All: AAAUUUGHHHH!
Tori: What are we screaming about again?
SA, Zas, and Saria: (sweatdrop)
SA: Because Saria's in college and we're starting to worry about exams already. You know, written exams, like what Naruto will be taking in this chapter?
Tori: Oh…. AAAUUUGHHHHHH!
Zas: Took her long enough…. Saria?
Saria: (looks up from her book) OH! The fic! I don't know I bother with disclaimers anymore, but, I still don't own Naruto…. TT and I'm going to rush through a bit of this so I can get to the test.
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Naruto arrived at the Academy at exactly 8 am, as instructed. She had already showered and had pulled on a new set of clothes, opting to avoid her hunter outfit and her new clothes also. So today, she wore a pair of camouflage cargo pants, a tight, black v-necked shirt with three-quarter length sleeves, and a black handkerchief tied over her head. Her white hair was pulled back in a French braid. Naruto also carried a black backpack that had some scrolls, rations, and extra shuriken and kunai in it.
Sasuke and Sakura were easy to find in the crowd around the Academy, she just had to follow the pink blob that was squealing and fawning over another boy. Yep, Naruto decided that if Sasuke ever tried to runaway from the village, all she'd have to do to find him was release the "horrific pink beast."
Sakura didn't notice Naruto's arrival at first, and seemed ready to continue her fawning when Sasuke saw his escape.
"Alright, let's go," he said, pushing Sakura away for the umpteenth time, trying to take up the mantle of group leader. Naruto didn't believe it suited him, but she didn't really care at the moment. Hunter nins rarely worked in groups, but they were trained to cooperate in groups should the situation call for it, but they usually didn't have an established leader. As long as Sasuke didn't do something that she viewed as down-right stupid, he could think of himself as "leader."
Climbing the stairs up to the room, Naruto almost laughed when she felt a shift, genjutsu… Sasuke and Sakura also seemed to notice the genjutsu as well, though at different rates. Sasuke seemed to pick it up soon enough, but Sakura didn't pick it up until after Sasuke mentioned it. Before he did though, she saw a rather interesting show.
Most of the Genin gathered to take the exam were fooled by the genjutsu, and were currently congregated in front of a door that was being guarded by two Genin. Several of the aforementioned Genin; including a rather freaky looking one wearing a green spandex outfit and sporting a bowl-cut and horrific looking eyebrow. That was when Sasuke stepped up and commented on the genjutsu.
As the group was about to turn away and head towards the right room, the boy that was wearing the green spandex jumped forward.
"You're Uchiha Sasuke, aren't you?" The boy asked.
"Yes, who are you?" Sasuke replied.
"I'm Rock Lee!" The boy, apparently Lee replied, as he struck a pose that made Naruto sure that if he ever did that in battle, opponents and allies alike would die of shock, humiliation, and internal hemorrhaging. In that order.
He choose that moment to look past Sasuke when something seemed to catch his eye. Due to all the recent attention that Naruto had gotten, she recognized the look in his immediately, and breathed a sigh of relief when it wasn't directed at her.
"You must be Haruno Sakura. Be my girlfriend and I shall protect you with my life!" Naruto suppressed the urge to hoot with laughter.
"Definitely… not." Sakura's reaction was that of disinterest and disgust with a mild attempt at best to be polite. Lee's crestfallen look made Naruto fight another urge, this one to grin, even as Sakura grabbed both her and Sasuke and dragged them down the hall.
"Looks like you got a taste of what you give Sasuke everyday," Naruto commented.
"Shale, shut up!" Sakura said this as she suddenly gained a demon face. Sasuke said nothing, but he did make his trademark "hn" noise.
Before they even got to the room though, they had another run-in with that Lee guy. This time, he claimed that he wanted to fight Sasuke, but promptly started blowing kisses at Sakura. Again, Naruto suppressed the urge to laugh and comment on how familiar this looked. Surprisingly enough, Sasuke stopped the display, despite the fact Naruto knew for a fact that he was enjoying it as much as she was.
"Enough, you said you wanted to fight me." Sasuke stepped forward, prepared to start the fight.
"Yes, I did. They say that you are a genius and that genius will always come out on top. However, with my flaming passion of youth, I wish to show people that hard work can overcome genius; that a dead last can become a great ninja. So, I wish to defeat you, to come a step closer to proving my belief." He finished with the same pose as before.
By the end of this speech, Naruto couldn't decide if she should somehow applaud the guy, wince, scream bloody murder, or simply knock the guy upside his head and leave. Sasuke answered for her by entering the starting pose of his style and running at the guy. The Lee guy simply stood there, then evenly slid into a pose that Naruto recognized.
