After Yuta and Hikari returned to the balcony Itachi’s match against other Suna Genin started and Itachi won quite fast, after that, the referee announced that the final round between Itachi and Hikari would be held after half an hour.

After half an hour's break, the match between Itachi and Hikari started with fierce and high-speed close combat where Hikari used her sword techniques and Itachi blocked her swings with a kunai and threw shurikens controlled by ninja wires when he got some distance to keep Hikari busy, waiting for the good opportunity to strike.

‘Wow, it seems that Hikari was held back a lot during our fight. But it doesn’t matter, in an all-out fight with her I’m confident that I have a good chance to beat her, and if I would have time to prepare before the fight, she wouldn’t have a chance at all. But as an opponent Hikari is very dangerous, I must keep the distance at all costs and if she gets too close it will be all over for me…’

After a few minutes of a high-speed fight Hikari’s sword starts to glow at some moment and sliced right through the Itachi’s kunai that he used to block it. Itachi was able to dodge the sword in time and jumped back.

‘Hikari learned the chakra flow? She never told us that…’

While jumping back, Itachi threw a dozen shurikens and exhaled a fire at shurikens that made them covered in flame. Hikari stopped the pursuit and sliced through the incoming fire-covered shurikens with her glowing sword.

But switching her attention from Itachi to his incoming attack was a mistake as the moment Hikari blocked the shurikens and looked back at the place where Itachi should be, it was no one there. Hikari got a bad feeling about this and started to turn around, as she anticipated that Itachi might have used the distraction to go around her for attacking her from the back.

But getting distracted and turning around was a mistake, as the next moment Hikari’s vision blinked, and she saw Itachi right next to her with a kunai pressed to her neck. Itachi used a genjutsu to distract her and make her believe that he disappeared and might be behind her, and when Hikari was distracted and started to turn around, Itachi used that time to get to her.

The referee announced Itachi’s win for the Chunin exam finals. Hikari didn’t look too upset with her loss as she already knew how strong Itachi is and she didn’t have high expectations for this fight.

Shortly after, all the participants were called to the arena and Hiruzen gave a twenty-minute speech for them and the viewers about the great young talents and the will of fire, and with that the Chunin exam ended.

When Yuta, Itachi and Hikari were leaving the arena, outside of it Koichi appeared next to them and said proudly, “Good job you all! Tomorrow the ones of you who deemed worthy for a promotion will be called to the Hokage’s office, you can rest and celebrate today, you all did great in the exam!”

“Thanks, sensei!” Three Genins replied.

“Sensei, if we would be promoted to Chunins, what would change?” Hikari asked curiously, “We should be able to take B-rank missions after that, right?”

“If one of you or all of you will be promoted, then I wouldn’t be obliged to go on missions with you any longer, you will be free to take any missions on your own up to B-rank, you can stay on the same squad or create other squads on your own. If some of you who wouldn’t be promoted and the ones who would be promoted would choose to leave the team-two, then team-two will get new members and continue to operate as before.” Koichi described the details patiently.

“The ones who would be promoted will be granted a Chunin vest, Chunins are more respected, and they are the backbone of the village, while Jonins are considered the elites among shinobi. Chunins are also allowed to ask for a C-rank jutsu and if they made a good amount of contribution to the village, they could apply for a B-rank jutsu, all of that you could do with my help.”

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Hearing about B-rank jutsus Hikari looked surprised, as she was taught a Shadow Clone jutsu by Koichi some time ago and it was a B-rank jutsu, and now it seems like it was a big deal and the show of trust.

“Well then, if that’s all, you know where to find me, we will talk latter after your promotion.” Koichi said and flickered away.

“Now what?” Yuta said, “I know it’s too early to celebrate our promotion, but I have a feeling that all of us will be promoted soon…”

“Are you sure about that?” Hikari said with a slight smile, “You are the one who get eliminated from the tournament the earliest after all.”

