As I walked forward into the underground dojo, I got a popup. The barrier to enter here was level 3. I was going to be really over-qualified. Keisuke walked up to me and asked to work together. I just shrugged. "Two heads are better than one. Let's partner up for a bit." He joined my party and I saw that he was level 3. We could go to any stage we wanted. As long as we did not get killed off, we could go for as long as we wanted to. We decided the obstacle course. It was a big challenge as I had to use my body and get used to using chakra for doing things. I had to actively think about how much I wanted to use and where it would go. Keisuke was doing it since he was a kid, so it was automatic for him. He got ahead and pointed where to go. I played it off as if I was thinking about it. When we finished, we saw a shadowy figure reveal itself that we had not noticed before. It gave us the clear. It was now time to go for the strength test. By "strength", they meant the things that ninjas valued. We all had to sneak around, be accurate at throwing shuriken and kunai. Breaking blocks was a must.
I was able to do everything really well. Keisuke struggled with the accuracy with kunai, but he could break all of the blocks in one go. Even I needed 2 tries. He was also decent at sneaking around. Our performance gave us a pass for the next activity. We had a break before we went to fight the genin. Since we were a group, we were able to go together for a 2 on 2 fight. We saw Haruka go up against her genin during our break. She ran up to him and was able to dodge all the problems. She was able to do a super kick in a gap from him. He was pretty slow. The first kick allowed her to turn him around. With the other foot, she got him with a lightning quick roundhouse to the brain stem. He fell over unconscious. This was her second challenge. She still had the strength portion to go. I tapped Keisuke on the shoulder. "Let's go." I said to him. He stretched as he got up and nodded at me. We got on the field. Some of the others that had been waiting were angry with us, but we did not care one bit. Both of the testing genin approached. There was no official start. Once we got there, we fought.
Keisuke was not a slouch, but these genin were also no joke. I had to pick up the slack. I was 3 levels above the stronger one. They had kunai and were using them for a large chain of melee attacks. I had my own and was not afraid to use it on them either. Keisuke was unarmed. I did not know if that was his personal choice or if he was too poor to afford a weapon. We beat them and got the headbands from yet another shadowy figure. I wore mine around my throat. Keisuke put his on his forehead. The metal plate was blank. Apparently, when you found a clan or region to accept you, they would put their own symbol on it. A slash through the crest meant that you were excommunicated from that clan. I looked around to see Taiga get his headband at the end of the obstacle course. I looked over at a jubilant Keisuke. "Hey. Do you want to wait for Haruka?" I asked him. He shook his head. "No thanks. I want to return to my village. I live in Star Province to the west. Kira Village." I shrugged and said "I'm a bit of a wanderer. Can I accompany you?" He looked me up and down. "I guess." he said.
Keisuke
