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[COLOR=silver][sup][b]Iwagakure | Chūnin | Hunter-nin[/b][/sup][/COLOR][/center][hr][INDENT][sup][COLOR=silver][b]TIME:[/b] [i]Present Day - Morning[/i] | [b]LOCATION:[/b] [i]Konohagakure - Exam Stadium[/i] | [b]INTERACTION:[/b] [i]None[/i][/COLOR][/sup][/INDENT]
Renji had been standing amongst the others, unnoticed, for some time now. Long enough to roll his eyes at the spectacle his fellow shinobi, Rumia, was making of herself in front of the others. Nothing out of the ordinary, it seemed however, according to the things he'd heard back home in the Hidden Stone. [color=black][i]'Home...'[/i][/color] He thought to himself. A Freudian slip, betraying his true wishes of secretly wanting to return to [i]Shinkai Shūdōin[/i] - his true home. The last place where he felt he knew exactly who he was and what he was supposed to be doing. The only place where he felt his life held any real meaning. During his ten-year struggle to become the [i]Kesshōken[/i], Renji was driven solely by purpose. Now that he'd attained the mantle and was left to serve Iwagakure alone as a glorified retrieval dog, that strong sense of purpose had slowly been slipping away from him.

Life as a Hunter-nin was a lonely one, especially so for Renji. Due to the Kurogama Clan's agreement with the Tsuchikage, Renji was often sent out on missions alone in order to maintain secrecy. This was partly the reason why anyone at the Exam Stadium, his own countrymen included, had yet to notice him. Renji was good at blending into his surroundings, as any ninja should be. But when the past eighteen years of your life has been nothing but cloaks and daggers, you tend to perfect some skills to the point where you hardly even notice yourself doing them. Despite this however, the more likely reason was that, by and large, Renji remained rather unknown to his Iwagakure peers. His face wouldn't have been one easily recognised simply because he spent most of his time behind an ANBU mask. This exam was one of the few times he'd been allowed to remove it.

As he stood, leaned against a wooden post, Renji pulled over the large hood of his sleeveless jacket that bore his toned arms. The sudden thought of his mask reminding him that his face was currently on show. An uncomfortable feeling to say the least, especially when he'd been tasked with wearing it at all times whilst out in public. Why the Tsuchikage had allowed for him to remove it during the exam was as much a mystery to him than to any one of his ANBU handlers. He'd even allowed him a change from his usual attire, the sleeveless jacket with the accompanying baggy pants that tapered in at the calves being a far cry from his ANBU uniform. Maybe the Tsuchikage had a new purpose for the [i]Kesshōken[/i]? One that he was not yet ready to reveal, even to Renji. Or maybe turning up fully adorned in ANBU attire would raise just as many eyebrows as it would questions? 

Whatever the reason, it had allowed Renji to relax a little before coming here. The outfit he currently wore was styled in the fashion of his monastery garbs, though his original garments had long since perished due to simple wear and tear. They reminded him of home, his real home. His mind drifted back to the day he'd left the monastery, having just defeated Gibari and Talia in a three-way fight for the honour of becoming the [i]Kesshōken[/i] - The Crystal Fist. The name itself made it seem as if there was only ever one master of the Shōton Kekkei Genkai but Renji knew this not to be true. Talia was still alive, he'd made sure of it. Renji's elbow strike that she'd taken to the head had not, in fact, hit her square upon the temple - a move that would have instantly killed her, as he'd been trained to do. Instead he'd placed it higher, merely grazing the left side of the frontal lobe in order to knock her out cold.

By the time she'd have come around, Renji would have already been named the victor and sent on his pilgrimage to Iwagakure. He'd made a vow that day to go back, if he ever could, to fight her again. But after living as a slave to the Hidden Stone for the past eight years, a mere pawn in the game that was the Kurogama Clan's agreement with the Tsuchikage, Renji had changed his vow. Rather than fight her, he would go back in order to free her. The idea of it was ludicrous at the time but every passing day filled him with even more resolve. Before then, however, he had to improve himself. To improve upon the weakened version of the [i]Kesshōken[/i] that the monastery had been churning out for the Iwagakure to keep on a leash. He needed to become stronger. And the next obstacle he needed to pass in order to achieve that strength was upon him - The Jōnin Exam.