'Great, that kid has been taught Maito Gai's style, this could get nasty. If Sasuke looks like he's about to get in serious trouble, I'll step in.'
The fight was fast to say the least. Very few blows were exchanged before Lee partially unwrapped his arm bandages and kicked Sasuke up into the air. It didn't take a genius to tell that Sasuke was in trouble at that point. With a quick kick off from the ground, Naruto executed a fast double kick, one to Sasuke and one to Lee, and then caught both of the fighters by a foot. Lee, being faster and better trained, managed to catch himself on his free foot. Sasuke almost did likewise, but still had to catch himself with a hand.
"Save this for later on in the exam," Naruto said in a slightly angry tone, as she released each of the boy's feet, sending both a glare that screamed "Shame on you."
"Very good," a turtle suddenly shouted from the sidelines. "Lee, you were told not to use that move. Prepare yourself; Gai-sensei will be here shortly."
Lee looked authentically shamed, and bowed respectfully to the turtle.
"A turtle?" asked Sakura.
"A summons, I believe," Naruto quietly whispered to her teammates.
A second later, the traditional puff of smoke that symbolized the arrival of a Jounin popped into existence, on top of the turtle's back. And there, on the back of a turtle, was the guy that Naruto absolutely knew had to be the most insane, fashionably challenged, and ridiculous ninja ever to exist. And to make matters worse, he was in one of his worst poses.
Naruto had trained with Gai for a while when she was still an apprentice hunter nin. He had taught her the style of fighting that she used, so she was used to his antics and was able to tone him out until, someway or another, he made the picture of a sunset appear behind him and Lee as they started shouting each others names, while crying and hugging. Naruto had had enough.
Turning, she grabbed Sakura's and Sasuke's collars and dragged them from the room to the hallway leading to the room where the exam would start, after yelling that the exam was about to start. Neither of the two raised any fuse.
Entering room 303, they saw a large number of older looking Genin, as well as what remained of the rookie 9, considering that Naruto wasn't a member of those rookie 9. Naruto felt a little like an interloper, especially when the other 4 out of 6 Genin asked if she was the replacement for Kenosha. Neither Hinata nor Shino asked.
Ino seethed about another girl being put on HER Sasuke-kun's team, Shikamaru didn't seem to care, Chouji just continued eating, and Kiba was… Kiba.
"Hello there," Kiba said as he looked Naruto up and down, paying special attention to certain areas, apparently liking what he saw, until he saw a fist come up and hammer him across the jaw line, throwing him against a wall, HARD.
"HENTAI!" Naruto screamed at him before appearing in front of him, fingers on his throat. "Look at me like that again, and I will personally neuter you with a rusty spoon!"
"You shouldn't try to attract so much attention to yourselves," A voice suddenly rang out.
Naruto's head immediately swiveled in the direction of the voice, and saw a very handsome boy with silver hair, just a few years older than her group coming toward them.
'Good one right there,' Kyuubi's voice suddenly rang out in her head. 'Can definitely get something out of him, in more ways than one.' As Naruto mentally scowled at Kyuubi, said demon choose that time to recede in her head, snickering silently.
'HELL NO!' she screamed after the retreating demon, while sending images of her using his tails as shawls. No reply came.
"Are you all rookies?" the new comer asked in a quiet, almost shy sounding voice.
"Yeah, what about you?" Naruto's question gained a short laugh.
"No, this is my 7th time taking this exam." Everyone, except Shikamaru, looked crestfallen at the reply. "But, I have gathered much information; it's all on these cards." The boy pulled out a deck of blank cards. "All I have to do to gain the information is hear the person's name, then add a little of my chakra to display the information. See?" He did what he said to one of the cards and a map of the countries appeared.
Without tuning them out even a bit, Naruto turned her attention to the crowd of Genin also in the room. She easily picked out Neji and his team, which she found out, had the green freak from before. Next to come to her was Gaara's team, he looked like he was fighting to stay awake, but only a little. The two he was standing with looked a little distraught about something. Then, she smelled something. Turning her full attention back on the new guy (she thought she'd heard him say his name was Kabuto), and the rest, she found where the smell was coming from. Well well, looked like Ino liked more boys than just Sasuke, especially if the way she was looking at the Kabuto guy meant anything.
"Who are you interested in?" Kabuto asked Sasuke.
"Information on Sabaku no Gaara, Rock Lee, and Uzuta Shale." 'Shit' was the first thing Naruto thought.
"Alright, you already know their names, good," Kabuto answered as he rifled through the deck, picking out 3 cards. "First, Sabaku no Gaara, shows that he has no taijutsu, genjutsu, or ninjutsu… and his mission record for a Genin is incredible. He's even completed an A-rank mission, and returned without a wound on him."
