could run a couple laps around the field, before they started dropping out. This was a very long distance already, because they were literally five and six year olds, and without any prior training from clans, it was miraculous they didn't already collapse.
Clan children ran a significant more than most civilians. Their clans most likely trained them in ninjutsu, stamina, clan techniques, and the like, so a physical test like this one was no problem. The thing they worried about was the distance required to pass, so just like the civilians, they ran until they dropped.
Of course, doing this made them severely exhausted, which was exactly the first phase's purpose. After the passing distance was revealed, around one quarter of the children were failed. Though this was quite a lot of applicants, there was still around one thousand left.
Akira and Tsunade, who had special constitutions due to their clans, ran the longest. In fact, since they had their daily 'training' sessions of running around the forest, their stamina was comparable to experienced ninjas. If Tokuda hadn't asked them to stop, they might have ran until the Sun set.
The second phase, was another physical examination, with the same purpose to tire out everyone, and the same stamina and strength evaluations.
The test commenced when the proctor brought them to an indoor facility and instructed, "The second phase equally simple. Fifty pushups, fifty diamond-pushups and fifty sit ups. If you drop down, restart again. After those are done, with the same concept as the running, hold a plank for as long as you can."
As if on cue, five chunin appeared into the facility, and though Akira had briefly sensed them before, he could only now tell that they were elite chunin.
'Is oji-san trying to kill everyone here?! Why are the examiners all so strong?'
Only now did he realise more civilians passed than the required distance for running suggested. He thought that without clan training, civilians were probably weaker, but they were stronger than he estimated. But in reality, it was just that this year's group was unusually strong.
The first part of this phase was relatively easy, though he hated doing pushups continuously, even if it wasn't even straining his muscles. For the plank however, he could hold on for a lot longer than civilians as well as Tsunade.
While most civilians were severely exhausted like the Second's intentions were, there was still a lot more left than he intended to admit into the academy. However, the next and final phase would eliminate half of the original group. This phase involved chakra.
Tokuda was surprised but hid it well. He would have never thought that child civilians would actually have this much stamina and strength, but he was sure this next phase specifically modified by the Hokage would prove otherwise.
"With this next phase, first if anyone has not have their chakra activated, please promptly leave."
A couple of honest children begrudgingly left, knowing that they couldn't become shinobi and kunoichi just yet. Some others, trying to sneak their way into the academy, stayed silent.
Then with a silent nod from Tokuda, a chunin from the side, who was apparently a Hyuga, activated his Byakugan to scan for chakra. The ones who stayed silent were rooted out, and before long, the Hyuga gave confirmation for the next part to proceed.
Noting that there were still quite a lot of children left, he continued, "This final phase tests your chakra control. A leaf will be distributed to all applicants, and you have to keep it on your forehead for as long as possible, with the same concept as previous phases."
At this point, both Akira, Tsunade, and even other clan members were suspicious of the exam. While civilians didn't know how hard the original exam was, children with clan backgrounds did. They knew that academy exams would never test these sort of things, if the first and second phases offered any suspicions.
But they couldn't object, and most already learnt these things, so they just complied. However, even some clan members didn't pass this, because they were either war orphans with no chakra training from family members, or their family weren't shinobi. For the civilian drop out rates, it was even worse.
In the end, less than half the original numbers of applicants were left. It seemed that this year, over 50% of the new academy students were going to be clan members.
When the Second Hokage, who was busy before, arrived to deliver a speech and congratulate the new students, saw the amount of children left, he was so shocked that he almost lost his composure. He quickly calmed down, and when he saw his grand-niece and nephew in the crowd, he simply nodded and proceeded as he planned.
Akira zoned out during the Hokage's speech, as did Tsunade. But unlike his sister who was thinking about gambling, he was thinking about how in the heavens and lands did so many civilians get pass that final stage, and more importantly, why was that phase so freaking hard!
It obviously wasn't for him, who had a mastery many envied over chakra, but for civilians, it was an understatement to say it was hard. He snapped out of his thoughts when the speech came to a end, and class assignments came out. With a shake of a head and a sigh, Akira dragged his still daydreaming, but beloved younger twin towards the result board.
He'd most probably get into the elite class along with his sister, along with Orochimaru and Jiraiya. Akira had thought of somehow killing the future snake sannin, but he had morals, and oofing a still somewhat innocent child was definitely going against them. Even if he wanted to, Akira doubted it would be that easy anyways because Orochimaru was a genius as well.
Even though he was pretty certain of his class, it never hurt to check. And there it was: his name, with Tsunade's, Orochimaru's, and Jiraiya's right beside on the elite class list.
'Well, time to start hell- I mean school again. My freedom was fun while it lasted.' Akira dramatically thought before heading back home, still dragging a dazed Tsunade.
Meanwhile, Tobirama was a mix of confused but delighted emotions.
'That last phase was designed to make sure these students were going to be the new pillars of Konoha! Why would so many pass!' he thought furiously, as if the results were insulting his title as Hokage.
Though the civilians surpassed his expectations by far, he was also glad that there was such a talented new generation. And since he was in the Hokage's office, he didn't remotely try to hide his ever-changing expressions.
His students were in the office reporting a mission to him, but Tobirama not only ignored them, he also had a weird plethora of expressions on his face. Hiruzen, sweat dropping at the sight, a contrast to his usual blank expressions, was tempted to ask if his teacher was alright, but stopped when his head snapped up from the papers.
"What are you still doing here? Hurry up and go!"
Then, said students scurried away quickly, unwilling to face their sensei's wrath.
With a ugly expression, he muttered something while planning for the next exam, the plans already forming in his mind. It was comedic to see the Second Hokage completely out of character, all because of some four to six year olds surpassing his expectations.
And while Tobirama was facing a personality identity crisis, Akira was facing an overreacting mother crisis. He was being smothered in a hug for getting into the elite class.
And though he repeatedly told his mother that it was just the academy, and that he was being suffocated, Tsuyoshi refused to relent.
"Oh, and be sure to- wait, Akira? Akira!" when the five-year old stopped struggling and stayed quiet, his mother finally dropped her hug.
He fell limply to the side, while Tsunade poked his side before 'diagnosing' him with death, "Is he dead? *prod prod* Yup, he's dead"
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