Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto.

000

13&14

"LISTEN UP YOU GUYS! I'M UZUMAKI NARUTO, FUTURE HOKAGE, AND I'M GONNA KICK ALL OF YOUR ASSES!"

Shikamaru softly groaned; they'd been explicitly advised to not draw attention to themselves and then the blonde wannabe Hokage just had to go and broadcast their presence to a room full bloodthirsty, infinitely more experienced chunin hopefuls. The orange loving idiot may as well just slit all their necks while he's at it. Not that Shikamaru personally had anything against the blonde, he actually felt somewhat grateful towards the Uzumaki. When team 7 came back from a mission in Wave, Naruto had somehow managed to transfer Sasuke's obsessive fixation on Shikamaru to himself, which left the lazy Nara with one less stalker. He could've kissed the blonde idiot in joy (yes, he was that relieved) but decided against it since it would've probably been taken the wrong way. And because Tenten would either castrate him or, an even more horrifying possibility, take pictures.

The Nara lowered his gaze, trying to make himself scarce. He shoved his left hand in his pocket and nervously fingered the metal band around his ring finger (a nervous habit he'd acquired some point between now and getting engaged). No one here, just your average genin who is in no way associated with the blond megaphone standing a couple feet away…

As the pineapple headed shinobi was trying to meld with the surrounding furniture, he made eye contact with a certain female sitting across the room. A certain bun haired, brown eyed, trying-hard-to-stifle-her-giggles female.

Shikamaru gave his fiancée a sullen look and Tenten's shoulders only shook even harder. Trust his girlfriend to always be there to laugh at his misery. He sighed and turned to Chouji, deciding to ignore her for now (he was not sulking). He started talking casually with his best friend, only half his mind on the conversation. He was really starting to wonder why he'd agreed to taking the chunin exam in the first place. He supposed it was mostly because his mother, Ino, and Tenten had made him sign the form. If it were merely his mom, who just lectured, withheld meals, and mysteriously multiplied the amount of chores he had (it was a freaking monarchy in there), and Ino, who just screeched until his ears started ringing (but it was temporary so it was okay), he most likely would've managed to avoid taking the exam.

But there was Tenten.

Tenten, the most reasonable female the shadow user ever had the pleasure of meeting; his fiancée, future wife, and one of his closest companions.

And the only woman in Fire Country who could effectively make Shikamaru get off his lazy ass and actually do something.

Yes, if there was one reason the notoriously lazy Nara was taking the chunin exam, it was Tenten. Because goddammit, Tenten's arguments were actually convincing. No smooth talking, extortion, physical threats, just plain, pie-in-the-face facts that Shikamaru's brain (that was too smart for its own good) couldn't ignore. Curse her for making so much sense…

Ah, looks like some white haired kid with glasses was saying something to the rest of the rookies… oh, now he just got attacked by someone who couldn't seem decide whether to be a mummy or a cyborg for Halloween… glasses kid just threw up for no particular reason…

The examiners appeared in a plume of smoke, no doubt for the dramatic effect (Shikamaru had a theory that after you made jonin, it was physically impossible for you to walk through a door and enter a room the normal way like everyone else). Scar-face was barking out orders, typical alpha male voice, body posture meant to intimidate, at least half the genin in the room were sweating twice as much as they were five seconds ago—

Shikamaru closed his eyes and bit back a sigh, pinching the bridge of the nose. He was over-analyzing the situation again. He trudged towards his assigned seat, determined to think about absolutely nothing for the next hour; he was going to ruin his reputation as a lazy ass at this rate. Unfortunately, Scar-face was using the impossible-to-ignore-big-important-commander voice, so Shikamaru had no choice but to listen (he swore the man's voice was laced with chakra). The shadow user dissected the words, read the nuances in speech, followed the rise and fall in pitch, and after a few seconds of processing, his brain promptly spit out the conclusion that the point of the test was to cheat. Joy.

Why did ninjas have to be so— so ninja-like? A man could cough into his fist and suddenly there were a bazillion ways to interpret that one, tiny, seemingly insignificant gesture (He's trying to get someone's attention? He has a cold? A passing toad hermit shoved a talking amphibian down his throat, only for it to ultimately disgorge itself when an irate dango lady elbowed him in the solar plexus for no particular reason, leaving him with a chronic cough that just won't go away since his doctor is actually a reptilian pedophile who hands out candy stuffed with radioactive waste to small children on Halloween?). There was never a straightforward answer to any question; it's always looking underneath the underneath, to quote Kakashi-sensei. Except it was more like looking underneath the underneath, inverting it, folding it into a paper crane, tilting it at a 45 degree angle, and then seeing if you could make sense of the senseless senselessness left over.

Sad thing was, Shikamaru actually could make sense of it. Quite easily, too.

