Saria: WOO HOO! YES! AN UPDATE! AND I HAVE 3 OUT OF 5 TERM PAPERS FINISHED! CELEBRATE!

Tori: Don't forget, you have a doctor's appointment tomorrow!

Zas, SA, Saria: Party pooper…

Tori: Hey! It's not my fault!

Zas: No, you just reminded her and spoiled the mood!

Tori: Did not!

Zas: Did too!

Tori: Did not!

Zas, SA, Saria: DID TOO!

(The banter continues for a while)

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She was falling, falling, and falling. That was the last sensation that she remembered. At some point the fall must have ended though, and in a favorable way since she wasn't dead… But that didn't mean that she couldn't have been captured!

'Kyuubi, how long was I out?' Naruto's call wasn't answered; she didn't even hear the typical humming or grumbling that let her know if she was being ignored. 'Kyuubi, is something wrong? Kyuubi?'

Naruto immediately threw herself into the corner of her mind where Kyuubi was sealed, but the way was harder than normal. What should have been like a well worn path in her mind felt blocked and she found it increasingly harder to continue. 'Kyuubi?' she called yet again, as she entered the sewer like area at last. Still no sound greeted her.

Pushing forward still, she felt the darkness around her push at her, try to make her turn back, to keep her from seeing whatever was wrong. Finally, she stood in front of Kyuubi's cage within her mind, but something was seriously wrong.

Within the cage, Kyuubi looked emancipated, his fur was no longer sleek, and everything just screamed "WRONG."

'KYUUBI!' Naruto screamed, as she ran straight up to the gate, now too worried about her companion to keep her distance. Within the cage, Kyuubi stirred slightly, but didn't look at her, or even open its eyes. Something was very wrong indeed!

'Kit…' Kyuubi's voice was barely audible even in the dead silence.

'I'm right here,' Naruto answered as she reached through the bars of the cage and gently touched one of his forepaws.

'Kit, when you are out of the forest, get a medic to examine you. Something happened when that snake-man bit you, and I can feel it. Please kit, hurry…'

'Ok,' Naruto answered quietly, afraid to leave Kyuubi, but realizing that she couldn't do any good for him there. Rising to her feet, she quickly threw herself out of this section of her mind, forcing herself to wake up.

She didn't dare to open her eyes immediately, aware that it would give away that she was conscious again, instead she chose to try and figure out what her situation was with her other senses. She could feel that she was lying on something that was almost soft, but there were stones and twigs beneath her. Voices also could be heard.

"Orochimaru-sama, I don't understand why you placed the mark on this little girl (Naruto unconsciously clenched her fists). She doesn't seem to have any special abilities that I can see aside from being able to change her hair color."

'Uh oh,' thought Naruto as she realized that this person seemed to know that she had changed her appearance. Thankfully though, she and Kyuubi had been very thorough when they had made this appearance changing technique, she didn't need constant chakra flow to maintain it. Once a color was chosen, it was set until she chose to change it, or Kyuubi chose to change it.

"Kabuto, I don't expect you to understand, but this is about planning for the future. Once my new body is ready, we'd still need to keep that bloodline going now, wouldn't we? This girl is not a future host, she'll be the vessel that insures the continuation, and provides future host possibilities. She may not seem like much now, but in battle, she is fearsome opponent. In a few short years, her body will truly be exquisite, and ripe for the taking. Plus her ability to change her appearance may come in handy one day, especially if the trait is hereditary!"

'KABUTO! He's a traitor?' were the first words to come to Naruto at first. They were followed shortly by, 'THE HELL! This guy wants to use me as a breeding whore? Orochimaru or not, I need to knock this guy down a few pegs.' But her body refused to move enough. All she could manage was a slight rustle that caused the two to pause.