“Yea, skills, decision-making and tactics that I showed will be more than enough for the Chunin promotion.” Yuta replied while mirroring Hikari’s smile, “It is you who I am worried about. I don’t think the pure strength will be a deciding factor here…”

“Hmph, I’m confident enough that I will be promoted, let’s get some barbeque to celebrate.” Hikari replied with a slight annoyance.

“Sure” Itachi simply replied to that.

“Yea let’s go” Yuta said, and the group went to the restaurant.

When they arrived, found a free table, and made an order for the food, Yuta said, “Well, let’s say all of us gets a promotion, any idea about what we would do next?”

“I would like us to stay on the same team for the time being” Itachi stated his thoughts.

“I’d like that too.” Yuta agreed, as it will be the best option in his opinion.

“Then it’s decided, we stay as a team-two for now!” Hikari exclaimed happily, “And I will be the team leader then!”

Yuta stared at Hikari with a blank look and said as of matter of fact, “Itachi will be the team leader.”

Itachi glanced at Hikari and Yuta and said, “Yuta, why you don’t want to be the leader?”

‘Actually why…’ Yuta thought for a moment, ‘I don’t know, I’m just not a leader type of person. I don’t like to always have to look after a squad, do the planning, take responsibility for everything. I just want to go into action and do my thing without too many worries I guess, besides, I can trust Itachi with this role. If I’m to choose between Hikari and myself then I would definitely take the lead, but if there is Itachi in the picture, then it would be best for everyone if he is the one to take the lead.

Also, it’s wiser to leave the leading role for Itachi as he is the oldest son of Fugaku, the Uchiha clan leader. And if I’m to take the lead instead, some of the Uchihas can get the wrong ideas…’

But Yuta said aloud a different thing, “I believe you will be a better leader than me, and definitely much better leader than Hikari.”

‘Well, this part is also true, so I didn’t lie at all there…’

“Hey!” Hikari exclaimed in annoyance, “You shouldn’t use ‘Definitely’ and ‘Much’ words in that sentence!” Hikari sighed, ”Well, it was worth a shot, I’m fine with Itachi being a team leader I guess.”

With that decision the team starts discussing the fights between them and moves they made during the fights, then after some more small talk everyone left, and Yuta went home.

On the next day during the morning, while Yuta was going through his routine training at the team-two training grounds, he was currently going through push-ups with a great amount of additional weight added with his training seals, he was breathing hard but still doing push-ups in quite fast pace.

But suddenly Yuta felt Koichi’s chakra signature approaching him, so he stopped his exercise and stands up, in the next moment Koichi appears in front of him and said, “Yuta, you are being summoned to the Hokage’s office.” he said and puffed in a cloud of smoke not waiting for Yuta’s response.

‘Well then, it seems that I’m being promoted after all’ Yuta thought on his way to the Hokage Tower.

When Yuta arrived at the entrance of the Hokage Tower he saw Koichi and Itachi there, when he shows up beside them and greeted them, Hikari also arrived.

“Follow me” Koichi said and went in.

When the team arrived at the door of the Hokage’s office, Hiruzen’s voice sounded from inside, “Please come in!”

Team entered the Hokage’s office and stood still in front of Hiruzen, who are standing in front of his desk with a solemn look, and there is a two shinobi stands beside him, Yuta recognized both, as the one of them are Mamoru Ikeda, Yuta’s class teacher, and the other one that Yuta didn’t remember the name of, are Itachi’s and Hikari’s class teacher.

Hiruzen glanced at the three Genins and said solemnly,

“Uchiha Itachi, Yuta, Hikari. Congratulations! As of today, you are a Chunin!”

After that Hiruzen went on his speech for the next ten minutes about the will of fire and the pride for the greatest shinobi village the three new Chunins should have. Then Mamoru handed a Chunin vest to Yuta and the other teacher gave Chunin vests to Itachi and Hikari and they both said their own congratulations.

‘Great, I’m Chunin now, not a great achievement on the great scale of things in this world but I’m definitely making progress here…’