De-raz: Kay, finally the chunnin exams! Time to get things started!

Naruto: Alright, time to kick ass

De-raz: You know, I might make you fail…(evil grin)

Naruto: You wouldn't!!!

De-raz: Probably not, but I might…you'll just have to wait.

Naruto: Aww man, you are evil.

Also, gonna try to make the Japanese names for jutsus used, might be different, but its not like I have a Naruto Encyclopedia of jutsu translations to use, so just go with it. Thanks for that input.

Want to thank some of these people who reviewed for the past two chapters.

Scione, Arashi the Shadow Wolf, Black64, Demoncreator2002, Ero-kun, Jaffar8

Remember, review and I might put your name for recognition on here.

Disclaimer: If I owned Naruto, I would be very disturbed in the head to have Lee and Gai the way they are now.


Chapter 7: Chunnin Exams, New Friends!:

It was early morning in Konohagakure. There were plenty of shinobi out on the streets, beginning the day. Not all of them were natural citizens, however. A lot came from different villages all around the world. Konoha, Suna, Kiri, Iwa, Cloud, and other minor villages. They were all here to prove their worth as shinobi and rise to the ninja rank of Chunnin at the Chunnin Exams.

Walking down the street was two Konoha nins, one a tall boy with messy, spiked blonde hair that had a Konoha hitae-ate keeping it up. His face was accentuated with deep sapphire eyes and three whisker marks lined on each cheek. He was also wearing different clothes for the occasion, to pleading from his girl teammate. He was wearing a black muscle shirt and over it was a red no hood jacket with the kanji for fox on the back. He also had on regular black cargo pants but with an orangish red spiral pattern on his kunai holster. The blonde also wore black fingerless gloves with metal plates on also donning the spiral shape and black shinobi shoes.

The other was a girl with long red hair that went down to her lower back. At the end of it, it blended into an orange and yellow tip, as though it was on fire. Her eyes and an orange with red tint in them. She was wearing a flame red shirt that showed with black cargo shorts, all of which showed off her curves modestly. She was also wearing gloves like her boy teammate, but hers were engraved with a flame design. She was wearing shinobi sandals with a deep red color.

They were each walking down towards the Konoha Academy, preparing to take a major test in their shinobi career. They were nervous of course, they could die after all, but easily hid it better than other more rookie participants they passed by.

Walking up towards the second floor of the academy, they could see a group of gennin gathering around a door.

Heh, how nostalgic. Seems they need to be a bit more original were a couple of thoughts going through the blonde kids head. The pair already saw through the pathetic genjutsu, but wanting to have little competition just went by not garnering attention, and headed to the third floor (AN: What, he must have gotten a bit smarter in three years right?). As they were heading to the large double doors near the end of the hall, they saw a familiar person greeting them.

"Hey Kakashi-sensei!" the blonde jinchuuriki yelled to the masked jounin.

"Yo" he added in his usual lazy manner, his face not leaving the contents of his favorite piece of literature.

"Hello, Kakashi-sensei" she said in a more normal tone.

"Well, I'm just here to tell you guys that you're clear to head in. The Hokage was able to get you two special permission as a two man team."

"Whoa, I totally forgot we needed three people" he said rubbing the back of his head, the other two face faulting.

Kakashi just coughed to gather their attention. "Well, just wanted to say good luck to you two, it will be different than last time Naruto."

"Of course, I know that sensei."

"You forgot you needed three people, so I wasn't sure" he said lazily, causing an outburst from his blonde student.

"Come on Naru-kun, we don't want to be late."

"Yea Naruto, go have fun in there with your girlfriend" the lazy jounin said, disappearing before Naruto could recover from embarrassment to yell at him.

"Forget about him, lets go Shina-chan" he said to the girl beside him, following after recovering from her thoughts of them together.

As they headed through the doors, the first thing they noticed was how many people there were. There must have been just as many shinobi the last time Naruto took it, maybe more. The bad part was when most teams gave them glares, some adding a bit of killing intent, hoping to chase out hopeless cases in fear. Neither Naruto nor Shina were afraid of them, however, dealing with much worse than this. They each found a seat next to a bar full of food, one that Naruto would know Chouji would love to have his fill of. Looking around the room, Naruto spotted a team of shinobi with the uniform of a certain village that made his eyes widen in surprise. Looking at the hitae-ate, the musical note engraved on it told him it was the Sound Village.