"Kabuto, you should get her back to her team now. I can wait to mark the Uchiha boy until later, after he sees what power can be gained from the seal. Also, make sure her team makes it to the next round, and stay in the competition this time also." Naruto felt herself being lifted up not even a few seconds later, as an extra pair of hands pushed her hair back from her neck and she briefly felt lips pass over a point on her neck before the voice that she assumed belonged to Orochimaru whispered several words.

"Absolutely exquisite, I wonder what games I'll teach you first…"

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Naruto felt nauseous, no two ways about it. Even 15 minutes later, as she pretended to stir again in Kabuto's arms, she felt nauseous from Orochimaru's words.

She was a hunter nin for crying out loud! She wasn't a kunoichi trained to seduce people, and she hadn't even given a real thought to perhaps getting married one day! No! Her role was in the shadows of field duty; she caught missing nin, assassinated targets if she had to, and gathered information, and she didn't do it by entertaining a man! Especially one that she should attempt to kill on sight!

She felt very, very, very nauseous. And very, very dirty that anyone could think of her in that way!

'Freaking pedophile,' she thought, even as she felt Kabuto slow down.

Pretending to jerk awake, and happily bashing Kabuto in the nose while doing it, she immediately began to struggle in his strong grip, freeing herself by force and ungracefully falling to the ground.

"Wh-what happened?" she declared as she feigned wooziness, and clumsily regained her feet. Something about Kabuto's face showed surprise, and a look that said he was mildly impressed. He'd better be, that guy had a viselike grip. "Kabuto?"

Kabuto's mask of innocent nice guy was instantly in place as he smiled and sheepishly rubbed the back of his head. "Sorry, found you alone in the forest, so I decided to help by trying to get you to your team."

"That's ok, I can take it from here," Naruto replied, desperate to get away.

"Shale-san," Kabuto's voice piped up again, sounding slightly shy. "What happened to your hair?"

"Part of a Bloodline," Naruto resisted the urge to kick herself in the mouth after that.

"Ok, do you have both scrolls? I have an extra scroll of earth if not."

Naruto quickly checked her back pouch, praying the scroll was there, and that it was a scroll of earth, she didn't want to take anything from this guy, and the only way to get away with it right now was to choke up a scroll of earth. The scroll was a scroll of heaven. Damn.

Kabuto smiled again as he handed her the spare scroll, which she grudgingly accepted. It would get her out of the forest a lot sooner. Besides, Gaara was probably already out and would be waiting for some long needed sleep.

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Finding Sasuke and Sakura was easy, after getting away from Kabuto, taking the scroll of earth with her, she had summoned a fox. Upon finding them, to prove who she was, she summoned a fox and repeated Sakura's reaction in words of when she had changed her hair color. The case was sealed when she produced the two scrolls and tossed them to Sasuke. After that, they headed toward the tower and surprisingly enough in Naruto's opinion, met no other teams.

When they entered the tower, they opened the scrolls, mainly because they didn't know of what else to do.

"This says something about summon…" Sakura murmured, right as "Shale" and Sasuke grabbed both scrolls and tossed them further into the room, right as Iruka appeared.

"Hey al… WHAT THE!" Unsurprisingly, Iruka was staring at Naruto and taking in her once again change in appearance. Catching himself fast, and remembering that Naruto could change her appearance, he continued. "Congratulations on completing the second exam. I would like to treat you all too some ramen, but unfortunately you can't leave the tower grounds until the exam ends."

"Don't worry; you can make up for it afterwards!" Naruto yelled, not about to give up a free meal.

Both Sasuke and Sakura were slightly taken aback by Shale's strong reaction to the word "ramen."

Anyway, of the 5 allotted days that you had for the exam, you've only taken a little under a day and a half, so feel free to relax." Iruka smiled and waved as he disappeared.

Naruto felt her eyebrow twitching as she realized what "a day and a half" implicated, especially since she hadn't spent the night with Sasuke and Sakura. Turning to them, she slowly ground out, "I was gone over night?"

Sakura looked sheepish, while Sasuke gave her a surprised look.

