Naruto: The New Sealmaster

"From today until the chunin exams I want you three to rest. You may train for one hour a day at most." Hachiro looked towards Aoshi "That includes the time you make your seals."

All three nodded and Aoshi was just relieved he had stocked up, so he would at least be able to do a bit of his physical exercise. "Now do whatever you want. The exams will be taxing, very much so, and they will be gruelling. Be mentally prepared for anything. If you have anything to ask me these last two weeks, invite me to dinner and we might have a chat. Alright you three?"

Completely synchronised they responded "Yes, sensei!" Hachiro nodded. "Good. Then I'm out." And then he left for the Hokage's office.

---

"Here we are again." The old man said as he looked out over the collection of jounins in his office.

"This time, we hold the exams. This means that we will send every team we think is remotely ready. We will be able to monitor and intervene if we see that they are in unnecessary danger. Keep all this in mind when you recommend your team for the exam. So, who feels their team is ready?"

At that question quite a few stepped forward, Guy and Hachiro were among them. "This time I have trained my team enough for them to put on a show, Hokage-sama." Hiruzen nodded with a smile at Guy. Hachiro spoke up next. "Aoshi is still the most ready, but the other two won't hold him back." He nodded again.

Then suddenly, Kakashi stepped forward and Iruka the academy teacher tried to interfere. When he was told off that those aren't his students anymore, two more from that year stepped forward. A rookie 9. After a couple more moments, another man took a step forward. It was Akiho's sensei. On top of that, Danzo registered a group as well.

Various other people nominated their genin. The sheer amount was staggering, but Konoha would show a strong wide front.

"So it is decided! You may give the invite to your team anytime you want, but to be admitted they must all be at the specified room in two weeks' time. Is that all clear?"

***

Aoshi has absolutely nothing to do.

He had gone through the sealing tags he needed to make his weekly money, but he wasn't allowed to do more. Figuring he had nothing better on his mind, he went to look for Tenten.

Half an hour later he found her practising her shuriken throwing in training ground 7. With a smile on his lips and a skip in his step, Aoshi walked towards her. "Hi Ten-chan. What are you up to?"

She turned her head around and glared at him. "Don't think I'm over you completely ignoring that you promised to take it easy." Before he could refute she interrupted him "I know about you not knowing how to land.."

Aoshi awkwardly laughed and scratched the back of his head. "You know about that huh?" But she didn't seem to see the funny part of it. She kept on glaring at him and he sighed.

"You know what's on the line for me." He stepped closer. "I can't just take it easy and let it happen." He got even closer. "To you it might seem silly but to me it's like a part of me is about to be sold away." He looked her right in the eyes and took one of her hands. Those eyes weren't just angry, there was a lot of vulnerability in them as well.

He gave her a sincere look. "I'm sorry Tenten. I didn't mean to make you upset, and I did forget to think about those around me. But I can't stop until after these exams."

She looked into his eyes, trying to judge his sincerity and half a minute later she relaxed and nodded. "Why are you here then? Wouldn't you be training until the last day?"

Great relief flooded over his face and with a wide grin he responded "I've been forbidden to do any kind of training so I figured I'd go visit my best friend. Need any help?"

At the mention of best friend he saw a little smile show over her face. Tenten didn't have many friends either, perhaps she had been missing him. She nodded. "I'm working on my one on one's. I've heard there might be some of that in the latter stages of the exam. Can you check for gaps in my tactics?"

He wrapper his arms around her for a second in a powerful hug. "Of course. Show Me what you got!"

And so she did. Her technique was magnificent. To watch Tenten with her weapons was always an incredible sight but she had improved by miles and miles. Aoshi could see one glaring problem though.

"Sunagakure is coming here you know?" She looked at him confusedly and nodded, wanting him to get to the point.

"Use that last attack on me and I'll show you what I mean." She didn't seem convinced but poured her all into her finisher again. When she and the weapons got close to Aoshi, he made a couple of signs. "Wind style: Breakthrough"

Most of the weapons were blown away and Tenten herself was sent back. She was looking at him with a grave look, he was right. They would be facing people from the land of wind and her techniques had a glaring weakness towards that element. She sat down and started thinking immediately.

Aoshi walked up to her with a smile holding a piece of paper. "We have about a 50 percent chance of you being able to counter that. Want to take that chance?"