Sound ninja! They must know where Sasuke is! If I could get them to tell me, we might be able to bring him back! While the blonde haired gennin was lost in these thoughts, a group of three young teens made there way over to the pair. As Naruto spotted the trio coming towards them, he immediately recognized who they were.

"Konohamaru, Moegi, Udon! You guys are here!?" He shouted enthusiastically, while Shina wondered who they were.

The one in the middle had dark brown hair in a spiked fashion with a long blue scarf around his neck. He was wearing a long sleeve shirt and some brown pants. He also had on black shinobi sandals and the Konoha headband tied on his forehead. To his left was another boy wearing glasses and a girl to the brown haired boy's right. Both of them also wore their hitae-ate on their foreheads.

"Hey Boss!" yelled the trio in response. As the kids came over, the brown haired boy noticed the pretty red haired girl standing with Naruto. Already having some thoughts, Konohamaru was not one to keep thoughts in his head.

"Hey Boss, is this pretty girl your girlfriend?" he asked, giving the pair of older shinobi another massive blush.

Thinking that Shina was getting mad, Naruto was quick to snip it in the bud this time. "No, Konohamaru, this is my best friend Shina" though as he said this, Shina slumped her shoulders unnoticeably and a disappointed face that left as quickly as it came.

"Shina, from left to right are Udon, Konohamaru, and Moegi" he said pointing to each teen. As they were exchanging greetings, Konohamaru decided on getting some snacks from the buffet table, giving something to each of them. As four of them were about to take their first bit, however, Naruto quickly took it from them all.

"Hey Boss, why did you steal all the food!" Konohamaru Corps. said to the blonde.

"Just watch" he explained as he applied some chakra to the pieces. As he was putting in more chakra, the group could see the food slowly changing color before he stopped the chakra flow, the food changed back to normal.

"Just as I thought, its tampered" the blonde jinchuuriki said throwing them away.

"Y-you mean poisoned" said Konohamaru a bit scared of what he almost did to his friends. Naruto just ruffled the kid's hair, getting him a bit riled up.

"I doubt it, probably just something to knock people out. Kakashi was right, there are some twists."

Shina was curious at how Naruto knew. "Naruto, where did you learn that technique?"

"O, Ero-sennin taught it to me. He thought it would be a good idea to make sure I never eat something that could be poisoned with something in case Akatsuki ever did something like that. Let me say the better time of a month was spent with me in the hospital or the bathroom" he said rubbing the back of his head. "Hey Konohamaru, are there any other leaf gennin in these exams?"

"Nope, its just you two and us Boss. I can't wait for us to battle, I haven't forgotten that battle you promised me to see who should be Hokage!"

Naruto just gave one of his uncommon truthful smiles at the gennin. "Of course I didn't forget, I never go back on a promise. Just don't expect to win Konohamaru."

"You'll see, I've been training super hard!" Konohamaru just cheered out enthusiastically. At that time, the proctors for the first exam appeared into the room. In the front was a familiar pale eyed Hyuuga with long brown hair. His eyes held a commanding gaze to everyone in the room, promising pain to those foolish enough to defy him.

He spoke in the cold commanding voice consistent to the Hyuuga Clan. "Quiet up scum. The first part of the Chunnin Exams is about to begin." His voice sent a shiver down everybody's spine, his gaze adding to the effect.

Man, did he have Hiashi train him for this or what? was all Naruto could think seeing the feared looks on some younger gennin.

"Before we begin, I would like to tell you all a little secret. If you ate the food on that table there, I have one thing to say to them." With that, he snapped his fingers, causing ten teams of shinobi to fall to the ground asleep.

"You fail" he said to the shinobi already asleep from the effects of the food's poison. Once they were on the ground, his gaze shifted to those still standing in the room.

