As Asuma at Kurenai's side in front of his father and Hokage, nominating his team for the Chunin Exams more to show his students what they were up against so they would know how much they would need to improve before they finally earned their promotion than out of a belief that they would succeed, he was acutely aware of the empty space where a Jounin Instructor should have been. There were two rookie instructors where there should have been three. After the Godaime fell, so to did Team 7. Namikaze Naruto had been the glue that had held that otherwise broken team together.

The civilian child who had no ideas of the realities of Shinobi life and who had thought it all a game in which she could win the heart of the last of the Uchiha and live happily ever after - much as is own female student had - had had a brutal wake-up call that had caused her to turn her hitai-ate in and start attending a civilian school. Following the death of his teammate and his other theammate's departure, the Uchiha had completely closed himself off, and refused to interact with his new team more than he had to. And as for Hatake Kakashi...

As for Hatake Kakashi, his student's death had been one blow too many. He had followed the boy soon after, on the anniversary of Uchiha Obito's death.

As he nominated his team, he looked over at Umino Iruka, the instructor who had trained this year's rookie teams in the Academy. The man was morose, and he suspected he knew why. Namikaze Naruto who had been a favorite student of his had been the first of his students to die, and if the man continued to teach, would be the first of many.

In the room in which the first phase of the Chunin Exams was to take place, Akimichi Chouji found his eyes involuntarily drifting over towards where Uchiha Sasuke was located. He was scared of the other boy. He'd been a little scared of the other boy for years, ever since he'd undergone a complete personality change after the Uchiha Massacre, but he was frightened of him now.

After Naruto died, Team 7 had fallen apart, and Sasuke had been put on a more experienced team that had lost a member on a C-ranked mission themselves. Since then, he had become harder, and much colder than that boy he'd spent years with back at the Academy. When he ran into people he knew, such as his classmates, he didn't even so much as greet them. The only people Sasuke actually talked to recently was his fangirls, but that had been to yell at them as he threw weapons at them in order to make them leave him alone.

Right now, Uchiha Sasuke was someone he most definitely didn't want to run into in a dark alley or worse, on the other side of a battlefield.

Trailing slightly behind Chouji, Ino bit her lip nervously as she looked about the room that contained what seemed like hundreds of ninja who were bigger and stronger than her. Konoha's rookie teams had been nominated for the Chunin Exams, and she was on one of them. As she listened to Chouji greet Kiba and joke about eating Akamaru, she felt as if there was something missing.

She knew what it was. It was Team 7. Her former best friend and rival for Sasuke's heart wasn't there for her to compete with. Without her there trying to shove her aside or rub her nose in the fact that Sasuke was on her team, seeing Sasuke was different somehow, not quite as enjoyable as it used to be.

Things had gone very badly for Sakura. First, she'd seen her teammate die in front of her. Then, her sensei had committed suicide. After that had happened, she hadn't entirely recovered. Her friend had quit being a Kunoichi, and wasn't thriving as a civilian. She'd heard that her friend had had severe disciplinary problems at the school her parents had sent her to, and that she might get expelled.

She didn't know what she'd do if she'd lost Chouji, Shikamaru, or Asuma-sensei. She'd probably end up being just as bad as Sakura. After seeing what had happened to Team 7, there were some mornings after a particularly bad nightmare that she found herself racing to Chouji and Shikamaru's houses to make sure that they were still alive.

Behind Ino, Shikamaru looked around the room, noting his team's behavior as well as that of everyone else. There was an element missing from this situation, and that element was Team 7. More importantly, the random element on Team 7, Naruto, wasn't here. While he could predict what Naruto would have done in this situation to a degree, there had always been something about the boy that defied accurate prediction.

Now should have been the moment when Naruto had sensed the pressure that was on him and yelled something defiant though. The more you tried to push Naruto down, the more determined he became to rise. There was no defiant yell to break the tension in the room and distract everyone from the upcoming exam however, and there never would be because there was no Naruto to give it.

The tension in the room increased as the exam started, and built as it progressed. By the time that it was time to receive the tenth question, you could practically cut it with a knife. Naruto would have refused to give in to the pressure and yelled something defiant here as well, inspiring others to continue much as he had once done without realizing it during a particularly brutal lesson back at the Academy.

He was not Naruto.

He raised his hand, and Team 10 failed.

Edited 12-3-12