Despite herself, Naruto couldn't stop herself from whistling softly at THAT one. She also happily noted that the card didn't mention Gaara's "tenant."
"Rock Lee, it says that he was trained by Maito Gai, and he's a taijutsu specialist."
'No surprise there,' Naruto thought.
"Uzuta Shale… very little information. Doesn't list any of her abilities, not even taijutsu… Mission records all seem normal, except that it says that at one point she had a private sensei…"
"I'm not going to tell you anything about me," Naruto declared hotly, when questioning gazes fell on her. "I need my secrets, and I don't intend to compromise any surprises that I might be able to pull off. Oh, and look out," she stated as she ducked, right as a Sound Genin flew over her, right where her head had been.
Said Sound nin took a swing at Kabuto, who appeared to have dodge, until his glasses suddenly shattered and he got sick.
"Sound country is not weak, Konoha has merely gotten soft. The Genin from Sound, Chuunin for certain." One of the Sound nin said with a smirk that simply unnerved Naruto.
"That's enough you maggots, unless you want to be disqualified right now," a new voice shouted. All eyes turned to the front where there now stood a very large jounin wearing a bandana. Behind him stood a bunch of uniformed Chuunin, all were smirking oddly.
"My name is Morino Ibiki, and I shall be the examiner for this first test. Now, line up, get a number and a test paper, and sit at the seat that has the number that matches the one you get." Naruto liked the guy already. He sounded like an expert in interrogation and torture, something that she was somewhat versed in as a hunter nin.
Everyone was silent as the gathered their tests and found their seats. Naruto made a point of making her chair make a loud scraping noise as she pulled it out, an action that earned her more than one glare, to which she answered with a smirk. This was going to be fun. She was sitting in the middle of a row, with Hinata on her right, and a strange guy on her left.
"This test will be done on a ten point deduction scale, cheating is NOT allowed. Anyone caught cheating will get a ten point deduction. If you're caught cheating 3 times, you and your entire team is out." This comment was met with several exclamations from all over the class.
"But if this is a 10 point deduction scale, then why are there only 9 questions?" one voice called out.
"The last question will be given 10 minutes before the test is over, 50 minutes after the start." Morino smirked in a sadistic manner, thoroughly enjoying watching most of the Genin sweat.
Naruto looked around the room, noticing people all showing discomfort also, but also noticing something else.
"You may begin!"
The sound of tests flipping over was lost to Naruto as she redid the math over and over, but it still held true. There was supposed to be one more person here… You were supposed to take this test in teams of 3. That meant, there were two people in this room who shouldn't be here… And one of them was sitting right next to her!
'How obvious can you get?' she mentally screamed at the guy as he immediately began filling out answers, going in order… not reading the damn questions! He finished fast, and she soon found a pattern, every 5 minutes he'd uncover his answers for a few seconds.
'If I can get a distraction, I won't have to risk being caught getting answers from him. I can get them all in one swipe!' Turning her attention, and sensing abilities toward the room in general, she started searching for something she could use.
'One of Neji's teammates is using mirrors on the ceiling, Shino has bugs, Kiba has Akamaru, Gaara has sand, that weird make-up guy on Gaara's team, Kankurou, has a puppet… and it's out… posing as… A SCOREKEEPER? Wait, that's perfect! He won't be able to tell people that it wasn't him, because that would be admitting he had it out… hehehe.'
Trying to look completely casual while hiding her molding chakra, she let her hand slip under the table, and from the center of her palm, a single chakra thread began to form. It slipped down to the floor, moved between several students, up several levels, then attached itself to the puppet and disconnected the lines that the other user had on it. She sensed shock coming from the puppeteer, who tried to regain control, but couldn't. A tiny bit of movement on Naruto's left signaled that the plant had just covered his answers again, now was the time.
A quick command over the chakra thread, and the disguised puppet suddenly jumped up, threw its clipboard at the original puppeteer, then jumped the Chuunin sitting next to it, raising quite the disturbance, and getting everyone's attention. With another fast set of hand seals, Naruto used Kawarimi to switch the positions of her test and the plant's before grabbing a pencil and writing her false name on the paper, right as she cut the chakra thread controlling the puppet. Now she was very glad she hadn't written her name on her original test, or else the guy would have had proof of what she did.
As things settled down again, Naruto turned her new test over, and waited for the final question, and watched as 5 minutes later the plant turned his paper over again, and promptly choked at the blank sheet that stared up at him.