"Well, yeah…" Sakura began, "You see, after that Grass guy did whatever he did to you, he grabbed you and carried you off when you started thrashing and yelling in midair I didn't hear what you said, but it seemed to gain his interest. Sasuke-kun and I followed, but we couldn't keep up, then early this morning, you showed up looking a little bedraggled and… what did he do to you?" Sakura asked this last part trying to make it seem as though she wasn't too curious, and looking as though she halfway expected Shale to start crying.

Sasuke was also watching. He hadn't noticed anything that would suggest an assault of any kind, but he knew that he probably should listen.

Naruto shrugged, and then answered, weaving a quick lie. "Apparently, when he attacked me last, he accidentally injected me with a poison. He didn't want you two hovering over him as he treated me, especially since it was supposed to be a delicate procedure, so he took me somewhere more secluded. I think he was just kidding about the killing us part yesterday, you know, try to scare so we'd give up without a fight. He left after I woke up this morning after giving me a firm warning about wandering around too long alone. Also, the second scroll I got, I took it off the hands of another person who was walking around alone."

Sakura seemed to accept the story, Sasuke was more suspicious, but couldn't find any glaring holes in it that he could attack.

"Now, if you two would excuse me, I have some business I need to attend to." With that, Naruto left the other two in the room and moved into the tower, tracking a certain chakra signature to its owner.

"What took you so long?" asked Gaara as she walked out onto the balcony and stood next to him.

"Someone thought it would be fun to knock me out, if I ever see them again, I'll be sure to at least return the favor." Naruto smiled slightly at Gaara, who was staring at her hair, much like everyone had done in this exam. "So, you ready to begin?"

"Yes," was Gaara's reply, as he continued to stare out into the forest.

"Well, common, lets go to your room so we can get some privacy, and also so I don't have to drag you all over the place once we're done."

Gaara simply nodded and led the way; Naruto followed close behind and quickly pulled an inventory on what she had in her pack, which Sasuke had recovered for her. Her scrolls were mainly luggage scrolls, and knowing what she planned to do after the exam, she had packed the things that she would need for the correcting of Gaara's seal. Upon entering his room, she immediately pushed Gaara to the side and used black ink to begin painting the sealing circle on the ground. The one she had chosen was complex, but would afford Gaara the best protection, so, an hour later, she was just putting the finishing touches on the circle.

Calling to Gaara, she quickly had him remove his shirt and lie down in the center of the circle, using more black paint to draw a seal similar to hers with a spiral inside, except she then put a six point design around the seal because an eight point would have been deadly for her, and over kill on a demon like Shukaku.

Placing her hands gently over the new seal, she quickly began the hand signs needed for this technique, all 32 of them. "Demon Suppressor no Jutsu!" The seal on Gaara's stomach flared up, blue in color at first, but as Shukaku was forced into it, it slowly turned red in color, quickly matching Gaara's hair, before fading back to black.

"Gaara, it's over," Naruto stated as she looked up to Gaara's face… to find him asleep already. Looking over at the single bed in the room, Naruto groaned. "You owe me when you wake up," she murmured as she hefted him up and carried him to the bed. "And you can start by going on a diet! GEEZ!"

On the way back to find her team again, and a medic for herself, she passed Kabuto. She could have sworn that as she walked past, just barely acknowledging him, that he smirked at her in a way that screamed, "I know something about you that you don't." Naruto suppressed the urge to lash out and laugh simultaneously, after all, Kabuto would eventually make a mistake that she could hang him for, and because she was sure that she knew more than he thought she did.

'Just you wait, Orochimaru, Kabuto. I'll show you both that I'm not some idiot little girl that can be used by either of you. Let the games begin.' In the dark recesses of her mind, she felt Kyuubi's approval, even if he couldn't talk to her anymore. Somehow it comforted her though to know they had at least that much communication left between them, no matter how insignificant it may seem.