Stupid tests and sadistic proctors
"I'm bored," Deku complained when walking to the Chuunin exams place.
Neither him not Gaara knew where it was, so they followed Kankuro.
"Well, I don't see how that's my problem," the redhead murmured.
"Fair." Deku paused. "Uhh, got any dark secrets?"
"We met like, two weeks ago."
"I'll go first."
". . .Fine."
Deku thought for a second, and Gaara expected either he would make up a lie or sugarcoat it.
"When I was like, five, I taught Kacchan how to cuss."
Gaara raised the spot where eyebrows should have been and motioned for Deku to continue.
"He ended up challenging me to see who could do it the most without any adults noticing, and we lasted around a month." Deku smiled. It seemed almost bittersweet. "By that point, he'd worked it into his way of speaking as a whole, and was too far gone."
Gaara laughed through his nose, mouth twitched up.
"Why'd you quit?" the redhead asked.
"He started acting like a jerk, and I started wanting to be my own person, even though I helped make him him. So, I quit."
Gaara nodded, even though he had no understanding.
"That's a bitter story, considering how it ends," he said.
"Yeah, well." Deku grinned somewhat sadistically. "Now we can beat the life out of each other every day of the week."
Ignoring Gaara's obviously surprised and concerned and confused face, Deku looked at him with a happy yet passive expression.
"I've learned more about him in like- five months when attending school then in ten years." He looked at the ground. "He's the one who made me who I am. We molded each other as children, and will forever be a part of each other."
"Deep," Kankuro said, and Gaara glared at the back of his head.
"I'll murder you."
"M'kay."
"It's your turn!" Deku said brightly.
"Uh. . ." Gaara tried to think of something that wasn't overly personal or that seemed to outweigh the intensity of the secret Deku'd told him.
"I'm gay," he said, not knowing what else to tell.
Deku raised his eyebrows and smirked.
"Kankuro didn't hear me," he said.
"Kankuro!" Deku called, and Kankuro glanced back.
Gaara gently placed his hand on Deku's mouth.
Deku fainted.
"Oh-"
Izuku awoke riding on Kankuro's back, which was probably good since he would have fainted again had it been Gaara.
The freckled child hopped off Kankuro, and put his hands in his pocket, looking at his feet.
"Wanna explain anything?" Kankuro asked, looking back at him and smirking.
"I was. . . Being choked to death. . .?"
"Kinky," Kankuro said, and Izuku blushed.
"S-shoosh."
"I was shutting you up," Gaara clarified. "Not choking you."
"Kinkier," Kankuro said, and Gaara threatened to murder him again.
"Anyways, we're here." Kankuro opened the door for them and grinned, saying, "ladies first."
Izuku grinned.
"Heck yeah, I'm a freaking QUEEN!" and brushed past him.
The freckled child turned around to see Gaara standing directly in front of him.
He stifled a jump and instead said, "hn" in a high-pitched voice.
"Apologies, did I scare you?"
"Yeah, but it's fine!" Izuku said, scratching the back of his head.
"Idiots, we'll be late if you don't quit flirting," Kankuro growled, and dragged them both by the sleeves until they made it to the waiting room, as Izuku decided to call it.
It was full of huge, odd-looking men and women who seemed to be able to crush everyone's head with a single hand.
He felt a spike of adrenaline, making him shudder, and glanced at Gaara, who was glaring at everyone, and somehow not killing Kankuro for dragging him by the sleeve.
Izuku was, of course, not as afraid as he should have been of those angry people in front of him.
He was still afraid.
While he was monologuing in his head, Kankuro had dragged him and Gaara into the middle of the crowd.
The freckled child didn't particularly like being engulfed by the scent of sweat and men, but with Gaara on one side of him, it was manageable.
Kankuro was being less than helpful, attempting to look as intimidating as Gaara but just looking sad.
"You're acting childish," Gaara told him.
"Wha- I am NOT!"
"You're deepening your voice," Izuku chimed in.
Kankuro growled.
"Why you little-"
He sighed, probably deciding him and Gaara weren't worth the effort.
The trio stood for a solid five minutes before Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke burst through the door.
Naruto was grinning, Sakura was pissed, and Sasuke couldn't give a crap.
They stood at the front entrance talking and yelling at each other.
Then three more people strutted towards them and yelled at them, and then three MORE people lazily strolled to them and they all yelled at each other.
Kankuro sighed, showing obvious disapproval, Gaara seemed to be fighting the urge to kill everyone, and Izuku was dying of secondhand embarrassment.
"I'M GOING TO DEFEAT ALL OF YOU, BECAUSE I'M NARUTO UZUMAKI, BELIEVE IT!"
Sakura began choking him to death.
"YOU IDIOT YOU'RE GOING TO GET US ALL KILLED!" She looked at the mob. "Sorry! He didn't mean it! He's just an idiot, don't listen to him!"
Then, a white haired man who looked around twenty years old walked up to them, warning them a bit too late about how stupid they were being.
Izuku wasn't really listening.
He did hear something about Information Cards.
"I recorded information and burned them into these cards. I know everything." After explaining, the man apparently named Kabuto asked the "rookie nine," as they were called, if they wanted to see anyone's stats.
Sasuke spoke first.
"I'd like to see the cards of Gaara of the sand, Rock Lee of the leaf, and- Izuku, also known by Deku."
"Oh, you have names," Kabuto said. "That makes it easier."
"Idiot didn't say my name," Kankuro muttered angrily.
