Apparently Sasuke had a pretty interesting mission amongst the boring trash collecting, catching people’s runaway pets, helping out on farms and other such menial chores. Even Shinku’s patience was growing thin after a few months. The most exciting mission he’d received, and Shinku had to admit it was pretty fun, was to hunt down some bandits in the south land of fire. The base was easily found by Shinku, but the plan that time had given his team more to do. They were the main offence while Shinku would handle the slightly more difficult and very much more annoying part of hunting down deserters that tried to run off.

Ah. That mission sure was fun. Shadow clones chasing down bandits running in every direction, scared shitless. Just remembering it was enough to put a grin on his face. He hoped he’d get more missions like that eventually. His team got combat experience which helped them improve significantly off a single mission too. With his support the team would’ve been able to take on missions like that no problem. Shinku wondered why they didn’t give them more of them. Sure C-rank missions weren’t as common as D-ranks. They cost more to request and the situations that required them were simply rarer. And that was true for every higher rank. The higher the rank the rarer and the costlier.

But based on what Sasuke had told him, other genin had it pretty much the same. With the exception that Sasuke’s C-rank mission actually turned out to be a B. Shinku was glad that Sasuke had a reliable teacher like Kakashi. To think he would have the sharingan too. They probably placed Sasuke in his team on purpose then. Meanwhile Shinku didn’t really need any help with his sharingan did he? Considering he’d at some point earned the nickname “Shinku of the Eternal Sharingan” in reference to how he constantly had it active… He would guess not. Shinku heard the door open, snapping him out of his thoughts. He stared at the open medical book in front of him, remembering he was reading that before getting distracted. Damn. He would have to finish it some other time.

“I’m back.” He heard Sasuke’s voice from down the hallway before he showed up to the entrance of the living room.

“Welcome back.” Shinku answered as Sasuke sat down across the table, Shinku putting a bookmark on the page he’d gotten to before closing his book. ”How was today? Anything interesting happen?”

“Surprisingly. Yeah. Not the missions though. Those were a useless waste of time as usual.”

“Oh? That’s rare. For something you’d consider interesting to happen outside a mission.” Well. It was rare for something he considered interesting to happen at all, now that he thought about it.

“There were shinobi from Sunagakure here. One of them seemed pretty capable. Short red hair, seemed about our age. Gaara was his name. Can’t say the same for his companions. They looked useless despite seeming older.”

“Sunagakure? What are shinobi from there doing all the way in our village?”

“Apparently. The chunin exam will begin soon. They said they were here for that.”

Shinku’s eyes instantly lit up.

“The chunin exam?! When?! Where?! How do I sign up?!” He expressed, causing Sasuke to sigh.

“I don’t know. Our jonin teachers will probably say won’t they?”

“Is that so…?” Shinku deflated. He definitely wanted to participate as soon as possible, get through it, become chunin, then maybe jonin, and go on missions that actually gave him some sort of challenge. Maybe even take a team of his own? Ohhhh. That’d be fun. But it’d have to wait until after justice is served. Need to concentrate on that first. “Well. Guess we wait then.”

“Seems like it.”

The two talked some more about their days, but there wasn’t much to say on Shinku’s side. They’d done chores. Like almost any mission day since they'd become genin. Sasuke at least had that encounter with the Sand ninja to brag about. Apparently the red-haired one used some sort of jutsu relating to sand. The girl carried what seemed like an iron fan, while the other guy dressed in some weird all-black costume and carried around something wrapped up in bandages, something he would have used to fight, most likely, as he attempted to unwrap it when provoked.

The next day came and Shinku’s team gathered again, in the same place as always. The two on Shinku’s team had both cut their hair at some point during the months. Reiha having cut it to a medium length, while Asahi going away with the ponytail.

“Hey.” Shinku greeted.

“Good morning.”

“Good morning.”

They both greeted back. They sat around chatting about insignificant things while waiting for their teacher to arrive, Aoba eventually appearing out of nowhere as he usually did. All three students greeted him with a “Good morning.”