The lazy Nara cursed his inner genius for the umpteenth time and returned to the task at hand: getting the answers to the test in the quickest, un-troublesome-est way possible.

As the little genius reclined in his chair, slouching ungracefully (to the annoyance of a few examiners who noticed that their big bad intimidation techniques were being brushed off by a mere genin) and staring at the ceiling, Shikamaru noticed something that definitely wasn't there when he'd first entered the room.

Were those mirrors?

The reflective panels angled silently, moving back and forth but making sure to not cast any obvious streaks of light across the walls. One of the mirrors tilted towards the Nara and Shikamaru had to smile fondly at the message scrawled in familiar handwriting:

You owe me one ;P

Another mirror faced him shortly, this one reflecting some other examinee's test, complete with answers. Then another faced him, this time reflecting the mirror-master's face in all her glory, winking at him in a none too cheesy way. Shikamaru chuckled softly, meeting they eyes in the mirror and nodding a wordless thank you. She flashed him a brilliant grin ("Brats still have the audacity to flirt when Ibiki's standing practically ten feet away from them…" muttered one of the girlfriend-less examiners who deducted a point just out of spite.), and after he'd finished copying down the answers, the ninja wires connected to the mirrors twitched, directing them elsewhere to enlighten the rest of her test taking teammates.

Shikamaru stretched appreciatively, discreetly signaling "no need" to Ino as she prepared to perform her clan technique on him (he could just imagine the shock registered on her face by that fact that he'd bothered to get the answers by himself). He plopped his head onto his arms and was asleep in a matter of minutes, completely oblivious to the poisonous looks half the examiners were sending him.

000

"…now you have to make a very important choice, and that is whether you wish to take the question or not…"

Shikamaru felt something hit the back of his head (which he would later find out was a spitball shot by Ino in a desperate attempt to wake him up) and let out an annoyed grunt, muffled by his arms. He got up lethargically, letting out a monster of a yawn and inadvertently interrupting Scar-face's Scary-Speech-Of-Doom-And-Despair. A couple people snickered.

"…it seems some of us are finally back among the living." Scar-face sent Shikamaru his Capillary-Rupturing-Glare-Of-Unspeakable-Horrors.

The Nara had to blink and rub his eyes for a few moments before registering that he was the unlucky genin who had been singled out by the head of T&I. Well. That didn't bode too well for the future.

Deciding that no action would be the best course of action, Shikamaru put on his best neutral expression and steadily matched the interrogator's gaze. Scar-face actually seemed a bit surprised that the thirteen year old wasn't cowering in fear, but it was quickly covered up with an I-Eat-Babies-For-Breakfast-Sneer. The son of Nara Yoshino wasn't deterred though (if he could face his mother, he could face anything), so it came down to an impromptu staring contest, neither of them blinking and everyone else in the room sweating bullets from the suspense. You could see the electricity crackling at the approximate midpoint between their gazes.

A minute passed and there was no change in the status quo.

A couple minutes passed and there was still no change in the status quo.

Ten minutes passed and both parties' eyes were really starting to get irritated, and they were kind of hoping that someone would interrupt them or something right now because this was getting really painful—

"Ooh, look! It's Orochimaru in a drag!"

Both of the males who were locked in a staring contest did a double take and turned their heads towards the female voice that had blurted out such a ridiculous statement.

Tenten rubbed the back of her head sheepishly, now everyone was staring at her, "Uh... whoops, it was just a Kusa-nin... sorry about that..."

The genin rolled their eyes while the Kusa-nin who actually was Orochimaru in a drag visibly relaxed (he was going to murder that *$%#ing brat...).

Ibiki coughed into his fist, "As I was saying, you're going to have to choose whether you want to take the tenth question or not because if you answer incorrectly, you are banned from taking the chunin exam ever agai—"

The interrogation specialist was rudely interrupted when Anko crashed through the window, shards of glass flying everywhere.

"Okay brats! I'm gonna be your examiner for the second half of the exam, so meet me at training ground 44 at—"

Ibiki gripped the dango-lady's shoulder, "Oi. I'm not done yet."

Anko's eyes widened, "Seriously? What the hell were you doing, having a staring contest with a random genin?"

Ibiki's lips pinched together and gave his best I-Am-Not-Obliged-To-Answer-That-Question-Frown. Unfortunately, Anko had been working with him for years, so it didn't really work.

She burst out laughing, "Oh this is rich, the great Ibiki couldn't even proctor the easiest part of the chunin exam because he was stuck in a staring contest? I can imagine the look Hokage-sama is going to give me when I..."

The scantily dressed woman went on making fun of her superior while said superior was sending waves of killing intent towards a pineapple headed genin who was trying very hard to melt into his seat.

Tenten continued to giggle incessantly from across the room.

000

A/N: I really think this is starting to border on crack... either way, first canon event! I didn't want to follow it too closely, cuz that'd just be boring.