Naruto yawned slightly, and considered taking a nap, but decided not to. While it was true that she now had all the answers with the test only having been on for about 17 minutes, she still wanted to see what else could happen. A minute later, the first team was failed and removed from the exam. Many more follow. Around the room, various forms of cheating were happening, and she could now see that Gaara was helping his teammates now by spelling out the answers using his sand since the puppet was now out. She felt it when Ino pulled some sort of technique, but said nothing. So, in the end, nothing along the lines of what she pulled was going to happen again, that much was obvious. Oh well, she now only had to wait for the 10th question.
By the time 47 minutes had come around, Naruto was bored beyond belief, but hadn't yet lost patience. Others weren't so lucky. She could tell from her abilities to hear that Sasuke was actually playing with his toes, Sakura was tapping a foot, and Hinata was twiddling her fingers beneath the desk. The plant was yawning constantly, most of the scorekeepers were shifting from having to sit too long, and that Morino Ibiki guy up front seemed too calm…
In total, Naruto believed there were maybe 38 teams left…
"Alright, time for the final question." Sounds of relief were heard all over the room. "You can choose to take this question or not, but the outcome is based upon what you choose. If you choose to not take this, your points will be reduced to zero and you and your team will automatically fail. If you choose to take this and you get it wrong, you will have to stay a Genin forever."
"What?" a female voice cried out. "How can you do that?"
"Because I'm the examiner this year, and my rules are the law. Now, who wants to quit?"
Naruto sat and watched as one-by-one, team after team quit. She held her tongue though, only shifting so she could meet Sakura's eyes and signal for her not to dare to do anything.
The pressure built for more people, then finally, there were no more people quitting. There were only 26 teams left.
"Congratulations, everyone here passes!" Naruto's jaw hit the floor, as did a number of other people's.
"What was with the 10th question then?" the same girl called out, Naruto now had her pegged as the girl from Gaara's team, Temari.
"To weed out the losers," was the simple reply. "As Chuunin, you would be expected to lead teams, and be able to stand such pressures." Reaching up, the examiner removed his bandana, showing multiple scars and old wounds, marks of torture, Naruto just knew they were. "You must know what sacrifices to make. Say you were on a mission, and the cost of success for this mission was the life of one of your teammates, should be take this mission? The answer is, no."
There should have been more said, but someone choose that moment to attack, through a window. A woman appeared, threw four kunai attached to a banner, and spreading it over the back wall, and Morino Ibiki.
"I'm the examiner for the second exam, alright everybody lets go! Follow me! Huh?" the woman, who's banner proclaimed that she was Mitarashi Anko, suddenly seemed to be doing a head count. "Umm… Morino, I think you lost one of the examinees…"
"Hey, where'd Shale go?" Hinata asked out loud, causing everyone to also realize the girl's disappearance. The question was answered a moment later as Morino Ibiki, and a sheepish looking "Uzuta Shale" pushed their way out from behind the banner.
"Anko, learn to control yourself better. This Genin attempted to attack you, and probably would've partially succeeded if I hadn't caught her," Ibiki stated in a very strained sounding voice.
"Hey, it's your fault that you caught my kunai the way that you did," Naruto immediately defended herself, knowing he was about to snap at her.
"Oh, she was, was she? Tell me, Ibiki, how did you catch her kunai?" Anko actually laughed when Ibiki pulled his arm out from behind the curtain, a kunai half stuck in it.
"It was a reaction," Naruto aka "Shale" said quietly as she returned to her seat and checked her paper, before writing a quick note on the back of it, then getting up and following the crowd as they left with Anko.
Ibiki simply tugged the kunai out of his arm, right as "Shale" marched back in and took her kunai back with a, "I think I might need that more than you." He then walked through the rows, picking up the paper tests, and then stopped when he saw the one that belonged to that "Uzuta" girl.
On the back of the paper, there was a note that said:
Morino Ibiki, you probably knew this, but I caused that puppet to go berserk, and then used a replacement technique to take a paper from one of the plants. Some words of advice: rather than having 2 plants, try having a team of 3, that way they can blend into the crowd better. Also, it is usually a better idea if they look as though they are having trouble with the test, not simply writing the answers, especially if they don't read the questions, or bother to act as though they did.
His fist holding the papers clenched slightly, he knew when someone was simply having it too easy with this test, and that "Uzuta Shale" girl had it too easy.
'She probably should have taken this test long ago,' he thought, as a grim smile spread on his face. 'The way she reacted to Anko's sudden entrance was too automatic, she did that without even a single thought. There is something wrong with that, definitely. Still, these next portions of the exam should be interesting to watch.'
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Saria: Well, did you like it? Hate it? Want it to be longer from now on? WHO CARES? REVIEW!
Tori: She just means that she wants some reviews, even if they're flames…
SA: She should expect a few at least, this chapter is about 9 pages long…
Zas: My fingers…(sniff)