She was a bit confused but her eyes lit up as she realized she knew what kind of paper it was. She took it from Aoshi's hand and started pouring chakra into it. A second later, the paper burst into flames and Aoshi's face lit up.

"Well I know what we're doing these next two weeks!" She nodded at him and waited for him to help her. This felt a bit like when Aoshi instructed her in fuinjutsu once upon a time.

So they sat on the ground in front of each other. With Aoshi explaining and working her through it. "You don't have to have perfect control since we're just going to work on one technique for you but I'd like to see you burn a leaf in your hand. I'll walk you through every step of the way so sit there and do it while I sense your chakra...Ready?"

She nodded and they were off. The two would sit there all day. Tenten had a lot more chakra to work with than Aoshi and Aoshi even gave her his chakra to handle as well. They didn't make excellent progress today but Aoshi was surprised at how happy he felt.

Maybe he had missed this a lot. Just being there with Tenten felt so relaxing, so warming. They should keep doing this until the exams! Aoshi thought that'd make them both happy at this point.

"Well that's it for today. You made some progress as I saw you form a bit of fire chakra, maybe tomorrow you'll be able to channel it!" Tenten smiled at him and hugged him tightly. "I've missed you, Aoshi."

He hugged her back just as tightly and nodded. "I've missed you too. Now I wonder why we stopped training together. If you'll let me, I'll keep doing this until the exams. Then after the exams we'll work on techniques together. How about it?"

He let go of the hug and they looked into each other's eyes. Her smile was the only answer he needed, but she nodded nonetheless. "Great! How about some Ramen then? I'm starving!"

She chuckled and agreed so they made their way over and shared their first meal in like a year. Aoshi couldn't understand why he had gone without hanging out with Tenten for real for so long..he'd have to change that after the exams.

That night, and many of the following nights, he went to sleep with a smile on his face and with a relaxed body. Only conditioning with no real strain to the body would do that. He spent all day every day with Tenten, just trying to make progress in the little time they had. If she could get a fundamental technique to work, that'd do wonders against a potential wind user in the exam.

***

About a week later, she had gotten to the point where he trusted that she wouldn't burn her throat out from performing a fire-based technique.

He took out the scroll with playful flair "Ta-daa!" She smiled and grabbed it from him. He had access to a whole level higher in the library so of course he had to get the technique for her. Guy-sensei was a wonderful sensei in many ways, but he didn't believe much in Ninjutsu.

She scanned the contents carefully and slowly spoke while reading and analysing "This..shouldn't.. be..like..all that hard..right?"

Aoshi shook his head. "I think you should be able to get it down to a basic level for the exam. It's also similar in practise to one of my techniques, so I can actually help guide you through this as well!"

Her gratefulness showed clearly on her face. She nodded her head "Let's get started!"

She, like all academy students, had practised and become proficient in the hand seals so it didn't take very long to get the sequence down and just after lunch, she made her first attempt.

She made the hand seals one by one, slowly, and brought her hand up to her mouth. "Fire style: Great Fireball Technique!"

Aoshi looked expectantly at what was happening and soon fire came out of Tenten's mouth. It seemed to gather in one spot before flying forward in the shape of a ball about the size of a basketball. It wasn't nearly big enough to say that she succeeded with the technique but it was an excellent first try!

With glee, he looked over at her face after having followed the ball's path with his eyes. "Awesome! What a nice first try!" But then he saw her coughing up what looked like soot.

He instantly came over with a glass of water and started healing her throat using the fundamental healing technique he knew. After a large gulp of water she sighed in relief. "Thanks. I believe I might have forgotten to properly protect my throat.."

Aoshi looked at her with a deadpan look "Not so easy to always think of everything in the moment, is it?"

She gave him a sheepish grin "Yeah..I guess you're right. Let's go again! After your healing, I'm ready!"

With the amount of passion Aoshi saw in her eyes, he wouldn't refuse her. He nodded "Of course." And then he went on to explain some specifics. His wind style technique, the great breakthrough, worked similarly and he also had to protect his throat so he gave her some pointers and even showed her his own technique up close.

With the explanations out of the way, it was just the repetition of the same technique until she ran out of chakra. She did get it to increase a bit in size, but that only meant that her chakra ran out faster, so soon they were preparing a meal over at her place.