"A good shinobi will look carefully at all possible dangers, never dropping his guard. The rest of you, get a number for your seat. You have one minute to get your seat, GO!" he yelled, the gennin scrambling for the papers. Naruto got number 32, while Shina took number 67. Naruto had a spot closer to the front of the room, and Shina was in the middle rows near the left end. As Neji explained the rules, Naruto found them to be basically the same as his last time, so he just ignored them and looked around the room.

He himself was sitting by a couple of grass and cloud nin, but looking around more, he found one of the sound nin in the back, one near the top left corner, and the last guy a couple of seats down from him. Naruto also found Konohamaru and his friends pretty close to each other, two rows behind Shina.

Neji told them they had an hour to go, and so they all began the test. As some of the people were looking at the questions trying to decipher what the hell it is even asking, he already knows the point is to cheat. Luckily, he already came up with a way to do this a while ago.

Looking up from his test, Naruto added a small amount of demonic chakra to his eyes, just enough for the pupil to become slits but stay blue. It was a certain skill Kyuubi taught him to heighten senses when he needed to. Naruto just had to apply some chakra to the area that needed heightening, and became much greater, perfect for scouting around for enemies. The blonde's eyes, for example, had similar effects as the Byakugan right now, though the range was not nearly as long and seeing through objects was even harder. With his now slitted eyes, Naruto was easily able to look at the persons test in front of him without seeming to suspicious, hopeful that he wouldn't be caught.

Shina, had a much easier way to answer the questions laid out before her. Unlike Naruto, her demon Hinagusami was eagerly willing to help her, so she was able to ask the phoenix for the answers. If an eons old demon didn't know these answers the red head seriously doubted the proctors knew.

Konohamaru Corps. had their own style of communicating the answers to each other. Udon was their most intelligent member, so he was able to answer enough questions needed to pass. From there, they had a special headset hidden by a complex genjustsu taught by Ebisu and placed by Moegi. Udon first gave the answers to Moegi, who copied them down and then gave them to Konohamaru, who also wrote them down. The sound nin were able to listen to the unique sounds the pencil made for each word and copied them down from here. Plenty of other teams were cheating using their own special skills, but that didn't stop around 20 teams to be caught easily and sent out of the room.

As the test reached the first 45 minutes, Neji once again spoke up in front of the classroom.

"Pencils down! It is time to hand out the final question. Before I do, however, there are a few more rules that need to be explained, so keep quiet!" Neji might not be an interrogator who played mind games like Ibiki, but the tone of his voice, added with the glare from his pale Hyuuga eyes, sure scared the shit out of most of the gennin. As he explained the rules, Naruto noticed Shina was beginning to get nervous. Naruto just looked back and gave her a look that said 'don't worry, it's all work out in the end,' which succeeded in keeping her from quitting.

Over the course of probably ten minutes, about 10 teams left, leaving about 8 teams still left in the exam room. There was Naruto & Shina, Konohamru Corps., the sound team, a rock team, a mist team, a grass team, a cloud team, and finally a snow team. Seeing that none of them showed uncertainty to his Byakugan, Neji decided to finish the exam.

"Well, time for the final question. The last question is…." The teams other than Naruto & Shina were hanging on the edge of his words, making him smirk with the reactions he was too sure of getting. "You pass!" He said in a more cheerful tone that did not seem to fit in the tough guy persona he was wearing the whole exam. Naruto already knew about this, and had told Shina this would happen if the test would be the same again, so only Naruto and Shina weren't surprised at this news. They in fact had a hard time stifling the laughter threatening to exit their mouths at the others reactions.

As Neji began the speech of why the test was taken this way, Naruto just gave Shina a friendly smile, a way to congratulate her. She couldn't help but feel the heat rise to her cheeks the way he smiled at her. Looking at the other teams, however, Naruto consistently glared at the sound nins. Shina was a bit worried over how Naruto reacted to them, she wondered what they did to him. Naruto had decided that he didn't want to burden the beautiful red head with his troubles when she had her own, so he never bothered to tell her about Sasuke and Sound. It was his promise to bring him back, and felt it was his responsibility.