"Idiot wasn't even trying to hide the fact that he has information on all of us," Izuku told him, "or at the very least Gaara, and that only he could access it." He thought of the horrible things people would do to get that information. "He has a horrifyingly low sense of self-preservation."
"Holy crap, you can seriously talk when you're not- when it's to yourself," Gaara noticed.
"Ah- thank. You."
"Yeh."
Izuku tried to listen to what Kabuto was saying, but he didn't find much out about this "Rock Lee" and everything about Gaara wasn't useful, despite getting a small awakening on how powerful he was.
Kabuto don't have any on Izuku, though, for obvious reasons.
That reason might have been the isekai gods being a little bleep, but hey. At least he found a friend or two, maybe three if Kankuro counted.
"I don't have a card on this 'Izuku' which is odd," Kabuto told Sasuke, "but maybe he's never completed in the exams before."
Sasuke was obviously confused, but couldn't ask anything, because a large man and like forty other people teleported behind him.
Naruto, Sakura, blue haired girl, kid with dog on head, and complaining corn dog all jumped, as did Izuku.
"SHUT UUUUUP!' screamed the man. Everyone shut up.
"Ahem. It's time for the first trial of the Chuunin Exams!"
The man was tall, had wide shoulders, and a scar over one eye. He looked like three armadillos in a trenchcoat.
He somehow gathered everyone into a classroom, gave them a number, and they all sat down practically without argument.
"This is how the test is gonna work. . ."
In simplest form, if your team gets less than 10 points, you die, if you're caught cheating three times, you die, you're always being watched.
Izuku realized as soon as he got the test that the point was to cheat. No normal person could solve those questions.
Unfortunately, he didn't know how to control that odd power that he'd used, his quirk was in no way, shape, or form fit to be used quietly, and he was a floof of green hair, often called plain but in this field of grey slates of incredibly dangerous paper he was undoubtedly eye-catching.
Izuku was at a dead end.
The first question was deciphering a code.
It was actually quite easy, the code, as he'd learned to read fluently in English, was called the Pigpen Cipher, which translated into English, which he translated back into Japanese.
It was something along the lines of, "Never Gonna Give You Up, Never Gonna Let You Down, Never Gonna Run Around And Desert You. Never Gonna Make You Cry, Never Gonna Say Goodbye, Never Gonna Do Some Shit To Hurt You."
The rest, Izuku was clueless about. As much as he loved learning, and math, and whatever else was on that piece of paper, it was way too difficult.
Izuku decided, To heck with it, and tried cheating.
He looked at the person in front of him, blue haired girl from earlier. She was writing down answers, somehow.
Probably cheating.
Despite all the integrity Izuku's mother had tried to teach him, it was no lie that he had to do something drastic, something ultimately betraying himself, and even All Might.
He put all of that power that fueled "shadow clone jutsu" from hours ago into his left eye, his good eye.
And he (tried) cheating.
Gaara could tell Deku was cheating. He'd been writing everything down rapidly, and then stopped, put down his pencil, and sat, not moving at all.
He decided not to check on the freckled child. After all, he could trust him with a simple test.
It never dawned on him until much, much later that he trusted him.
It was a garbage test and the proctor was not only a sadist but a truly cruel one.
Izuku cursed him in his head while wishing he could rage quit in life, but that would entitle death and Izuku wasn't too up for that.
He saw Naruto struggling even more than he, and decided to calm down and try to cheat.
The power stuff didn't work at all, just making his head hurt and a little voice saying, "you fizzity ucking IDIOT."
It sounded oddly seductive, and painfully female.
Though, he didn't want to have any conversation with ang girl, voice in his head or otherwise.
So, he decided never to use that odd power again, also vowing he'd figure out the name of it before killing the author of complex sentences and overusage of words.
So, Izuku wasted about an hour doing absolutely nothing.
Gaara just wanted the last question to be asked.
This time, he had little to no faith in Deku. He could only answer the first question, albeit by himself and without cheating. (That sand eye jutsu is incredibly useful for checking on teammates.)
The proctor said, after fifty four minutes, "Let's move on to the tenth question, shall we?"
After a dramatic pause, he began his little presentation.
"You may answer the tenth question, under these conditions." He glared at the crowd. "If you choose not to answer this question, your entire team will need to wait until next year to take the exams. If you get the question wrong," the room tensed, "you will be banned from ever taking these exams again."
There were cries of protest.
They were escorted out, as were the ones who didn't want to take the risk.
Naruto made another speech about not giving up, adding his signature "believe it" at the end.
It was a waste of time.
Gaara was afraid Deku would chicken out, but realized never to underestimate a man without enemies.
Deku was silent, and when Gaara looked at the back of his head, he could feel his contagious determination.
"Alright," said the proctor, "for the rest of you. . ." Gaara saw Deku tense, and the redhead himself felt a spike of nervousness.
"You pass to the next level."
Gaara saw Deku relax, and some people acting confused.
"You see, the final question WAS if you wanted to take the test or not. So-"
Deku raised his hand, interrupting the man.
Without waiting, the freckled child said, "What was the wrong answer?"
"Excuse me?"
"Well- you said the wrong answer would get us- would make us never take the test again, but then you said that it was the qu-question, so what's the answer that'd get us banned?"
The proctor blinked.
"Murder," he decided.
"Thank you."
As soon as Deku said those two words, a woman crashed through the ceiling.
"SUP BITCHES! I'M THE PROCTOR FOR THE SECOND TRIAL, ANKO!" She grinned, her surprisingly not ugly face looking sadistic. "Time for. . . The forest of DEATH!"
The only thing that concerned Gaara was Deku's lack of response.