“Good morning.” Aoba cleared his throat. “Today I have something important to talk about.” Shinku’s eyes lit up. “It seems like Shinkumaru knows something.” The other two looked confused. “The truth is. The chunin exam will take place soon.” Reiha and Asahi’s eyes widened and they lit up in excitement just the same “But!” Aoba put on a serious expression “Reiha and Asahi aren’t ready.” This grounded everyone, their faces replaced with disappointment, Shinku’s alone with slight guilt “Shinkumaru.” Aoba addressed him.

“Yes?”

“The truth is. This exam is usually performed in three-man teams.” This reversed the situation, now Shinku looking depressed while the other two showed clear guilt “But. The village has decided that as long as your team agrees they’ll make an exception and you’ll be able to participate by yourself. This could mean a huge disadvantage, seeing as you’ll be participating in something meant for three people together by yourself. But it could also mean advantages in some places. Of course. None of it will matter unless Reiha and Asahi agree to this.”

“But… Having an exception made just for me… doesn’t really sit right.”

“There is a precedent. There are people who’ve been allowed to take the test by themselves in the past.” ‘The fact that the last person to receive this exception was Itachi Uchiha, though, I should probably not mention.’

“But…” Shinku still didn’t look convinced.

“How about you two? What do you think? Whether Shinkumaru’s willing or not won’t matter unless you two agree to this.” Aoba spoke to Shinku’s teammates.

“That’s…” Reiha hesitated, the two looked down. “There’s no way we can reject it.”

“Yeah… After we’ve been holding back Shinku the entire time. There’s no way we can hold him back here as well.” The two turned to Shinku. “Please. Don’t mind us and take the exam. We know you’ll definitely pass. Just because we’re weak we can’t ask you to stick around and babysit us forever.”

“That’s right! If it’s you, there’s no doubt you’ll become a chunin. Even jonin shouldn’t be out of your reach! You’ve helped us out endlessly these past few months, even helping us training, giving us tips, contributing the most on missions and always taking the more troublesome roles... We couldn’t have asked for a better teammate.”

“You two…”

“What’ll you do?” Aoba asked, holding out the registration form for the exam. Shinku looked once more at his teammates who both nodded to him, before stepping forward and taking the paper.

“Thanks you two… I’ll definitely pass this thing so that you guys can be proud. You don’t stop working hard either alright? I know you can make it to chunin too, even if it takes a bit longer. Remember neve to give up.”

“Yeah!”

“Mhm!”

Asahi and Reiha both nodded once more.

“Alright. Since that’s decided. Five days from now take that paper to the academy, room three hundred and one. Until then you’re free to make preparations. As for the rest of us. We have missions.”

“I’ll help out today, at least.” Shinku declared.

“Is that okay…?” Reiha asked guiltily.

“It’s fine, it’s fine. It’s not like I have much preperations to do. I have no idea what the exam will even be about, after all.”

“Then let’s make today count. And afterwards we can have a good luck party to send Shinkumaru off.” Aoba declared before starting to walk.

“Then it’s my treat!” Shinku announced as everybody followed.

“Where’ll we go?” Reiha wondered.

“Yakiniku?” Suggested Asahi.

“Ew, no! I don’t want to eat just meat!” The girl exclaimed in disgust.

“Then… hot pot?” Suggested Shinku this time.

“Hot pot in early summer…?” Asahi questioned this time.

“Yeah… I think that’s a bit… you know.” Reiha also denied.

“Hey don’t look at me like I’m some sort of undiscovered animal species!” Shinku cried out, giving the other three a laugh.

Shinku came back home late that day.

“I’m back.” He announced, despite the fact.

“Welcome back.” He heard Sasuke’s voice from the living room, following it and sitting down at the table opposite him. “You were late today.”

“Yeah. I had a bit of a celebration with my team.”

Sasuke smiled. “Is that right? Then you got one of these?” He put forth an application form for the exam on the table.

“Yeah.” Shinku held up his own.

“In five days.”

“At the academy.”

“Looks like we got the perfect chance to relieve some boredom.”

“Yeah. I’m looking forward to it.”

“I can tell. That grin hasn’t fallen since the moment you came in.”

Shinku’s grin only widened, causing both of them to laugh. They were finally getting the chance to advance further in the ranks, getting the chance to get closer to their respective goals. Chunin. Shinku couldn’t wait to see the competition. Maybe at least somebody there would finally excite him.