Once Neji had finished the explanation, two green blur broke through the window, the Chunnin hopefuls could hear a shout that sounded like "Konoha Senpuu!" As the blur exposed itself, Neji could only shake his head at the pair of idiots exposing themselves to be wearing green spandex costumes, the source of the green blurs, and wore orange leg warmers. Both of them also wore jounin vests, though the younger and smaller of the pair also had bandages around his arms. Their wardrobe might have been classified as weird to the non-Konoha nins, but their looks just crept them out. The pair could be mistaken as twins, each having bowl cuts and humungous eyebrows.

O god, not them! were the thoughts on every Konoha nin's minds when they were seen, even Neji who was already banging his head on the chalkboard.

The two people in front finally began talking, or more like yelling, both giving the 'good guy pose'. "Congratulations, the Springtime of Youth has guided you through the first exam. I am Rock Lee, your second youthful examiner!"

The bigger version of the pair just started hugging Lee and crying anime tears, Lee was doing the same thing as well. There was also of course the indescribable evil that is the "Green Beast of Konoha Genjustu" (AN: O yea, just made that name up, give me some credit!) made with the sunset and beach background.

"Ah, Lee, your youthful proclamation brings me great pride to be your sensei! Lee!"

"Gai-sensei!"

"Lee!"

"Gai-sensei!"

"Lee!"

"Gai-sensei!"

"Lee!"

"Gai-sensei!"

"Lee!"

As they were going through this, Neji just increased the intensity of his head banging, eventually hitting himself so hard he passed out. The scene Neji made would have the nin rolling over in laughter, but the non-Konoha nin were too traumatized by Gai and Lee's Genjutsu. Each team had their own thoughts, eyes twitching.

Sound: If we kidnapped these two, they'd make useful torture devices for Orochimaru-sama.

Snow: Wow, Naruto-san has to deal with this all the time, I pity him.(I'll explain why they know him later.)

Naruto: "Brat, you sure I can't kill them, or at least tear out their vocal cords" Kyuubi growled.

For once, I'll agree with you it is tempting, but we still can't.

"Gaki."

Shina: I wish there were people like these two at my village, I would have left so much sooner or risk going insane.

Hinagusami just replied "You would have probably gone insane first."

Good point.

Rock: Must…not…kill. Must…not…smash, damn it.

Cloud: They were just too freaked out to having anything to think about them.

Mist: I hope the second test has something to do with giving them bodily harm.

Konohamaru Corps.: I pity the Boss greatly, dealing with this so much.

Grass: They weren't thinking of much, but they each were reaching for their weapons. Obviously less restraint on starting a fight.

Before the Gras nin, or anybody else who lost their minds, could attack though, they were already finished.

"All, right, now all you youthful contestants will meet up with us two tomorrow at training ground 44 at eight o'clock. In the meantime Lee, we shall run 200 laps around Konoha to show off the Flames of Youth to these competitors!"

"Yosh, Gai-sensei! And if I can't do that, I shall do 500 pushups!"

"That is the spirit Lee, now let's get moving!" With that, they were already out the door. With Neji still passed out on the floor, the chunnin-hopefuls just sweatdropped, then left snickering at the sight of an elite jounin lying on the ground.

Naruto and Shina left the academy, proud of passing the first exam. While they were walking away though, the blonde haired shinobi heard a person calling for him. Turning around, he saw the Snow village shinobis walking up to him.

Seeing them in front of them, Naruto had a better look at them. There were two boys and one girl (AN: it always seems 2 boys and a girl or all boys, weird.) all wearing heavy grey jackets. The boys each wore ice blue snow pants with white pockets, but the girl wore deep blue snow shorts, while the rest of her legs were bandaged in multiple layers.

Though they each had a white mask over the lower half of their faces, the boy in the middle, who was the shortest of the three, had brown eyes and hair that spiked up. He had his kunai pouch on his left thigh, and a belt with some of its own pockets. The boy wore his own hitae-ate on his right bicep.

The boy to the left of him was the tallest of the three, probably the leader. He had dark grey eyes, and hair as white as the snow from his country. This snow nin wore his hitae-ate around his head like Naruto. The strange part was that he had no eyebrows, it reminded Naruto of a certain missing-nin from Mist. He was also wearing dark grey gloves that covered his whole hand, and carried an average sized tsurugi on his back. From what Naruto could see, the sheath was black with white markings on it, and the grip was white, the hilt black with gold edging on it.

Finally, the girl had ice blue eyes with a darker blue for her hair that she braided down to below her shoulders. Her jacket had no hood like the boys did, and she had fingerless gloves that had metal and her hitae-ate was on her right thigh just below her kunai holster. She also wore a smaller holster on her left thigh, possibly for a smaller type of projectile. The one with no eyebrows showed indifference, while the other two seemed to be more happy than their sword wielding teammate.

Naruto was a bit confused on what they had to say to him, he was the competition after all. He just scratched the back of his head saying "Uhhh, not to sound rude, but have I met any of you before?"

The boy in the middle spoke first. "O, sorry, where are my manners. My name is Ryo Senjaku."

The girl next to him spoke next "Jui Mina is my name."

"Hukota Gudo" the tallest snow nin replied gruffly.

"Don't mind his attitude, he always seems to have an ugly mood" Senjaku replied, gaining an icy glare from Gudo. Mina wanted to diffuse the situation fast. "Well, we know you're Uzumaki Naruto, but who is your friend?"

"This is my best friend and teammate, Shina" the blonde said while wrapping an arm around her shoulders. It of course gave her a small blush at the close contact of her crush. Now Naruto just wanted a couple of answers. "So, you guys know who I am, but how?"

The girl decided to explain. "All of Snow Country has heard about you. It was because of you and your team that Princess Yukie, or more Queen Yukie now, that she returned to Snow Country. The condition of our country has never been better, and it is thanks to you."

You could almost see the expansion of Naruto's head. "Yea, I am pretty awesome" he bragged, flexing his biceps. Shina just giggled at the display, while the snow kunoichi did too. Gudo and Senjaku just sweatdropped. "So, I guess Yukie is doing alright then?"

Mina was the one to continue the conversation. "Yes, she has been really happy being the queen now."

Naruto laughed about that a little. "Really? When I was guarding her she didn't even want to go back to Snow Country. (Whispers to Mina) To tell you the truth, she was pretty bitchy when I met her at first." This gave Naruto a disapproving glance from the kunoichi.

The shorter boy finally decided to speak up "Well, we just wanted to meet the guy who helped our village so much. If you ever need any help, our country would welcome you with open arms." During the whole conversation, Gudo managed to keep his air of indifference until now.

"You seem strong. Make it past the second round, I hope to fight you in the finals." Apparently he doesn't usually say this much at once, because Senjaku and Mina had shoked expressions on their faces. Gudo just ignored it and turned to walk to their hotel.

"Be careful, Naruto, he is the strongest one of us for sure" Senjaku said, before turning to follow his teammate. Mina said her goodbyes too before following after him.

Seeing the smile on Naruto's face, Shina couldn't help but feel happy about others appreciating him. Naruto, you might not be liked by the villagers, but I'll always stick by you. It appears I am not the only one who sees you as the hero you are either, others will seem to be there. "Well, Naruto, it appears that more people like you than you think."

Naruto was just looking off in the direction the snow nins left, the smile never leaving his face. Maybe there are others who can consider me a hero. If not Konoha, then maybe somewhere else in the world, people could see me as…me. The way the Fourth wanted me to be seen. Looking towards Shina, he felt the now familiar warmth from just being with her, able to look at her elegant face, her hair blowing slightly in the wind. "Come on, it'll be a good idea to make a strategy and get some rest for the next exam." With that suggestion in mind, the Konoha jinchuuriki were on their way to their apartment to prepare for the next phase.


De-raz: Okay, the first part of the Chunnin Exams is over, next will be the second.

Naruto: Will there be fighting in that one?

De-raz: (Smirks sadistically) of course.

Naruto: All right! Wait...you're not gonna make me lose right?

De-raz: No,no,no of course not (crosses fingers)

Naruto: I saw that!

De-raz: You never know.

Thanks for all you guys' support on this, despite my lack of quick updating abilities. Hope you keep reading, enjoy!

Please R&R